ALEX - AN ATTENDEE OF THE AFTER SCHOOL CLUB IS AN ENTREPRENEURIAL SUCCESS

Alex was one of the children attending the After School Club last year. The club is held at Bell House and is run by Suzanne Jessel and other volunteers on every Thursday to support dyslexic children.

Alex’s mum wrote to tell Suzanne about what Alex who is 10 years old and his brother Prince, who is 12, have been up to since early December last year.

They have started their own business - the “Juicing Bros’ - after their mum bought their dad a slow juicer for his birthday.

The boys had a major feature written about them on ‘londonnewsonline’ on January 24th which you can read here.

“Once the brothers got hold of the juicer it was clear to see they were naturals, and the boys were encouraged to sell juices to their neighbours in Ulverscroft Road.

Alex, 10, said: “Our mum bought our dad a juicer for his birthday. We started making juices for the family for fun and realised we were pretty good at it.

“We started with our mum asking on our street’s WhatsApp group whether people would buy our juice, and we had a great response.”

In just six weeks the boys have had 78 orders, amounting to more than £600 in sales. They also have 28 five-star reviews on Google.

Prince, 12, added: “We have advertised on the East Dulwich forum and generated more business. A whopping 77 orders in just six weeks.

“We can definitely see this being a future career for us as we have many ideas which will help develop and expand the business.”

Alex said the orange, carrot and ginger juice, known as the ‘Phoenix,’ is his favourite flavour as it “has a real kick to it”.

Prince said: “Beetroot, orange and carrot AKA ‘Bee Reddy’ is my personal favourite as it has a perfect mix of sweet and veggie flavour.”

The boys’ mum, Simone Harvey, said: “I am so proud of my young entrepreneurs, they started out reading books like Be a Young Entrepreneur and Think Like a Boss: Kids Edition so they were in a really good mindset.

“Starting this business has not only taught them a great work ethic, but also helped build their confidence.

“Alex has dyslexia, and I’ve always told him it’s his super power and it can help him achieve anything he wants in this world.”

You can follow Prince and Alex on Instagram @juicing_bros

Pictured above Alex Cook left, a satisfied customer and Prince Cook (Picture: Juicing Bros)

Pottery at Bell House

This Autumn saw Bell House running for the first time weekly Pottery classes guided by expert potters Ekta Chakraborty and Annie Antoine.

The classes have been buzzing - a hive of activity - friends made, conversations flowing, skills learnt and importantly work to show for their time spent. Everyone enjoyed getting their hands dirty working the clay and revelled in decorating their pieces.

All work has now been fired and the results really do speak for themselves.

Big plans are afoot.

These classes were the first toe in the water for pottery at Bell House. 

We are currently building a Community Pottery Studio in the garden which is scheduled to be completed in July 2023. There will be a new and larger kiln, half a dozen wheels as well as every other piece of equipment needed to run a thriving and dynamic pottery space. Our tutors Ekta and Annie have been supporting and advising with the build  as well as several local professional potters including Julian Stair and Birgit Pohl

There are no community pottery studios nearby. Bell House wants their studio to be not only for building pottery but also for building friendships.

The studio will be used in the daytime, evenings and weekends so that all our local community can enjoy potting!

In the meantime, Ekta and Annie say: “We want to be able to grow our workshops over the next year to a number of days during the week and turn the pottery into a friendly, creative hub with regular, repeat, diverse participants.”

The new classes for 2023 are now available to book - go to our events page to learn more.

We also look forward to interviewing Ekta and Annie in the new year to find our more about their love of pottery and to hear about the building progress of Pottery studio.

But in case you need some more persuading to sign up for a pottery class - this is what Annie and Ekta say about working with clay.

“Clay is a great medium as it’s so tactile and very forgiving with mistakes. Nothing ever goes to waste, everything is recycled. It’s grounding and a mindful practice and also known to be beneficial for people on the spectrum or with ADHD.

Not only do you gain a new skill and hopefully learn something about the science of clay but you also devote time to yourself and your friends. It’s a slow process to be able to create an object with clay and results are generally never exactly the same and so this encourages the potter to enjoy the process, slow themselves down and focus!”

Bell House - All dressed up for Christmas

This year the decorations are bigger and better than previous years in readiness for the the Christmas play.

Four Magical Scenes from the Bell House’s long and fascinating history will be told in promenade throughout the house and is being performed Friday 2nd, Saturday 3rd (Gala evening) and two performances on Sunday 4th December.

Our wonderful volunteer florists, Dawn and Janie have created stunning displays to reflect the character of the rooms and the period of the scenes being performed. Apart from the twinkly lights and a few baubles on the tree, they’ve only used sustainable and natural materials.

Bell House is grateful again to Dulwich Park and their head gardener Michael, who supplied a bountiful quantity of seasonal foliage, without which all this would not be possible. And as always, the Bell House garden was scavenged and there was an early morning visit to Covent Garden market for the final touches.

September Monthly Garden roundup

The arrival of rain at the beginning of September was welcomed by the garden…and the gardeners! Everything in the Bell House garden really perked up after the very dry spell, and we were all kept busy with the growth explosion.

September highlights, and things to look forward to, include:

 The meadow areas in both the House Garden and Walled Garden are in the process of being cut back in sections. The cuttings are left for a few days before being added to the compost bins so any insects which have been sheltering there can find a new home. Cuttings are removed to reduce nutrients being added back to the soil as meadows thrive on poor soil. Our next job will be to scarify the meadows and add yellow rattle seeds to slow the spread of grass so more wildflowers grow. We tested removing the flower heads of docks this year rather than digging them out and we will see next summer if this worked! Big thanks to everyone who worked on the meadows as it is a labour intensive job. A shout out for Jenny who put her hand up every Saturday to tackle this job.

• In the Walled Garden, the tomatoes are still going strong. We know that the cooler days and nights are coming so the tomato plants have been pruned, removing the leaves so that the plants direct their energy to ripening the remaining fruit. The garlic and onions were also lifted, and after drying nicely for a couple of weeks, have been happily received by all of us gardeners 😊. We have had a new delivery of bricks so that edging around the raised beds can continue, led by the expertise of Cookie and Reg. Our new mower finally arrived so we now have two electric mowers to help manage the grass and meadow areas next year.

• Staying in the Walled Garden, you’ll see some “new” tables close to the Greenhouse. When a local garden centre closed down we picked up the tables which will be adapted to use as potting and demonstration tables. Also, at that end of the garden, the raspberries which were saved from the ground source heating works have never been super happy there so will be lifted and moved to another part of the garden. This bed will then be planted with Comfrey, specifically Bocking 14 Comfrey as suggested by Shelagh. Comfrey is one of the most useful and versatile plants that can be grown – it’s a fabulous pollinator attractor, a highly effective fertiliser and apparently has potential health benefits for humans (I need to find out more about this).

• Over in the House Garden, there has been a fair bit of weeding action over September – in the Rose Garden, around the arch leading to the Rose Garden and throughout all of the main beds. Our winter project will be to improve and replant the long border with more perennials and grasses. We also plan to work on the quince and rose arch, pruning the roses so that they flower lower at the sides and leaving more light and space for the quince to grow over the arch itself.

Bell House Garden will be open again on November 5th.

Arrive anytime between 11am and 12:45. Tea and coffee will be available. We encourage a £5 donation that will go towards garden maintenance and activities. Free tickets are also available.

The joys of shared reading

Bell House runs a monthly Shared Reading group which is open to all and free to attend.

But what happens at a meeting? A group of people, one of them a trained Reader Leader, reads a great novel, short story or poem aloud. The group then talk about what has been read. There is no need for group members to read aloud or speak – it’s fine to just listen. The idea is to create a space where people feel at ease. 

As members of a choir get enjoyment from singing together, so reading the literature aloud in real-time, means that everyone is involved in a shared, live experience. Group members are encouraged by the Reader Leader to respond personally, sharing feelings, thoughts and memories provoked by the reading BUT only if they want to. The sharing of the reading experience allows more connections to be made. The group share and develop the meaning together and develop their thinking as a result of listening to others during the reading experience.

Shared Reading is not a therapy but most find they get benefit beyond reading. People are bringing their life experiences and the literature into the focus of a prism. They’re looking through it and just see themselves at first and then they realise that there’s loads of other people and they’ve got all different reasons for going and enjoying it.

The meetings are held online and the next one is on Tuesday 25 October -18.00 - 19.00. Visit: http://www.bellhouse.co.uk/upcoming-events