Volunteers Wanted for the Summer Pop Picnic Party, Bedfordshire, 22 August

We're offering free entry to the show and a backstage pass for volunteers who will help us with a bucket collection at the Summer Pop Picnic Party in Shuttleworth, Bedfordshire on Sunday 22 August.

photo by Phil Guest from Wikimedia Commons

On the bill are X-Factor winners Diversity, ASWAD, and Jason Donovan (above, although admittedly looking more literary than rock'n'roll) as well as many others. For the full lineup and more details, click here. If you have an hour to spare mid-afternoon, email Harriet Steele and come along!

Mayor Boris Johnson clowns around at London Older People's Assembly; Pensions Minister Steve Webb gets serious

Simon Bottery, Director of Policy and Communications, writes:

I am not going to attempt to guess what Pensions Minister Steve Webb was thinking yesterday when he was publicly chastised by Boris Johnson during the annual London Older People’s Assembly at City Hall.

Along with a few hundred other people, I sat and watched as Boris demanded to know whether the minister had arrived for the meeting by public transport and then, on ‘discovering’ that he had not, roundly condemned him for it. With that, and few well chosen jokes about Ken Livingstone, Boris was off, leaving Webb to fume alone.

Boris Johnson at another event, with a model of his favourite bus

photo by Jerry Daykin from Wikimedia Commons

Webb opted to stay and face the questions of a lot of active, and in some cases angry, older Londoners. In fairness he did a decent job of it (though he was never asked the question that Lizzie Irons of Citizens Advice later posed: how many older Londoners will have to move when the coalition government’s cap on local housing allowance comes into force next year?). He also announced an ‘Ageing Well’ initiative, which aims to encourage local authorities to share best practice in providing for older people in their communities.

You can read more about the London Older People's Assembly Group at their website.

Art for Independent Age's sake

An Art and Sculpture Exhibition was held at Glemham Hall, Suffolk on 31st July / 1st August. The weather stayed fine and Rosemary Buisseret and one of her volunteers (and artist) Vanessa Stollery worked very hard coordinating the artwork, teas and stalls. Money is still being counted, but so far almost £2,000 has been raised for Independent Age. Here are some of the works that were on show:

Yew Trees by Elaine Alderson

Guinness by Vanessa Stollery

Beach Huts by Christopher Humphries

Thanks to everyone who made this day such a success, and to all of the artists who took part. You can see a list of all who participated here.

Congratulations to the Independent Age Finance Team!

by Noel Flannery, Director of Finance and Corporate Services

Members of Independent Age's finance team, posing with our new logo. Noel Flannery is on the far left.

I am delighted to be able to tell you that we have just learnt that Independent Age has been voted a finalist by the judging panel in this year’s Third Sector Excellence Awards in the Financial Management category. The actual award ultimately goes to the third sector organisation whose Finance function has made the most demonstrable improvement in financial management and control over the 12-month period 1 June 2009 – 31 May 2010. The Awards Ceremony takes place on 23 September in London.

Whilst it would be good to end up as winners, the fact that the Finance Team has made it to the final is a major tribute in itself to their hard work both in public view and behind the scenes within Independent Age. The detailed workings of Finance may not always be readily understood by the wider world but, believe me, Independent Age’s approach to financial management and control has changed out of all recognition over the past couple of years and my thanks go to the team for this.

More generally, whether we win or not, the awards ceremony will provide some very positive PR for Independent Age since it will be extensively covered in Third Sector magazine after the event in September. As a result it will no doubt help to persuade future donors and funders that their generous donations will be in safe hands as well as giving our nice new logo a very public airing!

Ellie and Becky cook up a storm at Olympia’s Retirement Show (sort of!)

How do you top a chef who has just been voted the most innovative cook of the year and who, as a finale, has just made dry ice appear from his sorbet? You go on and make an assortment of internationally-themed omelette ramekins, of course - while also relying heavily on an assortment of pretty floral dresses and humour to carry you through and make up for what you might be lacking in cookery know-how!

This is the position Ellie and I found ourselves in this weekend at the London Olympia Prudential Retirement Show where, following the release of our cookery book, The Thrifty Kitchen, late last year, we earned a slot as one of six featured chefs to appear at the show to demonstrate our wares. We found ourselves neatly nestled on the bill between vegetarian chef, Eddie Shepherd, who was last year’s winner of Cordon Vert’s Chef of the Future title and Colin Buchan, head chef at the Gordon Ramsey outpost, The York & Albany.

We didn’t need to let that daunt us, we thought – we had just what the audience wanted. And what they wanted were:

• Four internationally-themed omelette ramekins in honour of the recent World Cup
• A tomato consommé with star anise and prawn
• Hot-smoked salmon fishcakes with a dill and mustard dressing

And as luck would have it, we had recipes for all of these, courtesy of those who had contributed to The Thrifty Kitchen.

Ellie preps our seasonal veg: lovely, juicy vine-tomatoes, "you can't beat" broad beans and the evergreen peas "of the frozen variety". Yummy.


The first recipe, we thought, was a great way of showing how you can make up something yummy using whatever you have left over in the bottom of your fridge or cupboard. We chose an international theme in order to show just four of the many flavour combinations you could have. Using the same base for all ramekins (a mixture of eggs, Parmesan, spinach, flour and nutmeg) the fun started with the “add-in” ingredients. Our ramekins took us on an international voyage (who knew they had such powers?) covering:

• Spain - with chorizo, roasted musrooms and goat’s cheese
• Argentina - with roasted sweet potatoes, roasted red onion and mozzarella
• Italy - with the tried-and-tested combination of tomato, mozzarella and basil
• England - with broad beans, peas and feta (ok, ok, you got us, feta may not emanate from our home island, but it tastes good in this ramekin!)

The smooth criminals ace their World Cup omelette ramekins.

Our second recipe, the tomato consommé with star anise and prawn, was chosen on the basis of tomatoes being bang in season at the moment, meaning they taste great and are at their cheapest. This recipe, despite its delicate appearance is packed full of flavour, meaning if you have any leftover, it’s perfect to freeze into small cubes and use as a base stock for other dishes. And, as one canny member of the audience pointed out, you might even want to make use of the leftover pulp for sandwiches. Perfect.

Two down and one to go, our swansong and grand finale were Peter Gordon’s hot-smoked salmon fishcakes with a dill and mustard dressing. This may not sound like it has a rightful place in The Thrifty Kitchen, but it’s a brilliant example of how you can make use of a relatively small amount of a really good quality ingredient and make it go a long way – this batch uses just 250g of hot-smoked salmon to make up 20 small fishcakes.

All done - and the relief is palpable.

Also on the bill this weekend was food writer, Ian Gilbert, who cooked in Provence before working in Australia for several years as a food and wine editor on the Melbourne broadsheet, The Sunday Age. Luckily for us, he has championed The Thrifty Kitchen from the start and he continued our thrifty theme at Olympia, cooking up three sweet treats, again using seasonal and store cupboard staples. On his menu were mini pavlovas, served with a summer fruit compote, crème brulee with blackberries, and a clafoutis aux cerises (that’s a cherry flan to us non-French speakers).
Ian keeps his audience enthralled and hanging on the edge of their seats - can he make a pavlova? Can he? No.

His pavlova mixture may not have peaked in quite the way he had planned, but his humour did, meaning his audience were kept entertained throughout. And besides, his “here’s one I made earliers” turned out to be real beauties.

Ian shows off one of his "here's one I made earlier" bap-lovas


Thanks to Harriet Steele for selling Thrifty Kitchen cookbooks on the day--and if you would like one, why not visit our Thrifty Kitchen website?

Cumbria Garden Open raises over £2800 for Independent Age

Above, L to R: Sandra Tate, Area Manager Kay White, and David Tate

The gardens of Garth House in Brampton, Cumbria were opened by kind permission of Sandra and David Tate MBE, on Sunday 20 June in aid of Independent Age.

Over 400 people visited the outstanding gardens surrounding the beautiful late-Georgian red sandstone house, experiencing firsthand the dazzling array of different styles, including a sunken formal garden, a woodland walk, a wildlife pond, a Japanese garden and even a Zen garden. Independent Age volunteers were at hand to offer tea and refreshments.

Above, L to R: Valerie Johnson, Margaret Sutcliffe, Kay White, Penny Kretzschmar, Jill Faux, and Jean Garnett

Kay White, Independent Age Area Manager for the North East and Cumbria and organiser of the event, said: "The garden has a reputation in the region, so people came from all over Cumbria to see it. The setting was absolutely idyllic and we were blessed with a beautiful sunny day. I am thrilled that the event helped to raise so much for Independent Age and we are extremely grateful to our hosts and to everyone who worked so hard to make the day go so smoothly.

"Home again in one piece, no injuries, and yes, I made it!"

Congratulations to Sally Hough of Tavistock, Devon, who successfully completed the challenge of cycling 1,100 miles from Land's End to John O'Groats in aid of Independent Age. "Just because you're a pensioner doesn't mean life stops," said Sally of her challenge. "I love being outdoors. There are so many rules in other sports that you have to abide by, but with cycling you can just be free." Sally's cycle resulted in her covering a total of 1087.6 miles in 90.25 hours, over 16 days.

"My favourite day was cycling through the Yorkshire Dales into Cumbria with a particularly challenging climb via Dent Station and stunning scenery," says Sally, who raised over £500 for Independent Age. "One thing is for sure," she continues,"I shall keep cycling, even though the hills round here are frequent and steep."