Introduction by Francis Sealey from Enfield Voices and Karl Brown from the Palmers Green Festival Committee.

Grab a spritz, a bite to eat and join us for the first ever Speakers Corner at the Palmers Green Festival.

Join us for a series of speakers who will engage with the audience around issues that concern us all.

The first session will start at 12:30pm and will continue throughout the day.

The Agenda

12.30pm: Introduction To Speakers Corner

Introduction by Francis Sealey from Enfield Voices and Karl Brown from the Palmers Green Festival Committee.

12.40pm: Mental Health & Well Being and Mindfulness In Our Community

Cllr Yasemin Brett will lead a discussion on well being in our Community at a time when stress and anxiety are growing personal and community problems.

1.10pm: Poetry In Our Community

Poetry readings with the renowned and local poet Mary Duggan, as well as Timothy Waller, Jack Cooper, Sonia Jaremas, Michael Foley, Julian Bishop, Jenny Mitchell and Liba Ravindran. For more detailed biographies please follow this link.

1.45pm: The Growing Intergenerational Debate & Is It For Real! 

A debate around generational differences and how to address them.

2.30pm: Meet Your MP Bambos Charalambous

An interview with local MP Bambos Charalambous and an invite to the audience to put their questions and concerns to him.

3.10pm: Healing Through Art Therapy

Patrick Samuel is an artist with Asperger's Syndrome. In this session Patrick will share the value of techniques like art therapy as a way of tackling conditions such as autism.

http://patricksamuel.net/

3.45pm: High Street Regeneration

Clare Richmond will lead this session to talk about how she got the community together in Crouch End to regenerate their High street and how this approach could happen in Palmers Green as well.

4.20pm: Friendlier Neighbourhoods & Better Streets

Members of the Better Streets campaign discuss how we can all help to create friendlier neighbourhoods. 

4.50pm: Meet Your Councillors

Clive Coleman will host a session where you can hear from three of your local Councillors and ask them questions about your Council and how to improve your locality.

5.35pm: Community Safety

With growing crime in the Borough, Community Safety has become a pressing issue and here our London Assembly Member Joanne McCartney will lead a discussion on the scale of the problem and what can be done to solve it. We also hope to have representatives of the Police.

6.20pm: Inclusive Education In Enfield

Is state education inclusive for everyone or do some fall through the net? Here we will discuss with educators and home schools the issue of inclusive education. 

7.00pm: Closure

Speakers Corner participants

Dinah Barry is a Labour Councillor for the Winchmore Hill Ward.

Barbara Ball established ASEND in 2011 as a response to the decline in specialist services offered to schools as part of Local Authority “austerity” measures. Barbara was a senior SEND professional with over 30 years’ experience in the UK and globally: She had been a teacher of Deaf Children, a SENCo, held leadership positions within schools and local authorities, managed a multidisciplinary team including staff from Health and Social Care and had an independent consultancy practice.

Jean Brewer OBE, FBCS CITP, FRSA, in addition to a career in local, central government and the Royal Mail group (in which she held roles including IT Director and HR Director) Jean has had a “portfolio” of non-executive director board posts in the public, private and voluntary sector. Her recent roles included Trustee of the Employers Network on Equality and Inclusion, Commissioner at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Non Executive Director at the Chelsea Building Society and a Non Executive Operations Board Member at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. She has a particular interest in accessible technology for people with disabilities. Jean was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Years Honours list in 1994 for services to IT. Jean is currently Chair of the Trustee Board of the Ruth Winston Community Centre- a community centre for people over 50 in Palmers Green, North London.

Emma Carlitos runs Carlito's a family run business, with Carlos running their workshop, with Emma taking care of the accounts, online enquiries, admin and marketing. Emma is also an ardent “home schooler" and believes that children will get the best and all rounded education from home and a network of other parents who are part of the home schooling movement.

Bambos Charalambous MP is a British politician. and there MP for Enfield Southgate elected in 2017. The second MP with Cypriot ancestry, and the first whose parents both have a Cypriot background. He has a strong interest in education. Bambos was born in London and raised in Bowes Park, Enfield and has lived there all his life. He was educated at Tottenhall Infants School, St Michael-at-Bowes Junior School (where he is now a school governor), Chace Boys Comprehensive School, followed by Tottenham College and then Liverpool Polytechnic where he received a law degree and was elected as vice president of the Students' Union in 1990.

Clive Coleman is a barrister and award winning journalist. He was called to the Bar in 1986 and practised in both crime and civil law. For six years between 2004 and 2010 he presented the BBC's flagship legal analysis programme Law in Action on Radio 4.  He has presented a raft of BBC radio and television programmes including Panorama, and written regularly for the Times, the Guardian and the Independent. For the past eight years Clive has been the BBC's Legal Correspondent covering a vast range of legal stories and issues across the BBC's national news output on radio, television and the website. In addition Clive is one of the country's leading comedy writers with credits include Spitting Image, Dead Ringers, Smith and Jones, and his Radio 4 and BBC1 sit-com about barristers, Chambers starring John Bird and Sarah Lancashire.  In October his new play 'Young Marx', a comedy about the young Karl Marx, starring Rory Kinnear and directed by Sir Nicholas Hytner, opened London's brand new Bridge Theatre a short distance and runs until the new year.

Mary Duggan is an Enfield poet is a featured reader or Enfield Borough. In local theatre, pubs and events. She organises word workshops; exhibitions and poetic events for festivals etc. Her poem is poem of the month in The Dugdale, December 2018. Contact marytduggan@hotmail.com. 

Jane Hessami  is an Education Consultant and was a Head of Year in a Secondary School. She is presently  a Special Ed teacher and consultant for inclusive education. She is also an active member of Palmers Green United Reformed Church. Jane is a passionate believer in state education and a champion of education being inclusive for all.

Tony Koutsoumbos teaches adults and professionals how to use debating to improve their ability to communicate, manage disagreement, and make difficult decisions. students primarily are members of the Great Debaters Club, a year-round training programme for professionals across multiple industries, including medicine, banking, education, politics, and law. Tony also works with local authorities to teach their tutors and learners how to use debating techniques to engage their communities in conversations about extremism and radicalisation.

Joanne McCartney is the London Assembly Member for Enfield & Haringey and is also Deputy Mayor / Education and Childcare.  Joanne worked as a barrister specialising in employment law and helped to establish a local Chambers in Enfield in the early 1990s. She also worked as an adjudicator for the Housing Ombudsman dealing with disputes between landlords and tenants. Joanne was also a member of the Commission for Racial Equality. Joanne has campaigned for more funds for policing and said that “Keeping Londoners safe is a top priority.”

Ahmet Oykener is a Labour Councillor for Palmers Green Ward and a Director at Cyprian Care -  a principal care agency that provides domiciliary care and support to service users of all groups and ethnicities so that they can live independently in their own homes. Ahmet was until recently the Cabinet Member for Housing & Housing Regeneration and developed a number of initiatives to develop Housing in the Borough having a great concern for the need of affordable homes.

Clare Richmond has worked as an advisor with private sector companies, government funded agencies, councils and community organisations .Clare has appeared at the London Assembly for the High Street Economy Panel and on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Four Thoughts’ discussing ‘How to save the High Street’. Clare has also been a Partner in Ethos a leading proponent of the Future of Work. “SpeakTo take the complexities or grass-roots community leadership and turn these into challenging and practical learning for larger organisations”

Clare Rogers started the Better Streets Campaign in Enfield after her sister, Sally sent her a video about Playing Out – the seminal Bristol project which closes residential roads to traffic so children can play freely – adding: “Shame you couldn’t do this on your street.” Nothing goads like a sibling, and two years later our Palmers Green rat-run was an official London Play Street. She is now a key person in “Better Streets For Enfield” - a local group calling for a better balance on Enfield’s streets between cars, bikes, public transport users and pedestrians, to create a more people-friendly borough.

Patrick Samuel is an exhibiting artist with Asperger Syndrome and ADHD. Having returned to art after a 20-year break, he picked up painting and drawing again when he started his daily art therapy in December 2016. A time of prolific work as well as recognition followed, and Patrick has embraced his neurodiversity as a gift rather than seeing it as a disability; he’s found his voice and his calling. Patrick has produced an extensive portfolio in a wide range of styles and media. He is stimulated by bold, contrasting colours, intricate details, multiple textures, and varying shades of light and dark. Patrick is working primarily with pastels, acrylics and graphite pencils, but he also enjoys experimenting with water colours, glass and oil paints. Patrick has had several solo exhibitions; his work and his story have been recognised in local media, and meanwhile featured in magazines as well as on BBC Breakfast and BBC News online. 

Francis Sealey is an ex BBC Producer having made programmes for the Open University and also the Community Programmes Unit. he has lived in Palmers Green since 1970 and been involved in developing a number of community initiatives and local campaigns. In the last ten years he has developed GlobalNet21 to get people to discuss the major issuers of the 21st century and has in the last two years developed Enfield Voices to take this mission to a local level.

Edward Smith is a Councillor for Cockfosters Ward, and Deputy Leader of the Conservative Group on Enfield Council. He is also Chairman of Enfield Southgate Conservative Association. 

The agenda is subject to change between now and the festival. Please check back on the day for the final schedule.