Rainbow Alley Social Club | Non Members only (MEMBERS ARE SO YESTERDAY)

18 Nov

Emergency Plea

locksmith into the property

Rubbish Outside

Squatter Mess – Can you support us – Donate Here
We have had our second set of squatters in the building project of Rainbow Alley. After the 2nd eviction progress (we had to book an official dog handler) on the 18th November the mess the squatters have left is devastating. Our security firm who are manning the property and clearing the mess have quoted £6,000 to clear the human and animal feaces, dispose of the drug needles and all the other crazy mess that the squatters have left behind.

This money will also cover the cost of keeping a 24 hour security until the mess has been cleared. The squatters have made several attempts to get back into the building already.

Can you support us – Donate Here

18 Jun

In the office at the back

From the street, it doesn’t look like we are doing much with the building since the nightmare of the squatter problem and the damage they caused. The truth is we are having to do a lot of the paper work again.

The damage to the building made it even more unusable than before and we have had to lock the doors for the time being. We have had planning permission approved and we have been working closely with the architect on the steps forward.

We are also looking into various funding application with help from some friends to raise the capital for the new build. I will try and keep you posted with any news but sometimes there isn’t any 🙁

Also the tv program which explores problems with tenants that interviewed us and talked about the squatters we had is coming to channel 5. Here is a quick advert for the show.

27 Feb

Squatters & the Rest

Haven’t posted up here for a while as we have been busy trying to organise the plans for planning permission (never mind the ongoing day to day activities of the work that Phoenix Community Care is involved in). We were quite excited about the planning permission going into the council but the week we post them our building got squatted.

I have always (personally) had a lot of time for squatters when buildings are not getting used and sit there for years but I was quite surprised by the response of these so called “squatter”s.

Went with the police at beginning of February and they seemed to not realise that we were a charity and promised that they would move on in the next few days. Ah yes I was right about the general squatters community being friendly and wanting not to cause social community groups any harm…. This was not the case when we went to see them leave. We arrived 5 days later to see two other people that we hadn’t met before who said that are not willing to leave and that we should house them. They didn’t like our charity or us and so we would have to look into solicitors and pay money to remove them. Charming!

They were quite rude a few days later to one of our staff who went to collect some furniture from the building. This rudeness which I won’t detail here (save the typing of such ugly behaviour) was the last straw and so the court proceedings would be the only way to follow. A few in the local community have offered vigilante groups and heavy bods (they shall not be named) but we felt it was safer to go the legal route (obviously but still tempting). These people have given the squatter community a bad name and hope that the wider community of squatters address these people who have crossed the line.

We have the help of a great solicitor who has served the papers this morning and we shall be removing the squatters soon. Hopefully we will be back to fundraising for the building by the end of March with Planning permission granted (posted to council two weeks ago).

We still are excited even though we have these set backs but keep supporting and if you have any ideas or thoughts then please come back to us.

22 Oct

Taking it slowly

Where are we now? I keep telling people that we are taking it slowly, we don’t want to get stressed and burnt out by the whole idea of Rainbow Alley. We want to have fun changing the world and enjoy the food, socialising, art and assisting tottenham residents. The building has been battered over the years with dodgy alterations and pseudo builders but we are slowly putting jobs into bite size chunks over two days here two days there. We are always looking into funding too which does slow the process down but we have been offered free help with this and that has been a great blessing.

Stage one (the front of the building) has just been rewired for electrics and that is a huge weight of our mind. We have put into a plan of six other bite size chunks and when a bit more funding has come through we will fit new gas boiler and fittings for heating and cooking.

We have already had little function appear in the alley like the Facebook group Tottenham sell or swap (see photo) and little private gatherings and we are open to other uses of the building but we want it to be a benefit to all walks of Tottenham life and all its glory. If you want to help with funding, volunteering, building, or event ideas then just contact us.

28 Jul

Signs & Wonders

The Architect

There seems to be so many signs that we are doing the right things. Whatever your walk in life (in terms of faith, spirituality or zombie) there seems to be so many signs that this project is right for Tottenham and the right time. We looked over a few buildings over the years to do things that are similar to this but it feels that the relationships we have made, the right building being available now and the rebuilding of Tottenham after the bad press of recent years has come at a perfect time.

People have been so encouraging and we have been offered time, furniture, contacts, advice and funding application help from people that we have met or just the odd passer by. People are generally excited about the project even if they haven’t quite got their head around what it is (I think this makes it organic?).

art 2 view exhibit

Art 2 View are organising local artists to show their work at 639 Enterprise Centre. The reason I am sharing this as a percentage of the proceeds are going towards our project of Rainbow Alley.

Very excited that the community is already showing support for this and understand the vision of this project. Please come and support.

ART 2 VIEW @ 639 ENTERPRISE CENTRE

28th July to 15th August 2014
9am to 5pm (monday to friday)

@ 639 High Road, Tottenham N17 8AA

10 artists will be displaying paint based art work for more reasons that one. Firstly, because they want their art to be seen. Secondly, they want their art to be part of Tottenham and its vibrant colourful area. Thirdly, to raise funds towards the Rainbow Alley Social Club which is trying to be set up for a hang out for people of Tottenham of all walks of life.

Come along and enjoy this Tottenham event.
9am to 5pm
Monday to Friday

Private Viewing to be announced!

Free

Artists include

WENDY CHARLTON

CAROLINE RAULT

MARTINA FURLONG

JOAN CURTIS

DAVID COTTERIDGE

ANDREAN ORBAN

IAN McGREGOR

EDWARD OFUSO

CEZANNE

23 Jun

Day 1

So Saturday we got our hands on the keys to the future project Rainbow Alley Social Club. Walking into this building with slight smells of mice piss, creative ash trays and bowing ceilings; the feeling has come that day one is here and not sure where day two is going to arrive.

Visions of knocking down the building and starting again come into mind (which may be the eventual outcome) and wandering who owns the car park and various creative properties that surround the alleyway.

We meet a guy called Billy that owns the sports clothes shop at the back and he first of all looks surprised that anyone wants the cute building but after a few words of our vision and ideas is pleased and says “In tottenham, slowly the dolphins are moving in and slowly the sharks are moving out”. Was quite a mad way of putting into context but he had a point in the ever changing N17.

The job is huge and comes in a week when the mother of Rainbow Alley, Phoenix Community Care, is under Ofsted inspection for the whole week so there is not much fiddling to be done this week. The only thing we decided to do on Saturday is change the locks, call our extermination king Dennis and head for a pint to celebrate.

We have got a lot of funding to raise and it will be a while before we can develop the building so for now the building will be cleaned, whitewashed and used in a sort of squatted pop up shop sort of way to raise funds for the final vision. We are having a few conversations of fundraising ideas at the venue of 510a High Road but day one has finally arrived and let us raise a glass to the beginning.