Charlton House
What’s happening at Charlton House? And how would we know?
A recent flurry of comments on an old post reminded us to take a look at what’s happening at Charlton House. The answer – if the website and Greenwich Time are to be believed – is ‘almost nothing’.
At the time of writing the website was showing this for ‘What’s On in June’:
(There is mention of Friday lunchtime concerts and baby rhyme time elsewhere on the site, though).
The Facebook pages and Twitter feed are updated sporadically – but with little interaction with followers – and events are included in Greenwich Time’s listing section occasionally (nothing this week, though); the council’s website is similarly low on information (the events page’s drop-down ‘what’s on where’ menu doesn’t include Charlton House as a venue). So how, without calling in, does a local resident find out what’s going on at Charlton House?
In contrast to this, a short walk over the border into SE3, Mycenae House have been doing a great job of raising the profile of their events: a smartly-designed leaflet through locals’ doors (including into Charlton), a revamped website (compare and contrast with Charlton House’s website, which focuses heavily on pictures of empty blue chairs…), a refurbished bar/cafe, and a range of music and comedy nights that are pulling the punters in.
It’s arguable that Charlton House’s Listed status places limitations on how it can be used, but this doesn’t seem to have presented a problem down the road in Bexley: Hall Place offers an excellent case study in what can be done to bring a property of this sort to life (and their social media efforts show how event marketing and audience engagement can be done successfully at this level).
Of course, the internet isn’t everything, and we know that Charlton House does get used. But if the comments we’ve seen here and on our Facebook page are anything to go by, there’s a demand for Charlton House to be more than a few dusty meeting rooms and a nice wedding venue. We know that plans to spin it off into its own heritage trust were stymied, and are waiting to hear more about the plans for a borough-wide heritage trust to emerge. In the meantime, who’s speaking up for Charlton House? Can it get more than the bare minimum of attention from the council’s events and marketing team?
One possible sign of optimism is that Charlton ward’s newly-elected councillor Miranda Williams has been appointed member for cultural and creative industries in the council’s new cabinet; hopefully she’ll be able to remind her colleagues that there’s more to the cultural life of the borough than what happens in Greenwich town centre or Woolwich’s General Gordon Square (or onboard Tall Ships, for that matter).
We’d love to hear our councillors’ vision for the venue, and we’d love to hear what other users and readers think of the current offering – and what they’d like to see. Get in touch, or let us know in the comments below!
Meet the candidates: hustings for Charlton and Riverside wards
Local council elections will soon be upon us – they’re due to take place on the 22nd May – and now Charlton residents will have the opportunity to put questions to the candidates at two hustings for the Charlton and Riverside wards organised by the Charlton Society. Do you have questions for local candidates about how they’re going to make a difference in Charlton? Do you want to ask the parties what their priorities are? This is your chance to make your voice heard. All candidates for election have been invited to join the panel, and these events should be a good opportunity to understand more about the people that hope to represent us. The Charlton Society write:
Please come along and hear what our prospective councillors have to say about the vital local issues facing our area in the next four years.
Each of the parties will make a brief opening statement, followed by questions from the floor. These are free events supported by the Charlton Society and St Thomas Church. All welcome.
“These are the first ever Hustings to take place in Charlton and Woolwich Riverside. We’re breaking new ground. We anticipate that these will be two interesting and exciting evenings of debate on the future of our communities and the area we live in. Charlton and Woolwich Riverside have an awful lot happening at the moment. It’s an exciting place to be, with a great future if we get it right.” Roden Richardson – Secretary, Charlton Society
Woolwich Riverside Ward Hustings – 7:30pm to 9pm on Sunday 11th May 2014 at St Thomas Church Hall, Woodland Terrace, SE7.
Charlton Hustings – 8pm to 9:30pm on Monday 12th May 2014 at Charlton House, SE7
Thinking of coming along? Going to give it a miss? Any thoughts on the format of the debate? Let us know in the comments below. You can also keep up with the Charlton Society on twitter (@TheCharltonSoc), and the Woolwich Riverside hustings has its own account there too (@RiversideWard14)
Konnichiwa! Learn Japanese at Charlton House
It’s one of the better-kept secrets, and probably the best educational bargain, in Charlton. The International Institute of Education in London (IIEL) has been training teachers of Japanese as a foreign language in Charlton House since 2001.
The bonus for the rest of us? Free courses in Japanese at all levels, from absolute beginners who don’t know their kanji from their konnichiwa to students with more fluency in the language.
I discovered IIEL by chance more than five years ago, picking up a leaflet from the counter of a local fish-and-chip shop. Although I had been to Japan and loved its culture, I was an absolute beginner. Now classed as a post-beginner, I mainly realise how much more there is to learn.
Students come from all over London and represent all ages and backgrounds. Some have a Japanese partner or spouse; some are keen to get more out of their interest in manga or anime or, like me, want to enhance the experience of visiting Japan. Others simply seek the mental discipline of learning a new language.
Since the students are the guinea pigs for the trainee teachers, it’s not the competitive classroom atmosphere you might remember from school. The students want the teachers, who are being filmed for later feedback by their trainers and peers, to do well, just as much as they want to do well – and learn – themselves.
IIEL trains 70 to 80 teachers each year at Charlton House. Many of the Japanese trainees come to London expecting to study in a concrete block and surprised to find themselves in a Jacobean mansion more than 400 years old.
Junko Fuse, teacher trainer and course co-ordinator, says: “They’re really impressed when we tell them about the history of Charlton House.”
IIEL’s approach differs from some other Japanese teacher-training programmes. “We try not to depend on English”, she says. The teachers it trains might go anywhere. Its graduates work in eastern Europe and Russia and elsewhere in Asia, as well as at home in Japan. Another of its programmes trains teachers of English to very young children who have Japanese as their mother tongue.
IIEL has been in London for 25 years. It moved to Charlton House to become more involved in a local community. That instinct proved well-founded three years ago.
Junko san recalls the “kindness shown by people around us in March 2011, when the Great Eastern Earthquake and tsunami hit the northeast of Japan. A flood of emails and cards came to our office concerning victims and their families in Japan.”
“Some people simply turned up and said how sad they felt watching TV,” she adds. “It cheered us up and really moved us. We held a charity event in April that year. Many people from Charlton and elsewhere kindly joined us that day, and we were able to donate more than £2,000 to the Red Cross in Japan. I realised then that this is why we had moved from central London and that this job is what I really want to do.“
Community involvement is a continuing theme. A few times a year, trainee teachers give short presentations in English about aspects of Japanese culture. The free sessions at Charlton House are open to the public with advance notice.
The next Japanese language classes are due to start in March. After a one-time registration fee of £20, all classes – however many years you study – are free.
Details about registration and course dates: http://www.iiel.org.uk/english/eventsandother/freejapanese.html
General information: enquiries@iiel.org.uk
Halloween Ball at Charlton House
There’s a Halloween Ball at Charlton House on Saturday 26th October in aid of Greenwich and Maidstone Samaritans.
Tickets are £30 and are available from Charlton House.
Charlton House, Open House
There’s only one SE7 property in this year’s Open House London event: Charlton House will be opening its doors for tours on Sunday 22nd September. Areas open to the public will include the Minstrel Hall, Long Gallery, Grand Salon, White Room, Newton, Prince Henry & Dutch Rooms, Old Library, and the grounds. It will be open 10am-4pm, and entry is free.
Full information (including a detailed factsheet about Charlton House’s history and features) is on the Open House London website here.
UPDATE St. Luke’s Church will also be open 10am-4pm on Saturday and Sunday.
Charlton Horn Fayre – Sunday July 28th
The Horn Fayre takes place at Charlton House this Sunday, 11am – 4pm, and promises “traditional children’s rides and races, dog show, beer tent, music, food and much more”.
It is a shame that this year’s event has seen so little publicity, but we’re told that it was nearly cancelled (due to a clash with the Armed Forces Day event), so perhaps should be grateful that it’s taking place at all. It is to be hoped that the plans to include Charlton House in a new borough-wide Heritage Trust will give future Horn Fayre events a boost
Speaking of Charlton House, it appears that their website has been refreshed. It looks like a work in progress at the moment, but given that there was practically no information about the Horn Fayre online until the last couple of days – and the old website hadn’t been updated this year – this looks like a positive development.
Enjoy the Horn Fayre if you’re going, and tell us what you thought of it in the comments below!
The Charlton Champion 