Pride of Reading awards for Bell Tower and local school

It’s a double celebration for our area of Reading as our community association and primary school were both honoured in the Pride of Reading Awards. The Bell Tower Community Association and EP Collier School in Swansea Road are both proud and delighted to receive their awards.

The Association, which is just two years old, won the Environmental Projects category for its work in cleaning up graffiti. The school, which sits at the heart of the neighbourhood and from which the Association takes its name, won the Healthy Lifestyle category.

David Neale, organiser of the “G Team” anti-graffiti squad, said after the awards ceremony: “We are truly surprised and honoured to receive such an award. The graffiti clean-up started last spring with a few of us cleaning up Ross Road one morning, and it’s hard to believe how big it’s become.”

Teresa Colliass, Chair of the Community Association, said, “When Bell Tower Community Association was formed in 2005 our aim was to get a community spirit going and to see what could be done to make this a better place in which to live and work. We’ve risen to the challenge, and this award proves that small organisations like ourselves have the opportunity to make a real difference.”

The awards were presented at the Renaissance Hotel on November 29 by Reading-born Chris Tarrant, and celebrate the individuals, organisations and businesses in the town who have really made a difference.

(Photo L-R: Jenny Gladwell, EP Collier School headteacher; David Neale, Bell Tower; Justine McMinn, EP Collier School; Teresa Colliass, Bell Tower; Gail Boorman & Chris Bloomfield, nominators.)

Graffiti – before and after

We’ve been wiping out the graffiti from our area!

Since the spring of 2007 we have cleaned or painted over all the graffiti in our area, including a few extras on the other side of Caversham Road, and have been busy cleaning any new graffiti as it appears. There are picture stories on the web about our Ross Road graffiti clean-up in April and our emergency graffiti clean-up after an overnight attack in June, which we managed to clean up by the next lunchtime. So far we have wiped out over 300 tags – here is a selection of “before and after” pictures…

The 2nd annual tidy-up day

On Saturday 11 August 2007 we got out the big skip again! We managed to fill the skip, sponsored by Reading Festival organisers Mean Fiddler, in 4 hours – and recycle some of the more useful stuff too!

 

Bell Tower Treasure Hunt

One fine Friday evening there were loads of people running around our area waving sheets of paper…it could only be the treasure hunt! Simon B set the fiendish questions, and sent nearly 30 of us on a serious workout…

Graffiti attack!

On Saturday 2 June 2007 we woke up to find a significant graffiti attack along Ross Road, Swansea Road and Northfield Road. Our “G-Team” were soon on the case and managed to clean up all 14 of the new tags by lunchtime!

Reading Blooms 2007 – the launch day

On Saturday 12 May 2007 we set up our stall in the E P Collier School playground to give local residents an opportunity to brighten up their front gardens, courtesy of Reading Borough Council. Free troughs and hanging baskets were on offer, along with a selection of plants – and there were even one or two experts around to give some helpful advice!

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