News

For press queries, photos or other news related issues, go to the press section in our Contact us pages. For older news items, please see our news archive in the Archive pages.

Articles published in the printed media now appear on QSA's first ever blog, which can be found here. Please have a look and join in the conversation!

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Latest News Features
HomeStore scoops first prize at Liveable Cities Award

Quaker Social Action central office moving

Century Landmark for HomeLink

HomeStore Greenmarked!

Match your skills at QSA.

Judith Moran wins Groundbreakers scholarship.

Wolfgang Tillmans donates image to QSA

Swarthmore Footballers Help HomeStore

QSA Website Accessible

HomeStore Wins 2005 Liveable Cities Award!

QSA finalists in this year's Charity Awards
The fantastic work of the Made of Money? team has been recognised this year with a nomination in the social care, welfare and religion catogory. Click here for more information.

Knees Up publication launched
Knees Up's project manager Edward Mackay has marked the first year of street parties and local regeneration with a publication telling the story. Click here to read it.

HomeStore scoops first prize at Liveable City Award.
Quaker Social Action project HomeStore, which recycles household goods in east London, won a Liveable City Award for the second time in two years at an award ceremony held in the Lord Mayor's residence, Mansion House. Highly commended last year, this time round HomeStore scooped the first prize in the 'access to goods and services for disadvantaged communities' section.

Quaker Social Action central office moving
QSA's central office has moved to Bethnal Green.

We are sharing offices on premises owned by The Young Foundation, which was set up to honour the memory of Michael Young. Michael Young wrote the 1945 Labour Party Manifesto but then left politics and went on to set up over 70 organisations including The Open University. He had a lifelong affinity and affection for east London and its people. Nowadays The Young Foundation try to be similarly innovative and inspiring and they are keen to have tenants who they see as doing what they believe is right, on a very practical level, and in east London.

Go here for our new contact details.

Century Landmark for HomeLink in 2005
HomeLink has reached a major milestone, housing 100 homeless people in just 8 months. The project has housed and supported 1225 homeless east Londoners since 1994.

Tim Nicholls, manager of HomeLink says "Housing 100 people in just 8 months is a fantastic result for a small team of 4 and an even better result for the 100 people with new homes."

QSA are optimistic about future plans following this recent success. These include a continued drive for more HomeLink friendly landlords enabling homeless east Londoners to access and sustain private sector housing.


HomeStore Greenmarked!
Greenmark rewards organisations that are taking steps to improve their environmental practices. After putting in some hard work over the last few months and making some key changes, HomeStore has now fully met the Greenmark criteria and has been awarded Greenmark level 1.

Greenmark requires organisations to demonstrate:

1. A written environmental policy.
2. Compliance with key environmental legislation.
3. Efforts to reduce overall enviromental impact.
4. Environmental awareness raising within the organisation.

In June 2005 an environmental consultant visited HomeStore to audit our environmental performance. Subsequently HomeStore received a report including actions and recommendations required to achieve Greenmark level 1.

Over the next few months HomeStore implemented various changes and built upon our previous environmental work. We began to monitor energy useage, introduced recycling schemes, trialed biodiesel in the vans, raised environmental awareness amongst staff and volunteers, developed an environmental policy, improved energy efficiency, and used suppliers with good environmental credentials.

We were assessed in October 2005 and demonstrated we had fully met the Greenmark criteria. We were delighted to be awarded Greenmark level 1.

Match your skills at QSA
Are you a photographer? A skilled proof-reader or editor? Do you enjoy coaching or mentoring? Can you give some legal or business advice?

You can now use these skills, and any others you would like to offer, volunteering at QSA at a convenient time and in a convenient place to yourself.

Recognising the difficulties many busy but skilled and dedicated people have in volunteering we have set up a Skills Match Service at QSA.

You can register your skill, e.g. research or coaching support with writing cvs. Add your time availability and where you would like to volunteer, e.g. from your computer at home, or through occasional face to face meetings, or on the phone. We will then match you up with a suitable task or activity at QSA.

All of these opportunities will be time-limited which means you can volunteer at a time that suits you, either to do a one off project, or to dip in and out as you like.

To find out more telephone Sarah Hind on 020 8983 9199 or email sarahhindATqsa.org.uk

We look forward to hearing from you!

Go here to read more on our work for us page

Judith Moran, director of Quaker Social Action, has won one of two 2005 scholarships offered by Groundbreakers, a networking group for voluntary sector women leaders. Groundbreakers was set up in 2002 by leaders of some of the UK's top charities to provide an arena to share experience, ideas and learning and to develop aspiring female chief executives.

Hearing about the scholarship on a busy day at work, Judith said,

"I'm absolutely delighted to receive this scholarship. It is excellent that Groundbreakers are trying to plug the gap faced by women chief executives in my position. I passionately believe in lifelong learning and development yet I now spend so little of my time in formal learning. Why? Well, when you're in charge of a budget under a million pounds and over 25 staff, the tendency can be to prioritise their development over your own.

I'm going to use my scholarship to undertake tow courses at the Centre for Charity Effectiveness; leadership and strategic management. I feel that this will be learning pitched at my level which will benefit me and therefore my organisation, plus it will give me an excellent opportunity to learn alongside my peers in the sector."

Susan Daniels, Chief Executive of the National Deaf Children's Society, and current Chair of Groundbreakers said,
"It is now widely acknowledged that women can bring different, valuable skills to management. Groundbreakers aims to encourage other women with the potential to become leaders and to share experiences with women in the commercial sector. There were some excellent applications to our first scholarship and I'm sure Judith and Quaker Social Action will benefit greatly from her chosen development training."

Wolfgang Tillmans donates image to QSA
Turner prize winning artist, Wolfgang Tillmans has donated an image which has been used to produce Quaker Social Action's first ever greetings card.
Wolfgang said,

"Being an occasional attender and in the process of learning more about Friends, I've been impressed with the Quaker tradition of putting one's beliefs into action. Groups like Quaker Social Action are living testimony to that practice. There is a direct connection between spiritual and social activity, that serves us as a constant reminder to live in the Here and Now. Not all of us are able or willing to commit time to social issues, others can or want to commit only money or support; both are essential to those helping and to those in need. That's why I decided to support QSA."

Judith Moran, Quaker Social Action Director said,
"We are extremely grateful to Wolfgang, not only for donating the image but for his support in producing the card, we think it looks wonderful!"

You can get hold of cards at Britain Yearly Meeting or by downloading an order form here or calling Jenny Wight at QSA on 020 7250 1511.

Swarthmore Footballers Help HomeStore
A team of 20 fit footballers from Swarthmore College on tour in the UK this summer took time out from their tourist visit around London to help HomeStore shift furniture and paint doors.

HomeStore enjoyed hosting the team for an afternoon's hard work and hope they manage a few victories on the pitch soon!

Go here for a link to some pictures and the team's account of events on their blog site.

QSA Website Accessible!
"There are about 8.5 million people in the UK with disabilties - 14% of the population. From an information point of view, people who have sensory impairments or learning disabilities, dexterity problems or literacy problems (such as dyslexia) are the most likely to have difficulty accessing information in standard formats." ('Let's make it accessible', www.disability.gov.uk)

How do those with sight problems, whether registered blind or partially sighted, find their way around websites?

How do different websites perform when you're trying to find your way through them without being able to use a mouse? This can be a barrier if you have motor problems or if you're using different technology, e.g. mobile phones, to access the Internet.

What about people with earlier versions of Internet Browsers?

Kai Winnem of Winnem Marketing donated 3 days of his time to help us answer these questions and others about the QSA website.

We are please to announce that with his help our website has now been redesigned to fulfil the Accessibility Guidelines as set out by the World Wide Web Consortium (and the RNIB). The site is now a Priority 1 - "A" accessible site.

Go here for more details about Kai's work on our website.

HomeStore Wins 2005 Liveable Cities Award
HomeStore was one of only 3 voluntary sector organisations to win a 2005 Liveable City Award from the Corporation of London last week. HomeStore competed against local government and businesses to win the highly commended section in the 'access to goods and services for disadvantaged communities' category. The award was for services improving the quality of life of individuals from disadvantaged communities.

Irmina Joseph, collecting the award for HomeStore, said:
"Working at HomeStore I get a real kick every time we help someone make their house a proper home. People often say they can't believe HomeStore exists and that they're so glad it does."

Read more details here

See News Archive for older stories!

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