We are holding a ‘Grow Your Own’ public meeting on Saturday 21st March at 11am, to be followed by a seed swap. The meeting is also for everyone living within the charity’s “area of benefit” to decide on updates to our constitution. We hope starting our seed swap as soon as it finishes will guarantee a short – and quorate – meeting. (I hope that doesn’t sound too much like bribery!).

• Find out how to grow potatoes in an old compost bag!
• Admire the ingenious uses local gardeners find for other people’s rubbish!
• Sign up with Brighton & Hove Organic Gardeners Group!
• Take away gardening goodies
• Free refreshments

Come along to the Hanover Centre with your friends and family to pick up some ideas and what you need to get started on growing your own for the least possible outlay. Café open 10.45 am to 1pm.

Please bring anything gardening-related you’d like to share or re-home (leftover seeds, seed potatoes, seedlings, plants, tools, books, seed compost etc).

This is the poster for the event.

Venue: Workshops for the Imagination
Address: 75 Islingword Road, Brighton, East Sussex BN2 9SL
Tel: 01273 818325

Event title: “Hanover Day Christmas Card workshops”
Description: Join Alex at Workshops for the Imagination to get tips and ideas how to design Christmas cards. Then you can enter the Hanover Day Christmas Card competition, and you might win a fabulous prize. For 4 years and over. 50p per entry to competition. Please book.
Audience: Family
Date/Time: 25 October, 10am -12noon and 2 – 4pm
Cost: No admission charge
Event: Free

The Global and the Local
Guest speakers from trapese, the world family & transition towns, activities, visioning & nice food!

Live Music;
THE MANJINGA 7
RIGHTCHEUS GYPSY SKA

Saturday 8th March
Hanover Community Centre

5.30-8.30pm Workshop and food!
8.30-11.30pm Music, dance and celebration!

Workshop & food & music: £10 limited places!
Live music from 8.30pm: £5
for workshop bookings & info 07753 278 492
or email

Gaia’s Gals are our resident womens art group. During the May festival they will be exhibiting their work in the Small Meeting Room, which is situated upstairs towards the back of the building.

Gaia’s Gals meet on Tuesday evenings at the Hanover Community Centre (7.30pm – 10pm). The group is led by artist Sue Nunn.

The cost of hiring the halls and meeting room will go up from the beginning of April 2008.

Category 1

- will be scrapped altogether

Category 2

- £6 per hour Monday – Friday daytime [until 6pm], £12 per hour weekday evenings, £15 per hour weekends [2-hour minimum on Saturday afternoon]

Category 3

- £25 per hour at any time. Minimum of 2 hours in all instances.

All one off bookings and bookings that end too late in the evening for another to follow will be subject to a minimum charge equivalent to 2 hours hire.

Special Party Rates

Childrens Parties; 2pm – 5pm [to include setting up and tidying up] Hire fee – £30 for Hanover Residents or £36 if you live outside the Hanover area. The Deposit will be £36 (this is in adition to the hire fee and is fully fefundable after the event provided all is well.)
Saturday Evening Parties (only available to Hanover Residents) are from 6pm – 11.30pm [to include setting up and tidying up] Hire fee – £75 & Deposit – £75 (this is in adition to the hire fee and is fully fefundable after the event provided all is well).

You drank us dry!
20th Annual Hanover Beer Festival factfile:
• 800 people turned up – and a lot of them told us they can’t wait for the next time
• tickets for Friday night sold quickest – and out!
• The Greys sold more tickets than any other outlet
• there were no injuries, accidents or incidents
• the real ales and ciders all came from micro-breweries, and went down so well there wasn’t enough left for take-outs
• all the bar staff were unpaid volunteers
• Hanover Community Association knows local enterprises are the foundation of a thriving community, so we’re very pleased that so many choose to support the Hanover Centre and our events
• we’ve started a list of people who want to join in next year – as sponsors and/or staff. Contact us on hanover.association@ntlworld.com to add your name
• once all the sponsorship is in and the bills are paid, we expect to announce a profit of at least £4,000
And our 20th Anniversary Roll of Honour…
The design – many thanks to multi-talented Ric Blow for designing the logo that launched a thousand glasses and sold out the limited edition T shirts (well almost – we still have a couple of small purple skinnifits for sale)
The souvenir glasses – extremely generously sponsored by Barrie Alderton Estate Agents, supplied by The Ale House, and protected from mishap on the way home by carrier bags donated by Sam & co at the Lewes Road Co-op
The drinks – Matt & Karen from the Evening Star for choosing, ordering and looking after the beer; Henry Butler of Butler’s Wine Cellar for stocking the wine bar; and Infinity Foods for donating soft drinks
Barrel sponsors – thanks to our regular supporters, particularly those who added an extra donation: Bonett’s Estate Agents, Brightel Datanet (communications systems), Brighton Morris Men, Brighton Pavilion Labour Party, Church of the Annunciation, City Car Club, Dover Castle, Goa – Spice of Life, Hanover & Elm Grove Green Councillors, Infinity Foods, Inside & Out (building & decorating), Johnson McCabe (solicitors), Maslen Estate Agents, Radio Cabs, Sea Breeze Fish & Chips, Sir Charles Napier, The Greys, The Lord Nelson, J A Tuffin & Co (accountants), Unison, University of Brighton, Vic Gates (builder), Victorians Valued, Wheeler’s Estate Agents and Wilkinson’s Estate Agents – and welcome and thanks to the people who joined in for the first time this year: Buzz/ Relentless Software (developers of computer games), Fitzgerald’s Plumbing (Kevin Fitzgerald will go down in history as sponsor of the last barrel in the world of Dark Star’s “Falmer for Ale”), Harmony in the Community (event production), Ingrained (wood flooring), Nancy Platts (who moved to Hanover this year), Special Blue (Gary Moore), and Woodingdean Carpentry (carpenter and builder Nick Stanford)
T shirt sponsors – thanks to the Evening Star, The Greys, Lord Nelson Inn, Dover Castle, Napier, Southover Wines and Goa, Spice Of Life, our unpaid staff looked the part
Production – Alan, Graham & team from ACA Scaffolding; Danny & crew from Harmony in the Community for marquees, overnight security, serving food and all the rest
The food – Mohammed and staff from the Goa restaurant for catering on Friday; Jan, Julian and staff from In2night for catering on Saturday; and Fanny (Fanny’s of Hanover) for supplying pies and sausage rolls for Saturday evening
Printing and publicity – Brian at Positive Exposure for the T shirts; Blow Up for printing the posters and tokens; Kate & co at the Resource Centre for printing and delivering all the programmes; all the local residents and businesses who displayed posters and spread the word; and Eve for her work on the newsletter and website.
Ticket sales – all the staff at The Greys, Dover Castle, Napier and Evening Star, and Mary & Eve at the Hanover Centre.
Safety – thanks to Mark and the team at the local Red Cross for First Aid cover, and to HSS for the extra fire extinguishers. All the local people who came along were determined to enjoy themselves in a happy atmosphere so there was no call on their services.
and the stars….
an extra special thankyou to so many wonderful people (I hope I got all your names, and spelt them right) who lent us stuff and/or offered to work for free – everything from daytime beerwatch, checking glasses, refreshments for the workers, printing and laminating signs, and setting up the venue – to serving beers, ciders and wines, selling tokens, T shirts and memorabilia, stewarding, and clearing up. Thankyou Alan, Alan, Alex, Alexia, Anthony, Chas, Danny, Graham, Greg, Hazel, Herb, Jackie, Jamie, Jan, Jane, Jane, Jill, Joe, John, Kath, Lisa, Lizzie, Malika, Mark, Martin, Mary, Matt, Matt, Michael, Miriam, Nancy, Nicky, Pete, Rob, RPJ, Rupert, Simon, Simon, Steve, Stuart, Stuart, Sue, Theo, Val, Yu Jin.
It was fun wasn’t it – see you next time!

I am trying to raise awareness about a Bill coming to Parliament probably in early November. This is the Climate Change Bill, and the government is keen to see a weak version pass into law. A good Climate Change Bill would require annual monitoring of progress, the government is suggesting 5-yearly monitoring. A good bill would include international air travel, the existing bill does not. A good bill would set annual reduction targets, the existing one does not.

If the Bill is to be made better we need to press our MPs. You can do this easily through www.thebigask.com website. Please take a few minutes to send a message to your MP via this easy to use Friends of the Earth website

Sussex Police Brighton and Hove Division
Neighbourhood Watch

Create a safer environment to live in Hanover.
the main aims of Neighbourhood Watch schemes are to;

Reduce the opportunity for crime to occour
Make it more difficult for the criminal to act
Enhance communication with the police
Build community contacts and community spirit

Neighbourhood watch is free, you are not expected to patrol the streets. You may qualify for cheaper home insurance and the scheme will benefit you and your neighbourhood.

To find out more contact your local Police Community Support Officers;
Matina Drew and Dawn Kitson on 00845 60 70 999 ext 19839.

Graph of police survey Jan 07

The Hanover Community Centre was opened on 3rd June 1977 by Dame Flora Robson as part of the Silver Jubilee celebrations. In 1975, negotiations had started with the Council to get a community centre for Hanover. Funding of £15,000 towards renovation of the building and £3,500 for the first years running costs was approved early in 1976. An enormous ammount of effort and a great many hours of work was volunteered by local residents who did the renovation work themselves, including all the carpentry, plastering and plumbing.