Hilsea Lines to be Improved

This is also pinched from The News website but is too good a story not to pass on: Hilsea Lines has received a grant that will mean some major improvements to access and the paths in the woodland. The old defence walls and the woodland at the top of the island is possibly one of the most under appreciated natural spaces on Portsea Island and is often forgotten. In a few months the area becomes even better with a huge carpet of bluebells. Looking forward to some winter walks up that way soon.

You can read the story HERE.

Southsea Beach Clean Up

The following is a message from the good folk over at Triton. “We want to enjoy clean beaches when we go to recreate at the beach, whether it is so that the water is clean, or even if we just want to relax and soak up some sunshine. Who wants to sit on a dirty beach or worse get injured by stepping on a broken glass bottle?

As a Scuba Center that cares Triton have organised a beach clean up day at our local seafront. The day will start off with a safety briefing and an introduction to why we need to make days like this regular and all do our bit to keep the beach clean.

Marine animals can mistake rubbish for food and many have died from consuming plastic bags, fireworks debris, and cigarette butts. Your friends, family, children could hurt themselves on broken glass, cans and other objects that have been disposed of.

Help us to keep the ocean clean and safe and come down to join us. Please see the following website for up to date information on current related issues and to find out other ways that you can help.” www.plasticoceans.net and www.tritonscuba.co.uk. Lets make Southsea pretty and safe for summer! For all the info and to keep up to date please head over to www.facebook.com

Photo: Quiet Corners

Created Local – Stone Dead Forever by Los Dave

David Kirby just got in contact regarding his new book Stone Dead Forever II, a series of messages written on to pebbles along Southsea Seafront. A unique and interesting way to add a little treat to your walk, if you’re keeping your eyes out…

“In 2008 I started a project writing on pebbles on Southsea beach. I photographed the stones and left them there for people to find and enjoy. The first book, “Stone Dead Forever”, came out in 2010 and featured over 60 photos of inscribed stones.

In 2009, photos of the stones were featured on the GPS website by the South Bank Centre, London. There is a group on Flickr, at http://www.flickr.com/groups/stone_dead_forever/ where you can see the full set and upload pictures of your own poetical pebbles.

Three and a half years later the project is still going and I have scribbled and drawn on over 450 stones. Text comes from experiences, ideas, song lyrics, poetry and conversations. A few have been written by request, but I would rather encourage you to grab a permanent marker and go out and scribble, write or draw on your own pebble. This new book, “Geologic Shift” collects together 40 or so of the most recent photographs for you to enjoy.”

Preview the book on Blurb at www.blurb.com/bookstore

Yellow Kite Cafe – Christmas Market

Yellow Kite Cafe are having a Christmas market at Southsea Castle on the weekend of 19th & 20th Nov and they are currently looking for some creative folk to sell their wares.

If you are interested please email Gambol Parker at gambol@yellowkite.org.uk with images of your work and prices with the following details – Name, Organisation/Company, Contact Details, Do you require a trestle table and chairs? Rates are £12 a day for a pitch or £20 for the two days. They are open to the public at 10am each day and will close around 4.30pm. You are welcome to come and set up your stands on the afternoon of Friday 18th November. Alternatively, Southsea Castle will be open for set-up from 8.30am on Saturday 19th November.

They also have a Facebook page.

National Petition To Save HM Coastguard Stations

As someone who has grown up by the sea and spends many hours during the summer out on the Solent, this is an issue close to me as i’m sure it is many others in the Portsmouth & Southsea area who enjoy the Solent for leisure and recreation.

In December 2010 the UK Government announced modernisation consultation proposals for HM Coastguard. At that time the intention was to reduce the UK’s eighteen Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centres to just two centres which would operate 24hrs per day. These centres (MOC’s) would be supported by only five sub centres that would only be operational throughout “daylight hours only”.

UK Coastguard HQ Centres are responsible for the co-ordination of Search and Rescue along the UK coastline, as well as providing shipping information and a number of other essential services along the UK coastline.

Announcing the cuts, Shipping Minister Mike Penning said “Our seas are becoming busier, with larger ships and increasing numbers of offshore renewable energy platforms making key areas of our seas more congested. There are also increasing numbers of people using our beaches, coastlines and seas for leisure activities.”

The proposals were overwhelmingly rejected by EVERY Coastguard station, campaigners and by the Transport Select Committee who conducted a full investigation and concluded that the modernisation proposals were “seriously flawed”.

If you care to sign this petition in favour of keeping our coastline safe then please visit www.petitiononline.com/SHMCGS

Beautiful Portsmouth – Your Photographs needed

Not two words that people would normally put together but a new website that showcases the city aims to visually document the unusual and often forgotten elements of Portsmouth as told by the people.

Deer Park Alpha have been been busy designing the website with bit of help from myself in supplying the photographs. We now need your help in getting more. So if you feel you have images that best sum up your view of the city please visit the links below.

The website is under development but can currently be viewed at: Beautiful Portsmouth – http://www.beautiful-portsmouth.co.uk/

To add your image to the website you will need to join one of twelve Flickr groups that have been set up. Images need to be landscape, as high a resolution as possible and also have a title that reflects the image. Please do not post images with watermarks on them or credits.

Flickr Groups – Portsmouth – Made in Portsmouth | Portsmouth – Best of | Portsmouth – Sport |  Portsmouth – People | Portsmouth – Wildlife | Portsmouth – Culture | Portsmouth – Retail | Portsmouth – Creative | Portsmouth – Business | Portsmouth – City Views | Portsmouth – Heritage | Portsmouth – Seafront |

We are also on the look out for products made and designed in Portsmouth- please email Carl Leroy-Smith at – carl@dpamail.org

The Langstone Ark Project

The Langstone Ark is a project being run by Langstone Harbour’s Environment Officer Louise MacCallum that went live on-line in August. The project aims to create a digital collection of all the animals and plants associated with Langstone Harbour, by asking harbour users, visitors, and anyone else with an interest in the harbour to send digital photographs of wildlife taken on the water, or around the shoreline.

So far, over 150 photographs have been contributed to the project, and nearly 100 species are now represented. There are literally 1000’s of species of animal and plant to be found around the harbour however, so there are plenty of gaps in the project left to fill!

Autumn is a great time of year to see wildlife around Langstone Harbour, with thousands of migratory birds beginning to arrive and beautiful fungi springing up on many of the wildlife reserves dotted around the shoreline.

For more information about the project visit the Langstone Harbour Board’s brand new website at www.langstoneharbour.org.uk and send photographic contributions to ark@langstoneharbour.org.uk

Below are just a few of the contributors photographs so far, and you can see all of them over at the gallery HERE.

Kestrel by B.D. McGregor

Little Tern by Mark Milum

Grey Seal by Nick Lyon

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

What I love about Southsea is that it still has the power to surprise me. If you get yourself to Viviers Fishmarket down The Camber today you can get a glimpse of this beast! An 84.5 pound Porbeagle shark! Ever since childhood I have been fascinated by creatures of the deep, so when a strong islander informed me of this I knew I had to take a peek. The lady at Viviers told me that it took five men to bring it onboard and that it was caught off the coast of Scotland. However I like to think that it held a murky lair under the pier…

Thanks to Emily Tudor for the shout.

Pier at Sunset

The sun setting over South Parade Pier is a view from Southsea beach all of us have experienced yet never gets old. This photo was taken by ‘Southsea Dave’, check his Flickr HERE to see loads more great local photos.

Final Death of the Savoy

The Savoy Building has been a key part of the Southsea seafront for over 80 years. Built in 1929 with it’s location opposite South Parade Pier The Savoy started out as a popular ballroom (and aquarium!) and through the years became a key live music venue in the 60s, including playing host to The Beatles on 7th April 1963. In more recent times the building became split up in to separate clubs and venues that went under many names through the 90s and 00s before closing and slowly becoming derelict. The left half of the building that once was home to the infamous 5th Avenue was demolished a couple of years ago and the remaining part of the building was sadly destroyed by fire yesterday.

The building was for many years the hub of Southsea when it came to people going out in the evening and will for many hold some fond memories (for me it was the hip hop night downstairs in 5th and the weekly rock night downstairs next door). If you have any memories of the place, be it queueing up for a late night burger at the corner shop, waiting for ages for a taxi, a particularly rawkus night out…anything, please add them as a comment, we would love to hear them. Also if you have any photos or video of the building from before, during or after the fire please send them over: contact@strong-island.co.uk.

The following photos were sent to us by Strong Islanders:

Photos by Pete Thorne

View from Portchester by Brad Goddard

Photo by Matt Maber

Photo by Sarah Dobinson

Photo by Charlie’s Dad

View more photos from yesterday’s post HERE.

Video by Pete Thorne

Video by iamthegtard

PRIMARY – A Phoneography Exhibition by Strong Island – Call for entries

This coming new year we will be proud to announce our latest exhibition PRIMARY, a Phoneography exhibition by Strong Island and we are even happier to announce that it’s open to you, the readers.

With the continuing increase in impressive camera technology in mobile phones and the ability to alter, tweak, post process and upload the photos to social media networks and websites like Instagram, the popularity of Phoneography has never been greater.

The ‘of the moment’ ability to take a photo at almost any time and any place by most people has really driven the fact that the camera does not make the photographer. By which I mean, you don’t need an expensive camera to take outstanding photos.

Agreed, the quality of the physical image may not stand up to the big guns, but new learnings in composition, style and aesthetic by a new generation of camera users via online media has really driven this popularity, and encourage people to go beyond a ‘quick shot’.

PRIMARY invites you to get out and about around Portsea with your mobile phone camera and take photos of anything and everything based around the three primary colours red, yellow and blue. What you photograph is entirely up to you, but submissions will only be accepted if they stick to the theme.

The call for entires has now begun and the deadline is the 31st of January 2012 with the exhibition being held in March of 2012. Photos can be taken on any mobile phone model and we ask that a maximum of 3 photos per applicant are sent in to primary@strong-island.co.uk.

Please submit along with your photographs your name, photo title, phone model, location of photo on the island and any post process apps you used, if any, to achieve the final shot.

We look forward to seeing all the entries, and the final installation will be something special using every photo submitted in a slightly different fashion from your average photographic exhibition. CLICK HERE TO PRINT YOUR OWN POSTER

Poster by Tristan Savage & Photo by Paul Gonella

It’s going to be a Strong Movember – Closed at £725

Righto chaps, it’s time to clean shave your boat race and get that mighty moustache on the grow in support of Movember for The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. For 30 days of November you can help support and raise awareness through selflessly parading your top lip for charity.

You can sign up yourself, as I’m sure many of you already have, or you can join the Strong Island team and seek out sponsorship as a team. Through the Strong Island Movember page you can ask people to join the group, make donations, upload photos and post updates via the MoSpace page, Facebook and Twitter.

Head over to www.mobro.co/StrongIsland if you would like to get involved and grow a Strong Moustache to help raise awareness, or simply head over to www.uk.movember.com and sign up to personally raise money.

The funds raised in the UK support the number one and two male specific cancers – prostate and testicular cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partners, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together, these channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

Poster: Tristan Savage