City Giving Day 2018

City Giving Day is a simple but impactful initiative that enables City companies and employees to celebrate and showcase their philanthropic and volunteering achievements, and encourage others to get involved.

In 2017, 222 organisations came together to recognise all this remarkable work. By joining in they inspired up to 5,000 new volunteers to offer their time, raised more than £400,000 for good causes and highlighted some of the exceptional charitable activity that takes place throughout the year.

If you would like to find out more about City Giving Day, there is a City Giving Day Engagement Breakfast at the Mansion House, London, EC4N 8BH on Thursday 14^th June at 7:45-10:00am. At this breakfast you will have an opportunity to meet and hear from previous participants about how City Giving Day supports their CSR activity, as well as hearing more about our plans for 2018 including collaborative events in the City.

Our Aldgate crowfunding initiative

Our Aldgate is a new crowdfunding initiative by the City of London being piloted in the Aldgate area.

It aims to encourage local groups to come forward with ideas for community projects and to maximise the City’s grant funding by using it to kickstart crowdfunding campaigns for the projects that meet our criteria.

From music festivals to art installations, guerrilla gardening to pop up markets, if you have an idea to make Aldgate even better, this is your opportunity to make it happen. The City of London Corporation has a £30k fund with a maximum pledge of £5,000 available to support projects crowdfunding in Aldgate.

We are inviting local businesses, community representatives and, of course to a launch event and we would be delighted if you could join us for it.

Our Aldgate is being launched at the Dorsett Hotel in Aldgate High Street on Thursday 17 May, from 5.30-7.00pm.  Please click here to register your attendance.

Aldgate Pavilion Community Cafe & Aldgate Square Festival

In my role as Chairman of Community & Children’s Services I completed the topping out ceremony (pictured) for the Pavilion in October last year.

A community cafe social enterprise called Kahaila has been selected as operator of the Pavilion and they have just soft opening. I believe they will be a unique and welcome addition to the area.

The wider public Square is the responsibility of Planning & Transportation Committee and should be completed within the next few months.

As part of the launch of the Square a Festival is being organised which will be a fun-filled community celebration of all that the East End has to offer. It will take place between 15th – 17th June 2018. If you are a budding Musician, Performer, Dancer, Artist, Workshop facilitator, Practitioner, Actor, Choir, Cook etc. please volunteer to take part.

Next Aldgate Business Forum event on Mon 17 Jul

We are delighted to announce that the guest speaker for the Aldgate Business Forum event on Monday 17 July 2017 will be HE, The Ambassador of Ireland to the UK, Dan Mulhall.

He will talk on the relationship between Britain and Ireland post Brexit and post the General Election result.

The event will start at 6pm and is kindly being hosted by the insurance broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson at their London office The St Botolph Building, 138 Houndsditch EC3A 7AW.

We very much look forward to welcoming you, so please confirm your place by registering here.

Alderman Peter Hewitt JP
Deputy Doug Barrow CC
Sylvia Moys CC
Hugh Morris CC
Dhruv Patel CC
Andrien Meyers CC

Aldgate Community Events / City Play East – briefing event on Tue 17 Jan

The City, under the oversight of the Community & Children’s Services committee (which I chair), is working with community representatives and organisations, and a nationally renowned theatre company, on a thrilling programme of events and opportunities for local residents and workers in 2017 and 2018.

The programme developed by Aldgate Community Events (ACE), will include:

• Aldgate Heritage trail
• Aldgate Treasures displays in suitcases,
• Aldgate Voices recordings
• Winter in Aldgate 2017 events
• The Aldgate Tales play
• Workshops covering mask-making, performance skills, local history research etc.

Please join ACE from 3:30-5pm on Tuesday 17 January 2017 at Bevis Marks Synagogue, 4 Heneage Lane EC3A for tea and cakes and find out more and how you can get involved.

Further dates and details of all events can be found here.

Aldgate Business Forum Networking Reception

You are invited to attend:

Aldgate Business Forum Networking Reception

Monday, January 23, 2017 from 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
An opportunity to meet the City of London Corporation elected members of Aldgate Ward and network with colleagues in the City including your host Kennedys.

The fifth of our regular receptions directed at businesses both within and near the Ward.

Please note that places are limited, so respond via Eventbrite at the soonest!

We hope you can make it

Alderman Peter Hewitt JP
Deputy Doug Barrow CC
Sylvia Moys CC
David Thompson CC
Hugh Morris CC
Dhruv Patel CC

Update 12 January:

We are delighted to announce that the guest speaker for the Aldgate Business Forum event on Monday 23 January 2017 will be Ambassador Carlos Sersale of Argentina to the UK.

The theme will be around Trade opportunities for the UK outside of the EU.

The event will start at 6pm and is being hosted by the law firm Kennedys at their London office 25 Fenchurch Avenue EC3M.

There are only a few tickets remaining so please confirm your place by registering here.

City Giving Day Dragon Awards

Alderman Peter Hewitt and I visited businesses Pool Re and Jardine Lloyd Thompson in the ward who were both taking part in City Giving Day. (Photograph above from our visit to JLT).

It was wonderful to see all the activity on the day, and also to hear that the charities being supported had an overwhelming response from employees wanting to do more with them.

For more details on City Giving Day please click here.

The same evening I attended the Dragon Awards Ceremony at Mansion House for Corporate Community Involvement, where Pool Re were also Highly Commended in the Best New Community Programme category for their work with the charity Age UK. Many congratulations to Pool Re for this fantastic recognition of their good work.

It has been really good to see this engagement from the ward with some wonderful charities. Thank you to all those that have helped and contributed to these important projects.