chuffed with @Wansteadium classifieds, found two nice web designers to share our office with!

August 23, 2011 6:59 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@BedouinTravel

Bedouin Travel

Wansteadium, as ever, is pleased to be of service. Wanstead residents can place classified adverts for free at Wansteadium Classifieds.

Announcing a brand new feature for Wansteadium – Classified adverts.

Using our simple new webpages, you can advertise your unwanted stuff to fellow Wanstead folk, all for free. On offer at the time of writing are various bits of baby kit (cots, tricycle etc), a camera, a bike, books and other items.

Here’s how it works. Click on the blue Classifieds button in the site’s top banner. When there, you will be able to place an advert, or browse through adverts other people have placed. If you’re placing an advert, you enter the item’s details, plus a photo if you’ve got it, along with the price you want and your e-mail address. Your e-mail address is not publicly visible. But anyone who wants to buy your items enters their details and our software automatically sends you an e-mail. It’s up to you, as the seller, whether you get in contact to arrange the sale.

Wansteadium has no part in this other than introducing buyer and seller. And it’s all free, the kind of selfless gesture which gives Wansteadium a warm glow.

Remember, though, if you want to give stuff away rather than sell it, there are a number of excellent ways to do it. On Wanstead High Street there is Barnados, the British Heart Foundation and the Oxfam Bookshop. And there’s always the wonderful Freegle Redbridge, a network of local people who give away all sorts of things to people who need them.

The positive sightings of urban hedgehogs in Wanstead (including this one, above, as helpfully reported by Tim Wright) have been encouraging. But readers might be interested in these other wildlifey things going on around Wanstead, as reported by the excellent Wanstead Wildlife site.

* Four mink have been spotted in Wanstead Park, and wildlife watchers are extremely concerned about the threat they could pose to birds and other animals. Paul Donovan told the Wanstead Guardian: “Something needs to be done because they can kill everything in sight and if they kill the voles, that has implications for the birds and suddenly they’re having an impact on the park’s ecology.” Anyone spotting a mink (image here) should report it to the Corporation of London on 020 8502 1010; it is hoped they can be trapped.

* The first reported sightings ever of the Marbled White butterfly in Wanstead happened earlier this month

* Paul Ferris recorded this remarkable video of a knot of toads heaped together at the end of May.

Heaps of Toads from Paul Ferris on Vimeo.

UPDATE: Wansteadium reader Nigel Watson writes:

Just read your posting regarding Wanstead wildlife and I thought I would share the attached photograph of a regular visitor to my garden on St Mary’s Avenue. The photo is of a single green parrot, however last week we had 3 of them all feeding at once! Hope you enjoy and keep up the good work

An interesting article in Saturday’s FT about the future of high streets, points out that the pressures from out-of-town stores and internet shopping are happening to high streets all over the world. But drawing on the experience of Marylebone High Street, right, which has been completely reinvented over the past decade, the paper says it has become “the model of an innovative, independent and successfully varied community-orientated street”, and has four art galleries alongside its restaurants, cafes and clothes shops. It concludes: “Ironically, the lack of choice facing most high street businesses could, eventually, improve choice for customers. Certainly, the high streets that do succeed will become far more interesting and community-orientated than they currently are.” More lessons for Wanstead here.

Remember, following the six-hour Tube strike which started at 2100 on Sunday night, there might still be disruption on the Central Line, and that Wansteadium has live departure boards for all trains lined up for Wanstead and Snaresbrook in both directions.

Announcing a new feature for Wansteadium – an open calendar of events taking place in and around Wanstead.

The Wanstead Events calendar is available on this website, but since it is driven by a public Google Calendar, it is available for anyone to use however they find easiest (eg RSS, XML or HTML – and this is the address for that: f72e699fl27rhe615ltpeqvg7g@group.calendar.google.com). It is open for any event organiser to let us know of things to be included.

A simple digest of events is now available on the right hand side of all Wansteadium pages, and there is more detail on this dedicated Wanstead Calendar page. Letting us know about events is simple – just e-mail us at events@wansteadium.com and we will do the rest.

Wansteadium hopes you find the new service useful. But then that’s just what we’re like.

We now have a new, improved, weather service for Wansteadium, with a four-day forecast, wind speeds, temperatures in Celsius, and even humidity. Thanks to the developers.

Any feedback on this would be useful, eg is the forecast accurate? Is it useful? Does it update frequently enough? Why does it show a blazing sun in the middle of the night? Please let us know by e-mailing at wansteadium[at]gmail.com or via comments on this post.

And while you’re at it, if there’s anything else you’d find useful to see on Wansteadium, just say. Our passion for public service is undimmed.

Peter Sceats of the Foresters Scooter Club writes:

Hi. I am trying to get photos and information about the old Vespa and Lambretta dealer which used to be in Wanstead High Street, at the junction with Hermon Hill. It was called Masons, but it was replaced by a piano shop and then the Elizabeth Price estate agents. Thanks in advance, Peter Sceats (Foresters Scooter Club, founded in Wanstead in 1957).

You can send information and pictures to us at wansteadium[at]gmail.com

…one to go.

Our ongoing mission to prove that elusive commodities can, in fact, be obtained in Wanstead. Parmesan was easy. Now stalwart @yenwodt offers this:

@Wansteadium can I claim my pen? Still on the lookout for pollyfilla http://t.co/klhjkZE

May 21, 2011 10:28 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@yenwodt

Yenwod Samoth