I have offered Ed Wright constructive feedback about smiling whilst having his picture taken.

Sent from my iPad

This is an image of Brookvale Park's Park Keeper Paddy and myself castaway on a pontoon in the middle of Brookvale Lake. I'd like to invite 'clean' captions and the winner will receive a special West Midlands Police handcuff key ring. Winner to be chosen by me, and announced on Sunday the 20th May.....

Be creative but keep them clean please!

On Tuesday the 15th May I was honoured and extremely proud to receive a Lord Mayors award from Anita Ward - the Lord Mayor of Birmingham.

I am the first Police Officer to receive the accolade and one of only four people who receive them each year!

I received a beautifully calligraphy handwritten certificate which reads:

"The Lord Mayor's Award is presented to Sgt Simon Hensley in recognition of outstanding achievement & exceptional service to the city of Birmingham & it's people through inspirational neighbourhood and community work in the Stockland Green Ward dated this 15th Day of May 2012"

I also received a beautiful silver medal engraved with my name.

A huge thank you to the Lord Mayor for recognising my contribution and to the Brookvale Team, specifically Tod and Scott at Glendale for nominating me.

Whilst I do not do what I do for formal recognition, it was a fantastic afternoon and I am extremely grateful, proud and humbled by the whole experience, thank you.

Wednesday the 2nd May saw Birmingham North Police host an awards night at the Sutton Coldfield Campus of Birmingham Metropolitan college.

Amongst the award recipients were eight outstanding members of the community who have made a sustained impact on the Stockland Green community. Those people are:

John Street director of Nechells based charity free@last Daniel 'Paddy' Morrissey Brookvale Parks one and only Park Keeper
Tony Sadler from Dunton Environmental, Common Ground United and Livingstones Church
John Ruddock our chef extraordinaire!
Claire Farrell from EC-Arts
Claire Rigby from Prince's Trust Fairbridge
Ed Wright from Birmingham City Council Youth Services and Strawberry Hills
Jerry LeFevre from Bravehearts and Ampersand Development

I am delighted that their outstanding contributions have been formally recognised and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank each and everyone of them personally for their continued efforts to make a difference in the community.

Easter Saturday saw Brookvale Park host the 'Bygone Brookvale Event'

The community were united in celebration of local heritage and we were capturing people's memories of the past to; support the forthcoming heritage lottery application to rebuild the old boat house, bridge inter generational gaps whilst instilling a sense of history and culture.

We had over 200 people attend the event and the Friends of Brookvale Park and George Road Baptist Church provided free easter eggs, hot cross buns and tea & coffee for all.  Pro chef Joh Ruddock was also once again on hand to serve up the food! 

It was a great day and we were able to learn a great deal about the history of the park whilst showcasing our Spider dome tent! 

Thanks to John Ruddock, Claire Farrell of EC-Arts, the Friends of Brookvale Park, Rev Alan Pike and everyone at the George Rd Baptist Church and the Cube for making the event a success.  

Watch this space for the published memories! 

I have been looking for new ways to engage with a wider cross section of my community for some time now. As you can see from my blog I have experimented with different kinds of events, activities and locations and at a variety of times and days of the week. Free food works well in case you were wondering! I have also used some demographics mapping software which the Police have access to to assist in understanding the make up of this diverse community and the best ways in which to engage with them.

Choice of venues has also been a challenge as people can feel uncomfortable in unfamiliar surrounding.

For me I wanted an instantly available, mobile facility where we could host; pre arranged meetings or surgeries in a neutral, public environment or respond to spontaneous incidents and provide an 'incident room' or control area.

After a lot of research I came across a company called instant awnings and their Spiderdome Tents. These are a portable facility which inflate in under 3 minutes and then stay up for up to 3 days. They can go on any surface, have removable sides and fit into a normal sized vehicle for transport.

For me this was the ideal facility to assist with our engagement strategy.

We approached the Stockland Green Community Chest forum and successful gained funding for the Spiderdome tent. When I first told people of it they were confused "a tent? why do you want a tent?" i have my thoughts about these kinds of attitudes but I won't share them here!

The Spiderdome is also a greener (no pun about the colour!) alternative to the mobile police station, it can be used in places that no other facility could reach and has no running costs apart from 3 minutes of electricity! It is a community resource in my eyes and I will lend it out under certain circumstances. I am interested in 02's gifgaf model or operating so in exchange for borrowing our tent, what are you going to offer the community in return?

Watch out for the Spiderdome in the community, who knows it may even host the 3rd Spaghetti Camp?

Environment (here). An overly stressed environment dislocates a stable community
Action (that). Putting some energy in, in a directed, applied way
Skills (do). The ability to direct your energy well through your learnt experience
Belief (can): Our sense that change is possible and desireable
Identity (We): Community implies a sense of collective identity

Putting it all (in reverse) you get the nice phrase

We Can Do That Here = Sense of Community

On Monday the 26th March seventeen year 8 students from Heartlands Academy School took a morning out of the classroom to make a difference in Brookvale Park.
This project was part of 'Creative Curriculum Week' where by pupils take part in different activities to broaden their educational experiences.

The students were also taken on an educational walk around the lake by Brookvale and Glendale's infamous 'Paddy' the Park keeper and PCSO Wayne Potter from the Stockland Green Neighbourhood Team. Topics discussed whilst on the walk included; the history of the park, indigenous wildlife, nesting areas, the island, watersports on the lake, the island, the conservation area and the Greek Orthodox Centre. The students had some hands on experience which involved; cleaning and weeding the flower beds, digging, edging and litter picking. Huge thanks from myself and on behalf of the local community to the students of Heartlands Academy for devoting the morning to helping in the park, they made a real difference and passers by commented on how nice the flower beds were looking. A special thanks to John Street, Free@last & Freax for signposting Heartlands Academy to me, Paddy and everyone at Glendale for supporting the visit and making everyone feel special. As the warm weather returns I am positive we will see more and more people in the park, don't forget the Canoe Club on Saturday mornings between 10:00 and 12:00. This is a great way to spend a Saturday morning, there are enough boats to cater for all and we have recently been successful in securing £3000 from the Proceeds of Crime to purchase nine more boats - the majority of which are multi occupancy which can cater for parents with children, this makes taking to the water a fantastic family activity.

Have you ever wondered about the history and heritage of our communities? Have you ever wanted to hear unusual stories about your neighbourhood?

Did you know that there is a car at the bottom of Brookvale Lake? Do you know why? Did you know that there used to be an outdoor lido or swimming pool actually on the lake?

Did you know that the grandson of famous JRR Tolkien designed the two towers by the Pagodas at the George Rd entrance to the park? In conjunction with the Friends of Brookvale Park and George Rd Baptist Church I'm hosting a Bygone Brookvale Event on Saturday 7th April between 2pm until 7pm. We are inviting people to come and share their memories of the area so we can capture and share them.. Who knows I may even coordinate them into a book to preserve these snippets for future generations??

George Rd Baptist church are offering free Easter eggs and the Friends of the Park are offering hot cross buns!

We are planning to have some creative support to make the capturing of your memories and stories exciting and imaginative. Come down, have fun, learn more about the history and heritage of your community and enjoy the Easter celebrations. The Friends of Brookvale Park will also be looking for new members to join the group and get involved in projects from the exciting new development plan for the area. Looking forward to seeing you there.

I was recently approached by Ronan from local Birmingham band Nervecentre http://www.nervecentremusic.com/ to assist with a photoshoot, with a difference, for the bands forthcoming album. As you may have noticed from this blog, I like a challenge. We decided to use the pontoon loaned to us by Pontoon Works http://www.pontoonworks.co.uk/ to float the band into the middle of Brookvale Lake to create some unique shots for the band.

It is hoped that these images will help raise the bands (and Stockland Greens) profile.

Whilst we had the pontoon out it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss and the Stockland Green team took to the lake for our own picture. Check out the below images, I even managed to get Paddy the Park keeper onto the lake - something he swore he would never, ever do!