Author Archives: Rachel

Online Sparkhill Consultation

Further to last week’s consultation events, there is now an online survey on facilities at Sparkhill Pool and Fitness Centre. You can take the online survey here.

It’s very disappointing that the public seem to have no say in who should manage the facility, especially as this will have an impact on one of the most important assets that local leisure services have: the staff. I spoke with a local council leisure employee only yesterday who doesn’t know whether or not they’ll be in a job in two months time. If the Council are serious about providing high quality health and fitness facilities they need to put such concerns at the heart of the plans. This narrow-minded approach certainly doesn’t bode well for developing other leisure sites around the city…

Posted in Community Pools, Sparkhill Baths, Swimming Groups | Tagged , | Comments closed

Abandoned

The Guardian put out a request for readers’ photos on the theme ‘derelict’ last week. The result was a collection of some of the most heartbreaking pictures of buildings which are a shadow of their former glory.

Amongst the pictures was a photo from Emma Jones of the Gala Pool at Moseley Road Baths which you can view on the Guardian’s site. I’m not sure how I feel about it: the pool is absolutely gorgeous, even in its present state, and I think that the more publicity the building has the better, but it’s absolutely shameful that such a building remains in the ownership of Birmingham City Council in such a state. I feel embarrassed that my local pool should so frequently be on ‘most endangered’ and ‘most neglected’ lists, but it seems that our local politicians share no such concern.

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Sparkhill Consultation

As part of the Council’s ongoing plans for replacing Sparkhill Pool and Fitness Centre they have called a series of consultations for this week.  So far it appears that consultations have not had any mention of how the building should be financed and managed, something which campaigners over in Sparkhill believe is absolutely fundamental to [...]

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Another view of Moseley Road Baths

We’re getting more and more interest in Moseley Road Baths from people who have been inspired by the building to do interesting and creative stuff. Alex Gamela came along to our Memories and Memorabilia Day last year and gathered a fair bit of footage and photography. He’s used it to create a Flash website which [...]

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Notice of AGM

We now have quite a number of people signed up for the Oral History Training session tomorrow. I’ve been sending messages back and forth to our trainer, Cynthia, and it’s looking really exciting! I believe that there may be a bit of space left, so if you do want to get involved then let us know ASAP.

Posted in Campaign, Meetings, Oral History, Pool of Memories, Volunteers | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments closed

Mini history lessons

I’ve just come from a stall in Balsall Heath Library where we spent about half an hour talking with a group of young girls (amongst others) about Moseley Road Baths. To me, that chat really illustrated the importance of our Pool of Memories project. Almost all of the girls attend Heath Mount Primary School, one [...]

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Volunteer for Pool of Memories

Would you like to interview members of the public about their memories of swimming, bathing, socialising and working at Moseley Road Baths? As part of our Heritage Lottery Fund ‘Pool of Memories’ project we are calling on volunteers to help us in our three year quest to find the best memories of the building. Your interviews may form part of a book, teaching resource, DVD, permanent exhibition and drama project.

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Pool of Memories launched!

Our three year Heritage Lottery Funded ‘Pool of Memories‘ project is now officially underway!  We had our launch last week at Balsall Heath Library.  As always it’s lovely chatting with people about the project, so it was lovely to share some of the information, photos and films we’ve collected so far and to enthuse others [...]

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Bulldozers head to Coseley Baths

We’re really saddened to report that the bulldozers have begun work on demolishing the community pool in Coseley, despite the demolition work actually costing more than the money required to save the building!

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No water, but going swimmingly

We’re really pleased to share the news that the Swimming Without Water exhibition will be going ahead, starting next week.

The collective of artists will be using the currently unused Gala Pool at Moseley Road Baths to display their artwork. Their aim is to bring together their contemporary artwork with the space and the audience to create a unique experience.

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