While we admire and support the Christmas campaigns that we see pop up in December, we also know that help is urgently needed all year round, each and every year. As some people pack away after the festive break, we are still here.
Our support is not limited to a food package, but it leaps beyond - we form connections, we listen and respond to everyone who steps through our doors. We open up a warm, safe, environment which aims to feel like a home away from home.
For us to continue to thrive and grow, and keep supporting as many people as possible, we are asking you to become a Friend of Cooking Champions. Even a donation of just £5-10 per month can make a HUGE impact on the lives of those who come through our doors.
Pop to our People's Fundraising page to donate, and we promise to keep you updated with how your support is making a difference. Thank you, we appreciate you! Team Cooking Champions
This week's playlist, selected by Chrissie and Dave Thomas, gives you a flavour of what would have been at St Harmonica's over the last few weeks, and finishes with a train set for you to play with. Is there light at the end of the tunnel or is it just one of those on coming trains? We live in hope; enjoy the offering..
This week's St Harmonica's playlist was compiled by local musicologist Nick Wall. In his own words: 'Here's my selection of blues and some of its neighbouring musical areas, with music from the 1920s to the beginning of the 1960s. There's a core of Louisiana music, but it strays up to the Appalachians and down around the Gulf Coast. It embraces the contradiction at the heart of the blues - an expression of pain or an exuberant music for enjoying the good times.'
This week's playlist was compiled by David Sinclair: singer, songwriter, guitarist and bandleader of the David Sinclair Four (DS4) and a sometime music journalist. He says: 'I was looking forward to bringing the DS4 to St Harmonica's on Friday May 22. We have had to put the gig on hold, but we'll be there as soon as we can. Meanwhile, here are some of my favourite performances by great musicians I've met over the years.'
This week's blues playlist was compiled by regular St Harmonica's attendee and locked-down percussion maestro, Pete Abernethy. He describes it as 'an attempt at charting the changes of the sound, techniques, and styles of drummers/percussionists and bass players over time'. It definitely has rhythm ...
The sixth St Harmonica's lock-down playlist has been compiled by John Crowther and features music by people who have played at St Harmonica's - including a performance commissioned specially for Virtual St Harmonica's (recorded at the musicians' home, of course)..
This week's St Harmonica's playlist, entitled The Lady Sings The Blues, was compiled by Mark Hawkins. The theme speaks for itself! Mark adds: 'While we are without live music at St Harmonica's the live vibe can be maintained by these nine songs with a blues or blues rock background'.
Missing Friday nights at the Southgate Club listening to the great bands playing at St Harmonica's? Well, we can't do anything about the lockdown, but we can do our best to recreate St Harmonica's in the comfort of your own home.
For Week 3 St Harmonica's goes international. We start south of the Mason-Dixon line, where the Blues originated, and end up on a railway station in Lancashire, calling en-route in Africa and Turkey.
This week's St Harmonica's Online brings you recordings bands that would have been playing at the club in Southgate, and footage of some of the musicians who inspired them.
Locked down we may be, and cut off from attending both professional and amateur theatre and music events, but ever more interesting opportunities are being made available online. One that I've just heard of, courtesy of Alexandra Park Neighbours, is a recording of a semi-staged production of Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro, performed at St James Muswell Hill by Fortismere Community Orchestra and Choir and directed by Joseph Winters from the Almeida Theatre. The Count is a certain MP for Oxbridge, who has recently been made Foreign Secretary by the PM. He has been trying to seduce his cleaner...