A new community centre in Tottenham Hale has just opened featuring the first purpose-built Anglican church in London for 40 years.

At the heart of Hale Village is The Engine Room which will serve the community in a number of ways by offering a community centre, St Francis church, a nursery and a café.

Run by the Diocese of London it aims to be the ‘engine of the community’ and is named after the site on which it is built - a furniture factory, requisitioned during World War Two to build engines for fighter aircraft.

“Our strapline is ‘the community starts here’, said The Engine Room’s operations manager Andrew Johnston. “And we really want to get all sections of the community involved in what we are doing. We already have an incredible diversity of bookings – from children’s birthday parties to Christmas fairs to corporate bookings – and we have three spaces for people to hire at reasonable community rates. We are looking for people to bring in their ideas and their enthusiasm because a place like this really can make a difference.”

Walk into St Francis’ main hall and you are instantly struck by the huge, colourful piece of artwork behind the altar created by acclaimed artist Graeme Mortimer Evelyn. Called The Eternal Engine it is the UK’s largest contemporary altarpiece and is open to a variety of interpretations.

“Graeme lived in our community for over a year and we talked about connectedness, which is reflected in this piece, and how connectedness is key for our work here in the community,” said the Revd Andrew Williams, priest at St Francis. “It is hugely exciting to be a part of this and the community is the absolute focus of what we’re about. We also have the lease for 250 years so everyone knows we are here for the long haul.”

Loven bakery is a community focused cafe, bakery and wine shop which runs in collaboration with The Engine Room as part of the new community centre. It hosts events, promotes local businesses and organisations as well as providing appren­ticeship training schemes and affordable, healthy, high-quality food and drink.

For Martina and Andrew Kwapong the opening of the new building is a particular cause of celebration. For the past four years the church community workers have been helping locals from a small flat around the corner.

“We also worked from a shipping container and a park and now we’re here!” said Martina, laughing. “We wanted something different, something where the church and the community really does live side by side, and this is what we have in The Engine Room. The community love this place and people have already made friends through this.”

For more details, or to make a booking, call The Engine Room in Eagle Heights, Hale Village on 020 8808 5490 or email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. St Francis holds services every Sunday at 11am and on the last Sunday of the month there is a ‘shared lunch’ where members of the congregation can bring food to share.

A delegation from the Chinese government was recently invited by the Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities to visit Sandwell Valley Crematorium to find out about the UK's approach to burial and cremation.

Sandwell Council cabinet member Councillor David Hosell welcomed the party from the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Rick Powell, secretary and executive officer with the Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities, said he was delighted that Sandwell had been willing to host the meeting after he had been asked by the Chinese government to provide a training session.

Delegates wanted to have a better understanding of the UK’s approach to laws and regulations regarding burial and cremation, the structure of UK burial and cremation services, codes of practice and service delivery.

Councillor Hosell said: "It was a pleasure to welcome delegates from China, who were all experienced senior officials.

"Given the extensive breadth of excellent services and facilities provided by our bereavement team, the Federation felt there was no better place than Sandwell for the delegation to visit to see how this should be delivered."

Eating chocolate for breakfast, Christmas coffee cups and time off work are some of the nation’s favourite things about the festive season, according to a new study by Ladbrokes Casino.

The research, which polled more than 2,000 Brits, looked into our favourite things about Christmas including traditions, food and drink, films and music.

Some of the more unusual Christmas traditions included; one in 20 said ‘an excuse for a kiss under the mistletoe’, 10% voted for ‘post-Christmas dinner naps’ and more than one in 10 felt one of the best things was that ‘it’s the time of year you don’t feel guilty about gaining weight’.

The Christmas football fixtures get the nation excited every year and the poll revealed the biggest hot spots around the UK that are most excited about tuning in to watch the nation’s favourite sport during December.

The cities most dedicated to the Christmas football fixtures:

1. Cardiff (20%)
2. Liverpool (20%)
3. Nottingham (13%)
4. Leeds (11%)
5. Birmingham (10%)

When it came to festive food ‘Boxing Day leftovers’ proved to be more popular than a ‘Christmas Eve buffet’ or a ‘Christmas Day breakfast’ (26% vs 17% and 15% respectively).

The study also aimed to rank our favourite Christmas movies, songs and carols:

The Top 5 favourite Christmas movies are:

1. Home Alone (24%)
2. It’s a Wonderful Life (21%)
3. Miracle on 34th Street (18%)
4. Elf (16%)
5. The Muppet Christmas Carol (15%)

The nation was more sure of their favourite Christmas song as almost a third (30%) voted for Fairytale of New York by The Pogues overshadowing second and third place, Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade (24%) and Last Christmas by Wham (23%).

Kaidi Kuusk at Ladbrokes Casino said: “The nation has voted on what the best things about Christmas are and the list reveals we look forward to Boxing Day leftovers more than Christmas Eve buffets or Christmas day breakfasts.

“Home Alone’s an all-time classic so it’s no surprise to see it top the list as the nation’s favourite Christmas film. It looks safe to say Cardiffians and Liverpudlians can’t wait to stop watching the likes of Mrs Brown’s Boys and get stuck into the Boxing Day fixture list.

“Whether you agree with our list or not, it’s clear the nation has an opinion on what the best things about Christmas are.”

After dinner board games are still as popular as ever, as more than five in six adults will rummage around in cupboards to dust off board games over the Christmas period, according to new research by Coral Casino.

The survey of 2,000 UK adults, conducted by Coral Casino, asked the public to rank a series of board and card games to find the nation’s favourite ‘after Christmas dinner’ game. The research found that across the UK, 84% of adults will sit down to play one with friends and family after their Christmas dinner, with people in Edinburgh the most partial to a game – 91% will be playing a board or card game this Christmas.

The research by the online casino operator found that Monopoly is by far the country’s most popular game, with 31% of the 2,000 adults polled saying it was their favourite. Board games dominated the top ten most popular games, with Cards Against Humanity the only card game to make the cut.

The UK’s top ten favourite after dinner games for UK adults to play this Christmas are:

1. Monopoly
2. Trivial Pursuit
3. Scrabble
4. Pictionary
5. Cluedo
6. Draughts / Checkers
7. Cards Against Humanity
8. Chess
9. Battleship
10. Yahtzee

Although the popularity of different games remains roughly the same across all ages, with Monopoly always the favourite, almost twice as many young adults prefer Cards Against Humanity as 25-34-year olds do, with almost nobody over 45 choosing it.

Blackjack also appears to be making a resurgence with the younger generation, being more popular with those aged between 18 and 24 than anyone else. Meanwhile Scrabble and Cluedo, typically two of the country’s top choices, lose out among the younger adults.

John Hill, PR Manager at Coral said: “Our research shows that, however popular high tech gifts have become at Christmas, the long standing tradition of sitting down with friends and family to a good board game after their Festive feast is alive and well.”

“It is no surprise to see that Blackjack is becoming more popular with young adults as this is something that we’ve seen with our own games.”

Over the past five years, Romans has supported Alexander Devine, a local children’s hospice, raising over £100,000 through their fundraising efforts.

This year, Romans’ Directors challenged the three teams in their Training Academy to see who can raise the most money for Alexander Devine. Spin Masters Toys kindly donated over 1,000 brand new, packaged toys and on 15th of December the three teams went head to head in Romans’ Reading, Maidenhead and Wokingham branches. A grand total of £5,381 was raised across the three branches, the winners of the event were the Persians who were selling toys from the Maidenhead branch raising £2,500!

Alexander Devine Children’s Hospice Service was set up by Berkshire parents John and Fiona Devine in memory of their eight year old son Alexander, who died after four years of treatment for a brain tumour, with the aim of building Berkshire's first dedicated hospice for children with life threatening illnesses. The first hospice opened earlier this year in Maidenhead, providing much needed care and support for families around Berkshire.

Fiona Devine thanks the staff from Romans, “A huge thank you from all of us at Alexander Devine to Romans, you have been with us since the inception of our journey and we are phenomenally grateful for the donation we have received from Toy Wars. You have been an integral part in our journey and without you we wouldn’t be in our purpose built hospice today!

The donation of £5,300 from Toy Wars will go towards funding our care team which needs to grow exponentially next year to enable us to open our day care centre in Maidenhead. This donation will go towards the costs of employing more carers and nurses to support 6 children per day to use all our facilities. Thanks again to Romans, please know that you are making such a difference to our local children.”