When a couple set the date for their wedding, they face the exciting, but often daunting and expensive task of planning the big day in which they are the stars. Where to hold the ceremony, the reception, wedding attire, stationery, flowers, photographer, cake, wedding presents; the list seems endless. For couples living in Winchmore Hill, finding the perfect suppliers has become a whole lot easier, with the help of www.winchmorehillweddings.com.

Congratultions to Rochelle Cutler of I Can Do It! for winning the Netmums Enfield award for the best pre-school activity.

Rochelle's classes are held at The Church In The Orchard, details can be found in her profile here, linked to her website.

Rochelle has also written an article 'Building independence in young children' , advice on simple ways of helping your child to become more confident and independent through play and family time.

Rochelle will soon be starting Evening Parent Support Group Sessions based on the Aid to Life programme (aidtolife.org). These sessions will be relevant to parents of children aged from birth to 4 years old. Dates will be announced shortly. Please contact Rochelle for further information and to register your interest: She presently offers Positive Parenting & Montessori Mentoring individual family support (similar to Supernanny) within your own home. 

Congratulations also to Deborah Cheney of Ecole Nicole, who came a close second.

Ecole Nicole offers classes for pre school children to introduce them to French or Spanish at a young age through play and stories.

Read Les vacances en France written by Deborah for some fun ideas of introducing children to French when on holiday.

 Does it get the creative juices flowing, to enter to the great Jubilee Bake Off?

  Find out how you can join in here!

Higgins, who weighs in at 9 stone, is also getting into the Jubilee spirit!

He belongs to Jo of Tara's Pets and is in training for the Fun Dog Show on June 16th. Details on how to enter here

Use this page for easy access to your favourite takeaway menu

More menus coming shortly

GREEK ON THE GREEN

GIOVANNI

MASALA LOUNGE

MOZZ

RED BAMBOO

SAMDAN

Many people in N21 (me included) will have received a letter from Foxtons, the estate agency chain, offering to sell your house for 0% commission, if the property is sold by a certain date. Sounds reasonable, a big chain, with deep pockets able to offer something for nothing to gain listings in a new area, following the opening of their Enfield office. Indeed there are 15 N21 properties listed on their website this week.

Seller and buyer beware. Foxton’s sales tactics have received a lot of negative publicity over the years and have even been the subject of a BBC documentary. This is how this amazing ‘free offer’ apparently works.

Foxtons sign you up on a sole agency agreement, at a higher valuation than other local agents, promising you that they can achieve a higher selling price. Once the contract is signed they will market your property at that price, but within a few weeks they start to suggest that you lower the price; so that they can actually achieve the sale, albeit at a price close to what established local agents may have recommended. If the property doesn't sell in the specified ‘free commission’ period, then there are penalty clauses in the contract preventing you from moving your property to another agent offering a lower commission rate.

 “Their only objective is to get a presence in the area and to hell with selling your prized possession”, says one of our local independent estate agents, a view shared by others I have spoken to. If you want to know more, do a quick Google search.

And the moral of this story – if you are planning to sell your home, talk to one of our local independent agents, they know the area and don’t have to feed any fat cats, so won't charge you 2.5%. If you are looking to buy a property marketed by Foxtons, you are almost certainly paying over the market value.

Meet the Sutton family, Jason, Belinda and Fabian, who live in New River Crescent in Palmers Green. This is their kitchen and also their ‘home restaurant’, which opens for dinner on Friday and Saturday evenings, catering for up to ten guests.

TV writer and passionate cook Jason started the ‘restaurant’ as a way of helping Fabian to finance his trip to Borneo with Winchmore School, later this year. They began by inviting friends and family for dinner to their supper club and the response was so positive that they decided to set up a website and open it up to members of the public “Specialising in slow cooked food and everyday ingredients cooked differently in a very relaxed atmosphere” and at affordable prices; almost as a joke.

Jason is the family cook and takes his cooking very seriously. He bakes bread every other day and just about everything served to guests is cooked from scratch, including pastry, mayonnaise and the crackers served with cheese courses. He sources as much as possible from local food suppliers and raves about the quality of meat from Wades Hill Butchers and his fish from the equally excellent Green Lanes Fisheries.

The large and indeed elegant kitchen/diner has the ambience of a classy restaurant, where the guests can actually see their dinner being prepared and talk to their hosts. 

Jason is a natural host and says that the venture is the perfect antidote to his writing work, being both manual and sociable as opposed to writing from home, a cerebral but solitary job. Belinda (teacher) a sous chef, whilst Fabian waits at table.

Jason put together the website himself and his blog is already getting a hundred hits a day. Have a browse at his menus, the comments say it all.

Fixed price three course menu (+ nibbles and surprises) starting at £27. You choose the menu - in discussion with the chef beforehand. Bring your own beer and wine.

Pop up restaurants and supper clubs are becoming a foodie trend. Whilst Jason would never want to make New River Restaurant anything more than a part time venture, if you have ever had a sneaking desire to set up a restaurant, it can be a good way of finding out whether this might be the lifestyle for you - whether you can cut the mustard so to speak.

Jason has other culinary ideas that he is keen to share with his local community, so watch this space.

http://www.newriverrestaurant.com

How much do you spend on products to clean you, your family, your clothes and your home in a year?

Do you worry about all the chemicals, you are using – the additives, preservatives, bleaches, enzymes, foaming agents etc in the detergents and toiletries that you buy in the supermarket?

If the answer to the questions above is yes, you might be interested in meeting an enterprising young Winchmore Hill couple, who are on a mission to change the way we wash ourselves and our clothes – using nuts!

Meet Socrates and Shashi, who live in Winchmore Hill with their two young sons. Their elder son, now aged 7 was diagnosed with autism as a young child, but also suffers from eczema. (If you google autism & eczema there is some evidence that children born with autism are more likely to suffer from a range of auto-immune disorders, including eczema). The couple tried conventional medical treatments and hyper-allergic products to try to alleviate their son’s distressing symptoms, to little effect. They began to research  alternative approaches and a family member suggested using soapnuts instead of conventional detergents to wash their son’s clothes. Within six weeks they had noticed a massive improvement in their son’s condition and were so excited about the results that they decided that they wanted to enable other people to benefit from this simple, inexpensive, very green and natural cleaning agent.

These are soapnuts. They are a member of the Lychee (Sapindus) family and grow in many parts of the world, with warm temperate and tropical climates.

Living Naturally Limited was set up in 2009, to import and develop a range of natural cleaning products based on soapnuts. Shashi has been responsible for developing the range, which now includes soaps, shampoos as well as laundry products; whilst Socrates runs the business. They began by persuading friends and family to try soapnuts and found that they were spreading the word and customers were coming back for more.

When they set up the website in 2010, they found that they were attracting a number of different types of customer. A growing number of people were like Socrates and Shashi, seeking additive free alternatives; for health and ethical reasons; but soapnuts are also appealing to the growing band of people looking for ways of saving money. They are able to claim that soapnuts are the cheapest washing agent available on the market.

For all these reasons the business has grown exponentially over the past three years, so that the couple are now seeking premises (ideally in Winchmore Hill) so that they can take on staff to fulfil the orders, so they are no longer packing boxes, at home from morning to late evening, such is the demand. The move will enable Socrates and Shashi to focus on taking the business to the next level, expanding their retail and online stockists and reaching out to more people with skin conditions who could benefit from using Soapnuts.

It takes just half a dozen soapnut shells, tied in a linen bag, to wash a machine load of clothes. Soapnuts can be reused three times and then can be added to the compost. They have natural anti-fungal and anti-microbial properties and are being tested for their pharmacological benefits for a range of medical conditions.

The soapnuts market is more developed in America and Germany but looks set to expand rapidly in the UK. Whilst Soapnuts is still a small, almost homespun business, the couple’s website is already performing well on Google and they are well positioned to take advantage of growing interest in this humble nut. This is a Wichmore Hill business with massive growth potential, based around a simple but effective proposition that ticks a lot of boxes.

Sceptical? I gave it a try and was completely satisfied with the results, washing the clothes at 40 degrees. Even the money expert Martin Lewis has written about soapnuts, so you’d be nuts not to give it a go!

http://www.soapnuts.co.uk

Joe Frangiamore from Sprint Printers explains in this ITV news report

how parking restrictions on The Broadway are killing his business

Do you have a great idea?


Do you want to set up a business or social enterprise?


Are you a trading business within the borough?


Are you at school or FE college, have a passion for Enfield and want to win a cash prize and scholarship?


If yes then this competition is for you…

The Enfield Innovation Competition is now in its 4th year and during this time it has seeded new businesses, products and social enterprises throughout the borough.

The 2013 competition is run as a collaboration between the North London Chamber of Commerce and redloop: the mdx design and innovation centre (part of Middlesex University), and is funded by Enfield Council

The focus of the 2013 competition is to develop the capacity and culture for innovation in the borough within three target groups:

* Trading Enfield businesses 


* Enfield residents/students wanting to start up a business

* Social enterprises (new and existing) within the borough

We’re looking for great people with great ideas and we have three £10,000 prizes to help make amazing things happen!

Apply online – the closing date is 25^th March 2013 at 6pm

Find out more at

www.enfieldinnovation.org

@CreativeEnfield

www.facebook.com/EnfieldInnovationCompetition