What is Bowl of Chalk?

Bowl Of Chalk do ‘pay what you want’ guided walking tours around London. At the moment they’re taking place on the last three weekends of each month and Sundays are devoted to a wander around Shoreditch, Hoxton, Columbia Road flower market, Spitalfields and Old Street. The walk is called ‘My neck of the woods’ as I live in Hackney and I’m the person who does the walks.

Hopefully, the walks are fun, incredibly informative and pretty informal. At the end ‘chalkers’ can pay whatever they think the walk is worth or what they can… Read more

I first heard about the Hackney Pirates when they ran their pilot in 2010 and have been following their efforts ever since. Last year I had the fortune of a random meeting with director Catriona Maclay on a bus and have had her on my “to interview” list ever since! We finally made this happen and here it is:

What are the Hackney Pirates?

The Hackney Pirates is a locally founded organisation that develops young people’s literacy and creativity by giving them one-to-one attention in an unconventional learning environment. We use volunteers from Hackney’s brilliantly talented local community to give kids… Read more

GLC blue Plaque for Marie Lloyd in Graham Road (photo by Duncan Rimmer)

The first London historical plaques were put up by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) in 1897. In 1901 The London County County Council (LCC) took on the scheme and this was taken forward by The Greater London Council when they took over from the LCC in 1965. In 1985 following the abolition of the GLC English Heritage carried on the blue plaque scheme to the current date.

The London Borough of Hackney has its own local plaque scheme a series of 50 brown plaques relating to local… Read more

A friend recently told me about the wonderful Sugru, an invention that makes your life better and it’s certainly sorted out a few pairs of my shoes. I wasn’t surprised to find out that such an amazing product has its home in Hackney

I asked inventor Jane ni Dhulchaointigh a few questions to find out more …

What is Sugru?

Sugru is a new air-curing rubber I invented to give everyone an easy way to adapt, modify, improve and repair their stuff to make it work better for them.

Why did you create it?

… Read more

The party was awesome, thanks to everyone who came

As you are scrubbing the shape of Hackney off of your wrist wondering why you let yourself be yeah! Hackney branded, you can look at this set and be satisfied that it was worth it!

If you are in the set please head over to the set on Flickr or Facebook to tag yourself, it would be great to put the hands to names

We are turning one! And what a year it’s been, 12 months ago yeah! Hackney was just a twinkle in my eye with the desire to create a social network for people in Hackney, a slight name change and almost 1000 members later it’s a buzzing website full of lots of happenings and conversations rooted in our lovely borough.

I’m so pleased with how it’s been going and I’d like to have a drink with everyone who has taken part.

We’ll be heading for a celebratory drink on Friday 21st October at the Pembury Tavern E8 from… Read more

Recently the crew from the Amazings signed up to yeah! Hackney to tell us about their social enterprise project connecting retired skilled people with those who want new skills. I caught up with Katie Harris the project lead to find out more:

Tell us what is The Amazings?

The Amazings is a new social enterprise starting in Hackney. It’s all about supporting people that are retired or are about to retire to package up their skills knowledge and experience they’ve accrued throughout their life to create activities the general public can buy.

An Amazing could be anyone… Read more

On Sunday afternoon I set off to trial the first Hackney Hear, a prototype of the gps triggered sound app. I was pretty excited about it, the people behind it are also those behind the fantastic Hackney podcast who have wons awards for being just ace.

The email from Matt Hill (Project manager) said dress for all weathers, which seemed slightly ridiculous considering how nice the last few days had been, but a quick glance out the window before leaving showed the slight rain that was shortly due to turn into a downpour, so fortunately I grabbed a very big umbrella.… Read more

I recently heard about Hubbub, a company that offers delivery of produce from independent local shops. I was super excited to find out that they are expanding their service to Hackney, as someone who doesn’t have a lot of spare time, but loves good food and wants to support small local shops Hubbub is something that I was eager to find out more about, so asked the founder Marisa Leaf some questions:

What is Hubbub and why did it start?

Hubbub is the home delivery service for local independent shops. Our customers get all the convenience of the supermarkets… Read more

Like a lot of yeah! Hackney members, I was pretty excited to hear that a Brewery was opening in Hackney. I noticed them on twitter, with the bio:

“Londonfields Brewery: Two blokes, one brewery, some great grains and hops. Bringing some fantastic hand crafted beers to you soon.:

I love the idea of great beer brewed nearby by passionate people and wanted to find out more so I asked one of the blokes, Jules Whiteway a few questions:

Who is involved in the project?

Ian Burgess and myself Jules Whiteway set up the brewery.

Why Hackney?

Ian’s coffee business, Read more