One guy that really makes the Crossbones gardens transformation a reality is definitely John Constable. John Constable is a dedicated man who has spent most of his time in protecting the little patch of land that was previously known as Crossbones graveyard.
When John is not being a genuinely awesome dude, he spends his time being a performer, playwright, lecturer, poet and even an author. He's best known for his She-maniac plays and "Southwark mysteries" (which features some of the history of the area of Southwark including Crossbones Gardens in the perspective of a prosistute believed to be buried at crossbones graveyard) and many stage adaptations along with dramatization of novels featured on Radio 4(he even performed "mystery plays" in Southwark Cathedral and Shakespeare's Globe).
But let's go back on his occupation of being a poet. I had the pleasure of reading a few of his poems which I found that most of the had the theme of acceptance from all groups of humanity. My favorite one from his book Southwark Mysteries goes like this:

In the haggard face of john Crow
who watches from his high tower in Trinity
as in the single mother
who lives across the road at Number 23
the check-out girl in Superdrug
whose name-tag says her name is Charity
and in every human face that is
pocked and scarred by what we call Reality

by the Grace of Our Lady Mary Overie
let them see
the shining eyes of Our Goddess of Mercy.

Now I am definitely not any expert in poems nor am I good at interpreting what the poet's true message was but what I got from my favorite poem was that it talked about the everyday people in the present and how we all come together at the end. For example he mentions "the single mother" and "the checkout girl in Superdrug" and he brings them together and says "and in every human face that is pocked and scared by what we call reality" (totally me!)"let them see the shining eyes of a goddess of mercy" which i think is a beautiful way to end it.
So i guess you can say that John is quite a deep thinker. John likes to look at our perspective of things, he like to see things in different ways and morph them into something that brings us together.
That's why i think he's a pretty cool guy and that's only another reason why I feel it's necessary to help such an amazing cause like the refurbishment of Crossbones gardens.
-Joa

Today we had the pleasure of having the company of Mickey Lee from the Mediamixer company at the Better Bankside office. He kindly held for us a video preparation workshop; during which we brainstormed video ideas in what I’d call a creativity session. Personally it was interesting working with Mickey Lee as he dug deep and induced us to do the same for innovative ideas.
We got an understanding of how far we could go with the video through engaging in conversation with him. The Mediamixer representative asked us a series of questions which lead to a conclusion that we needed to have a focal point for video ideas. We decided on a central message for the video and then each student produced a variety of ideas, which we thought would display our message greatest.
Mickey Lee also suggested that our events academy 2015 video be a contrast to the previous years. He highlighted how our event gives us lee way to expand our ideas and we have gratefully taken his suggestions on board. The workshop was immensely informative and necessary and I can say it was a productive afternoon with Mickey Lee.
Written By,
Stephanie Aalaiyah Henry.

On the day of the event at Cross Bones Garden on August 26 2015, we look forward to having people from the audience to participate on the Puppet Show for half hour allocate.

We also look forward to having the lovely Jess who took pictures of us at Cross Bones Garden on our very first visit to it. Also including friends of Cross Bones Garden or members from the Southwark Playhouse that'll be taking part on the Puppet Show, that is if we are lucky to be provided with costumes for entertainment from local Southwark Theatres (the Young Vic/ the Playhouse).

Written by: Naomi Blin

recently I've been given the task of contacting theatres in Southwark, which I have done. Last two weeks I aimed at local theatres in Southwark: The playhouse, the Rose theatre and the Young Vic to:

* Enquire for costumes for the event
* To be in charge of theatre entertainment e.g Puppet Show/Stall.

Contacting the playhouse was pretty easy than the other theatres as I used to take my acting classes there during my spare time on Saturdays- probably why I had a quick reply from the theatre about my acquirements for the show on the following above.

In the meantime, am looking forward to asking Daniella to help compile a list of questions and answers about Cross Bones Garden and its history. However if she's too busy, I'll have to look on to asking Jess from BOST.

On the day of the event, we(The Events Academy Students) will be looking on to having over five questions on each sheet of paper with five answers which will be referred to the puppet. there will be a bowl that'll have five questions that'll be asked inside,on a piece of paper each on which the questions will be written on. In addition I would also like to add an idea of, after a question is being answered, it'll go into another bowl that will be labelled 'ANSWERED' and the other bowl with questions that hasn't been answered will be labelled 'UNANSWERED' vice versa.

Written by: Naomi Blin