It's the return of the much-loved Reading Water Fest on 19 June this year to mark the 900th anniversary of Reading Abbey.

2021 is an incredibly auspicious year for Reading - marking 900 years since Reading Abbey, originally one of Europe’s largest royal monasteries, was founded by King Henry I of England.  Reading Water Fest will be the focal celebration event for this landmark year. 
 

Water Fest is Reading’s largest free town centre-based community event. It will feature an exciting mix of arts, culture and heritage, through live and digital performances, activities and workshops. The Abbey’s illustrious history will be brought to life with the Forbury Civil War Camp and Medieval Village where people can experience the sounds and smells of the Quarter’s history. 

This accessible one-day event will take place on Saturday 19 June between 11am and 5pm, within the Forbury Gardens, Abbey Ruins and along the River Kennet, celebrating the Abbey’s rich 900-year history and its environmental and heritage connections with Reading’s waterways. 

As with all events this year in the light of the ongoing pandemic, Water Fest will look very different from previous years. The event will be delivered in a stringently Covid compliant way.  Workshop and interactive activities will be booked in advance and numbers will be limited. Safety measures will necessitate a ticketed system, with reduced capacity and staggered arrival times. It is anticipated that there should be plenty of tickets to go around, but the public is encouraged to sign on early to avoid disappointment. During the event the gardens and abbey will be closed to the general public.
 

Details on how to book a free ticket at this event are on What’s On Reading. A range of online activities will also be on offer to complement the live event.

To take part either by volunteering, performing at the event or running a stall or activity please get in touch. 

A big thank you to all the unpaid carers in Reading!

If you missed Carer's Week you can still visit TuVida or email them to find out about the support on offer.

https://www.tuvida.org/reading-west-berkshire-hub 
Email: berkshire@tuvida.org

Carers can also sign up for WRAP for carers, run by Compass Recovery College

Starting on Monday 14^th June, WRAP helps carers to build resilience and find techniques to help cope with challenges.
Click on the link to find out more: WRAP Course for Carers

Help us improve your Public Rights of Way

Have your say on how you currently use Reading’s Public Rights of Way Network, to provide a better experience for its users and encourage active travel.

The Council manages 21 miles of public Rights of Way across the borough, which provide vital connections for many people to access open space and are often used by residents when travelling to work and school. It is important that we protect, maintain and enhance Rights of Way across the Borough. This network supports our ambitions to encourage active travel (e.g. cycling and walking) and as a result support better physical and mental health, lower carbon generation and improved air quality.

You are invited to have your say on how you currently use Reading’s Public Rights of Way Network, to highlight any barriers or issues to increased use of the network, and suggest what could be done to enhance the network – for example, make it more accessible to all users, better maintained or signposted. This will allow Reading Borough Council to update our Public Rights of Way Improvement Plan – a sub-strategy of Reading’s Local Transport Plan.

As part of the consultation, people are being encouraged to report any historic Rights of Way that may be missing from the current network. This could include, for example, access to the private park land within the former BBC Monitoring Site at Caversham Park, which is currently on the market and off limits to the public, but some local residents claim the area once included public footpaths.

Reading’s Public Rights of Way consultation launches for seven weeks from Monday 7 June and will close on Thursday 24 July 2021.

To take part online visit: www.reading.gov.uk/RightsofWay

For alternative formats contact: transport@reading.gov.uk

 
Tel: 0118 322 8700

Your Health- Updates on new ways of working in primary care

Practices have had to adapt swiftly to the challenges posed by the pandemic in a bid to keep patients, staff and wider communities safe and prevent the spread of the virus. This has meant the introduction of some changes and now, as we ease out of lockdown, the surgeries will be keeping some of these new ways of working. That doesn’t mean face to face appointments won’t be on offer in appropriate cases. But triaging people when they first contact their surgery is now routine so staff can make sure callers are helped by the right person at the right time.

For more information click this link

The High Street Heritage Action Zone Team (HSHAZ), in partnership with the University of Reading have launched a new online community exhibition, Oxford Road Stories.
 
Part of the cultural pilot project 'Re-imagining the High Street through your stories’, it discovers stories and personal reflections from many different residents of the Oxford Road, past and present.
 
View the exhibition here.

 

Red Cross education resources are a collection of free education resources for adults over the age of 19 years old designed to help build confidence, skills and knowledge for you and/or your group.

The approach to learning is simple, easy to access and designed to build resilience, empathy and understanding of others. 

Adult education learning resources| British Red Cross