Hooray, QMUL’s Festival of Communities is returning this year! Queen Mary University of London staff and local community groups join together to create an event for the people of Tower Hamlets in London (and very welcome visitors from further afield).

The festival takes place over two days – on the Saturday we come into the community and have marquees and stalls and events in Stepney Green park. On the Sunday we invite the community to come to us and our events are on QMUL campus in the People’s Palace. We have loads of local families visiting us and finding out more about what our university does and how it works with local communities. There’s lots of bunting and it’s good fun.

Below are some pictures from 2019 – the last time we were able to have the festival before Covid.

We’ll be at this year’s
Festival of Communities!

CS4FN / Teaching London Computing will be at the event on Saturday 11th June (11.30-4.30pm)
Activity Stall
You can pick up some free copies of our magazines and booklets and see a little bit of table magic. We’re also bringing back our colouring-in table for younger kids who can colour in a cyborg hat or a computing zine or complete one of our pixel puzzles.

Magic Show
At 12 noon on the day Paul Curzon will also be doing a magic show in the Festival’s Workshop Marquee (which is limited capacity so first-come, first-served).

The Magic of Computer Science
When you learn magic you are also learning how to think like a computer scientist! In this show, we will teach you some magic tricks, challenging you to work out how they are done. This fun family workshop will show how magic is linked to computer science and how magicians and computer scientists actually think alike.

ℹ️ Festival of Communities (main page, info)

Note that there are transport engineering works during that weekend and Stepney Green station may be closed.

 

ℹ️ | Saturday 11 June – Stepney Green Park (11.30-4.30pm)
• Workshops timetable – Saturday

Use the Redmans Road entrance (photo) to Stepney Green Park (map) where you’ll find the blue-logoed QMUL Information Point and staff there will point you to the stalls and the Workshop Marquee.

Paul Curzon’s workshop is at 12pm in the Workshop Marquee.

Directions
If you want to take the bus, the 205 and 25 bus routes run closest. If you get off at the Stepney Green stop you’ll just need to head up Stepney Green Road opposite the Mile End Retail Park and you’ll be there in 5 minutes.

We also recommend typing the postcode E1 3DH into the Transport for London website or Citymapper app (webapp) to find the best way of reaching the festival fun!

 

ℹ️ | Sunday 12 June – Queen Mary Mile End Campus
• Workshops timetable – Sunday

Directions
If you  take the bus, the 205 and 25 bus routes run past the festival and you can jump off at the Queen Mary University of London stop right outside the entrance.

Or type the postcode E1 4NS into your map app, the Transport for London website or Citymapper app (webapp) to find the best route.

 

Above: A photo of our marquee and stall in 2019 showing a table of magazines with some colourful CS4FN bunting. Will the bunting be back this year? Yes.

Above: Children colouring in our ‘hatagon’ cyborg hats. Once done we’ll cut them out and tape them to fit on their head.

Above: more kids colouring in the ‘hatagons’.