In The News

HOME HOUSE – RSVP sarah@homehouse.co.uk

Soul Sundays – Sundays 10am, weekly throughout May

Soothe Your Soul and Nurture Your Mind.

Experience a Sound Healing Meditation with our In-House Meditation Mentor Elizabeth Martin.

We all need peace, we all need to feel safe, we all need connection. In these unprecedented times experience these tranquil sessions will bring your energy into balance and harmony. Boost your immune system and gently sink into the comfort of stillness.

Meditation has been scientifically proven to improve your health, boost your immune system, increase your vitality, flood your mind with an oxytocin lift and protect your energy against negativity. Sound Healing regulates your heart rate, balances your central nervous system, reduces anxiety and lifts your vibration

Stress Detox – Thursdays 8am throughout May

Join our weekly only sessions with meditation expert Elizabeth Martin to relieve stress in these unprecedented times.

Experience gentle mindfulness and meditation techniques you can use every day to find your inner peace. Feel nurtured and soothed with increased energy, reduce anxiety, improve your wellbeing and feel supported. Give your immune system a gentle boost and experience a Soul Radiance Sound Healing Meditation.

Love in Lockdown with the Millionaire Matchmaker

The Dos and Don’ts of Online Dating

DATE: Thu 30th April 2020

TIME: 7:00 pm to 7:30 pm

Feeling overwhelmed by the world of internet dating? Love it or hate it, people are using apps and online dating platforms more than ever before. Whilst we keep wondering why we haven’t heard back from that recent match and find ourselves deleting the app once again, why give up on the chance to find love (or adventure) online altogether? Join us as the team of the infamous Millionaire Matchmaker will reveal the Dos and Don’ts of online dating. Learn where you might have made mistakes in the past and where you might be making mistakes now. This is a fun high energy interactive session that we focus on:

• What are the best apps
• How to start your messages for best results
• What your profile pictures say about you

There will also be time for a Q&A where the host will answer any questions you may have on dating, love or relationships. Questions can be asked anonymously to the host only via the chat function.

Dynamic Vinyasa Flow with Joanna

DATE: Mon 4th May 2020

TIME: 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm

Focus your mind and build strength and flexibility in this Dynamic Vinyasa yoga session with our Home Grown Yoga Teacher Joanna Voudouris. Using movement and breath in sync to flow from one posture to another, build strength and flexibility.   Connect body and mind by linking the movement to your breath, allowing you to forget about everything else and focus on your practice, looking inward. Whether you are advanced in Yoga or a complete novice, Joanna will lead the class so that everyone can take part at their level.

Sleep and Mental Resilience with Peak Health

DATE: Tue 5th May 2020

TIME: 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm

Are you struggling to sleep and lacking concentration during the day? Our diet has a profound impact on our quality of sleep as well as our concentration levels and productivity. Join us as Peak Health consultant and nutritionist Sarah Carolides discusses blood-sugar balance, looking after your gut, the gut-brain axis, and how these two subjects can impact your sleep quality, sleep effectiveness, mental clarity, and resilience to daily stressors.

Palm Reading with the Fun Fortune Teller

DATE: Thu 7th May 2020

TIME: 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm

Join Amelie Appleby, the Fun Fortune Teller, for a light-hearted Q&A about her unique experiences as a quirky Comedy Psychic Entertainer.

Amelie will show you how to do a mini palm reading on yourself and others, share secrets and stories from her intriguing adventures and answer your burning questions on fortune telling.

Palm reading, or Palmistry, is the art using the palms of the hands to learn more about a person or tell their future. While it has roots deep within India’s past, the practice is found all over the world, with numerous cultural variations.

Are you affected by Coronavirus ?

Do you have a problem getting out, or are you having to self isolate?

If so and you need some assistance - we have a number of local volunteers who are here to help

Our volunteers can email or phone to check what is needed- maybe help with a little extra shopping alongside their own, collect a prescription or post letters etc. Or if you would just like to have someone to chat with on the phone - we can arrange this also contact us at: covid19@marylebone.org

If you do not have access to email, phone and leave a message on 07950 472916 with your phone number and we will get back to you

covid flyer.pdf

Please see the following message sent to our members about our AGM.

MA Message April 2020.pdf

Message from the WLM:

Please help WLM to support homeless people and vulnerable residents during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

WLM is facing a triple blow of reduced income, increased costs and very vulnerable residents. We need emergency support to continue supporting people in our care during these extremely challenging and unprecedented times. 

We closed our Night Shelter for rough sleepers at WLM Seymour Place to avoid increasing the spread of disease and moved the service users from there and elsewhere into hotels and bedsits. We continue to support them, remotely, to move forward in their lives but many are now destitute and requiring emergency food vouchers. Our WLM Seymour Place premises have been transformed into a Homelessness Workers Clinic by the NHS, with teams who are supporting homeless people working from there. 

In our residential projects and care homes, we house some very vulnerable people whose potential susceptibility to this pandemic means we have to do all we can to support them to isolate and keep them safe. Many suffered trauma in the past and have underlying health conditions. Others were in the midst of a crisis before COVID-19 and this situation has compounded that. They are struggling to understand what is happening, are deeply anxious and at risk of self-harm. 

WLM’s CEO, Roger Clark, says: 

“The COVID-19 virus has made it incredibly challenging for WLM to fulfil its mission of empowering people affected by homelessness, poverty and trauma to make positive changes in their lives. Our costs are sky-rocketing as we staff and manage infection control in our crucial residential services. Any donations that we receive at this time will be very gratefully received as they will help us to keep people engaged and safe”. 

We all remain vigilant and are sticking with the plan to protect the health and wellbeing of our residents and staff by ensuring that we limit unnecessary access to our services to stop the spread of COVID-19. We are actively engaging with partners and commissioners to make sure that our services are at the forefront of their minds and we are constantly undertaking deep cleans in our WLM residential premises. 

We are incurring spiralling additional costs and our fundraising challenge grows daily. None of our premises can operate as normal and we expect this situation to continue for many months. 

Your financial contribution will help us keep our homeless service users and vulnerable residents occupied, supported and safe from COVID-19. Please donate at:

https://www.wlm.org.uk/appeal/covid19-emergency-appeal 

The owners of 308-318 Oxford Street are pleased to be bringing forward proposals which will enhance, support and ‘future proof’ this important building on one of the world’s most famous streets. On their consultation website you will be able to view the proposals, ask questions to the project team and give your feedback.

Listed below, are the dedicated hours for each supermarket which has at least one branch in Westminster. In addition many of our independent traders are providing support for vulnerable groups.

•Co-op - All stores have a dedicated shopping hour for those at higher risk and the people who care for them. Check with local store for details.

•Marks and Spencer - Reserving the first hour of trade every Monday and Thursday, as a special shopping hour for more vulnerable and elderly customers to help them get the food and products they need. For NHS and emergency service workers, have access to the reserved first hour of trading on Tuesday and Friday for them to shop.

•Sainsbury’s - Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, all supermarket stores will dedicate 8am - 9am to serving elderly, disabled and vulnerable customers. Every Monday to Saturday will dedicate 7:30am - 8am for NHS and Social Care workers (ID required).

•Tesco - Introducing a priority shopping hour every Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 9am - 10am for vulnerable and elderly customers (not available in Express stores). Every Sunday, all Tesco stores (except Express) will prioritise a browsing hour before checkouts open for NHS workers. 

•Waitrose - The first opening hour in Waitrose supermarkets will be dedicated to elderly and vulnerable shoppers, as well as those who look after them.

A NOTICE FROM WAITROSE

Waitrose Branch in Marylebone High Street is open (which is experiencing long queues due to limited numbers permitted in store) 

John Lewis has temporarily closed but, the Food-hall and Customer Collection (for JohnLewis.com orders) is still open as usual with slightly reduced hours,. They are as follows:-

MONDAY - SATURDAY 10AM - 6PM (with the first hour dedicated to our elderly and vulnerable customers and NHS workers)

SUNDAY 12PM - 6PM

As everyone is by now aware Coronavirus (Covid 19) is causing major disruption to the lives of increasing numbers of people in our area and this can, at least for the moment, only be expected to get worse. The important thing is that we all continue to act together as a community. We are in contact with Westminster Council and will relay any specific advice for the area as and when we get it. WCC has lots of up-to-date information on their website regarding the latest national and local situation and we would encourage everyone to keep themselves informed by regularly checking these pages and sharing the information with friends family and other networks.

Meanwhile we are in the process of setting up a group for Marylebone that can offer practical help to those that have to self isolate at this difficult time, we will seek to do this with particular emphasis on the many who fall into the over 70s category. We have already had a number of people volunteer to help with this but we will need more, if you are interested please contact us at: covid19@marylebone.org

Marylebone is a great community and we are sure that any offers of neighbourliness would be much appreciated by those who are housebound, those who may be fearful that they may not be able to cope with everything by themselves, or those who just need a cheerful chat on the phone. Our volunteers would check round to see if all is well, and offer to do a little extra shopping alongside their own, collect a prescription or post letters etc. There will also be other groups in our area offering help. We will keep members informed of these as and when we hear about them.

We have registered our group with Westminster Council to give it greater prominence but meanwhile anyone who feels they need help can contact us at: covid19@marylebone.org

The application by the Firehouse Hotel for planning consent for 20 tables and 40 chairs on the paved area outside the old firehouse on Chiltern Street has proved very contentious. The Firehouse have obtained much support for this but to the Association's knowledge, the great majority of those who live in the immediate vicinity are opposed. They are concerned with the further noise disturbance that they fear this will bring, and the residents after all, were there prior to the hotel’s opening in 2013. For this and other reasons the Marylebone Association has indicated its opposition to the use of this area for outside seating.

The Firehouse has now submitted changes to the application to Westminster City Council , these include:

• Reduction of hours to 9am to 8pm daily - a reduction from 8am to 11pm daily.
• Reduction in tables and chairs to 10 tables and 20 chairs - half of previously proposed.
• Removal of outside heaters. 

The Operations Management Plan has also been updated and submitted to WCC. 

As a result the statutory consultation period will be further extended. Letters are being hand delivered by the Firehouse Hotel to 1,500 properties in the area with this information. (link to letter) 

Thames Water will be undertaking works to relocate a fire hydrant on Moxon Street next month. This will involve a strip of the road being dug up on Moxon Street, at the northern end of Aybrook Street. 

The works will start on Monday 20^th January and will last for seven days until Sunday 26^th January.

Vehicles will therefore be unable to access Moxon Street from Aybrook Street whilst the works are taking place for one week in January. Vehicles attempting to access Moxon Street from Blandford Street will be redirected to use Marylebone High Street. Likewise, vehicles moving south on Ashland Place will be redirected via Ossington Buildings in order to access Moxon Street. These redirections are shown on the attached map – the exact location of the works are highlighted in purple.