FIFTEEN volunteers are needed to pick up a paddle and take part in dragon boat race to raise cash for the UK's only specialist hospital for colorectal disease.
St Mark's Hospital Foundation, which supports St Mark's Hospital in Watford Road, Harrow, has entered a team into the 12th Rotary Dragon Boat Festival on Sunday May 17 but the original scheduled participants have had to pull out.
Dragon boat racing involves a crew of around 20 sitting two abreast in a long canoe-like boat and paddling in synchronism to the sound of a drum beat.
The races will take place on the River Thames at the Docklands Sailing Centre located at the Millwall Outer Dock in south-east London between 10am and 3pm.
An entry fee of £10 per person is required along with a minimum guaranteed sponsorship of £100, and all participants get a T-shirt.
n For more information and to register, call Maxine McNeil, the foundation's fundraising manager, on 020 8869 2371 or email maxine.mcneil@nwlh.nhs.uk

A SCHEME which allows artists to open their homes or studios as galleries has received funding from the National Lottery for its second outing this summer.
Held for the first time last June, Harrow Open Studios sees painters, jewellery makers, sculptors and others invite visitors to drop by their properties at specific times to view and discuss their works and even buy or commission pieces.
This year's showcase, which features 31 exhibitors and will be held between Friday June 12 and Monday June 15, has attracted a £5,000 grant from Arts Council England.
The organisers say the money will enable them to provide access ramps for wheelchair users at a number of venues as well as an adapted minibus to transport people and their carers between venues.
On top of this, there will be a children's art competition and wider publicity to complement the growing event.
Funding co-ordinator Joy Trpkovic said: "We are delighted with the grant from Arts Council England and the recognition it gives to our Open Studios.
"It means that we can improve on last year's event, which was widely recognised as an outstanding achievement and a welcome innovation for the borough.
"We are very grateful for the initial support from local businesses last year who helped us get started and welcome new sponsors that are coming forward.
"Those individuals and business supporters are an investment for the future and will benefit from inclusion in our advertising and web presence."

It is great news for a Kenton chip shop that took a top Sea Fish Industries prize.

Belmont Bay Fish and Chips in Kenton Lane won the award for best fish and chip dinner in Greater London, Middlesex and Essex.

The competition, held annually by Sea Fish Industries, a Government body that promotes good quality and sustainable seafood, is contested by chip shops across Britain.

This is the second time Belmont Bay has won since it started four and a half years ago.

Owner John Ioannou puts the shop's success down to "lots of hard work and the use of the best-quality ingredients money can buy - fish and potatoes".

He said: "Sea Fish likes when people try new things and care about sustainability, which is why we have got in pollock and coley, which are of the cod family but more abundant.

"They taste as good as cod and are as just good quality, but are half the price so are good for us and our customers."

The 35-year-old set up his first fish and chip shop in Kilburn High Street 10 years ago and has been in the batter business ever since.

He told the Observer: "When I got married and had kids I decided Harrow was a more family-orientated area, so set up here."

The entrepreneur was coy about revealing his secret batter recipe but said he used only 100 per cent pure vegetable oil, rather than the nut oil that some fish and chips shops use, which can produce allergic reactions.

In light of the recent success and the current economic climate, Mr Ioannou added: "We want to give something back to the local community so we are offering a 15 per cent discount to all senior citizens every Tuesday."

Parking measures will be imposed on the streets of Harrow's County Roads estate, Harrow Council has controversially decided.

Councillor Susan Hall (Conservative), portfolio holder for environment and community safety, provisionally signed off the plan on Thursday, March 12 despite residents earlier handing in several petitions against the idea.

The original postal consultation, held in September last year, showed that in the County Roads area 50 residents supported the idea of a controlled parking zone (CPZ) - but 89 did not, with 11 having no opinion.

The CPZ will be introduced to the whole of Devonshire Road, Dorset Road and Oxford Road, the eastern sections of Pinner Road and Sussex Road, the southern sections of Rutland Road, Bedford Road and Pinner View and part of Neptune Road.

It will mean that drivers must display a permit to be able to park their vehicle within the CPZ between 11am and 12 noon on weekdays or risk attracting a parking ticket.

Extra short-term pay-and-display parking bays will be created at the southern ends of Devonshire Road, Oxford Road, Rutland Road, Bedford Road and Pinner Road.

In addition, certain junction throughout Headstone South ward will be painted with double-yellow lines as part of the scheme.

Ms Hall was recommended to approve the plan by the council's Traffic and Road Safety Advisory Panel which met to consider the issue on November 26.

Traffic officers at Harrow Council will now publish the legal notices required to confirm the introduction of the CPZ and, if there are no legal objections, the measures will come into force.

Six months after implementation, further consultation will be held to see if residents support an extension of the area covered by the residents-only parking.

To celebrate the opening of its new Harlesden store, Specsavers has teamed up with the Observer to offer four lucky readers the chance to each win £150 worth of eyecare.

The competition is part of the store's two-week celebration to mark its launch.

Each prize includes a free eye examination and a pair of designer specs up to the value of £125.

The four winners can chose from well-known brands including Jasper Conran, Quiksilver, Red or Dead, Missoni and Specsavers' own best selling range of designer glasses - Osiris. A trained store stylist will be on hand to advise on the best frame style and shape to suit their face.

To enter email your name, address, and daytime telephone number to or on a postcard to Specsavers competition, Gazette House, 28 Bakers Road, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 1RG.

The closing date is March 27.

A gap year student is set to go to the Arctic as she takes part in an expedition conducting climate change research, writes Sabrina Kernbichler.

Herpreet Bhamra, 18, will leave her home in Kenton, Harrow, on April 2 to embark on a three-month Arctic expedition organised by the British Schools Exploring Society.

Herpreet will join a team of 13 young people and 6 leaders in their quest to explore Svalbard, just 600 miles from the North Pole with a crueling climate of -25C.

The 18-year-old said: "I am excited to see the Arctic with its mountains, polarbears and other wildlife as well as conducting research that matters."

The youngters will sleep in small tents for the whole time and will travel by ski.

Herpreet added: "I am also a little scared as spending three month in a tent can be quite claustrophopic."

Many other challenges will await the team once they reach the Arctic wilderness.

The team will have no supply of water and will need to melt snow to drink and cook army-rationed meals.

They will also spend the quarter of a year without a shower.

Herpreet added: "We have to wear five layers of clothes and pull our own pulks packed with equipment. The morning routine alone will take up to two hours."

Activities will also include ice climbing and mountaineering as the team will measure glaciers in the region.

Herpreet who will start a course in physics at London's Imperial College at the end of this year, said: "I haven't done things like this before but we were given training in Scotland a few weeks ago.

"It was tough and scary but also exciting."

The teenager has taken a part-time job to finance the expedition which will cost 8,000 to £9,000.

She said: "After all, not many people have the opportunity to do this."

The British Schools Exploring Society is a youth development charity which offers young people between 18 and 23 the opportunity to challenge themselves in remote environments while developing more confidence plus teamwork and leadership skills.

The research data from Herpreet's and other expedition will be used by other academic institutions as part of long-term scientific projects to develop a better understanding of climate change.

A year after a 51-year-old woman was raped at knifepoint in Kenton, police are still desperately trying to hunt her attacker.

On February 26, last year, the victim was assaulted in broad daylight on the railway footbridge leading to Kenton Recreation Ground.

The attacker, believed to be between 20 and 30 years old, is said to have struck between noon and 12.30pm but a helicopter pursuit at the time was unable to locate him.

Now, 12 months on, police have revisited the site in the hope that they can encourage any new witnesses to come forward and solve the crime.

A month after the incident police released CCTV stills to the Observer of a black man they wanted to contact in connection with the attack.

The man, who can be seen in the pictures wearing a beige hat and wheeling a woman's light coloured bike through Kenton Station, is thought to have caught a southbound Bakerloo Line train before getting off at North Wembley.

The footage shows him at the station roughly 90 minutes after the attack.

Anyone with any information can call Harrow Police on 020 8733 4340 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

Addicts in desperate need of treatment may revert to crime if health bosses carry out plans to hand responsibility for drug treatment programmes to private firms.

That is according to a senior source at Harrow Primary Care Trust (PCT), who says plans are in the pipeline to commission out the services in a bid to cut costs - raising fears the quality of the provision will be compromised.

The whistleblower approached the Observer because of growing concerns that drug users will no longer get the attention they desperately need and that drug-related crime could rise as a result.

The source said: "If all the services are put out for tender it is likely that voluntary groups will run substance misuse programmes for a lot less money.

"These services do offer decent treatment, of course, but they have a history of having lower standards because they don't have to meet the same government criteria.

"Because of this they are not required to hire staff with greater qualifications and are therefore, comparatively, less qualified to deal with these vulnerable patients."

If these plans do go ahead, the doctor says staff who currently work within the service will be moved or redeployed, not necessarily within the same field, and crucial relationships with users will be lost.

They added: "Statistics show that the best kind of treatment for drug users comes when they deal with the same person on a regular basis.

"If staff are moved around, this rapport will be lost and, therefore, so will the effectiveness of the treatment.

"If this happens then more drug users face failing to deal with their problems and potentially there will be higher levels of crime in the area."

The medic added that at present there are seven programmes set to go out to tender, used by 642 people, according to the latest figures - many of them for the use of drugs like heroin and crack cocaine.

A record number of youngsters flocked to polling stations this year, wanting to ensure their favourite candidate was elected to the UK Youth Parliament.

More than 7,000 young people voted at more than 20 polling stations across Harrow in the week leading up to the announcement - almost 2,000 more than in last year's election.

Harrow's two places in the UK Youth Parliament were won by Aakash Bharania, and Rhiya Pau, both 15, while Amar Chandarana and Mahek Metha claimed deputy spots.

The budding Gordon Browns and Boris Johnsons, who had all been nominated for the posts by their peers, were given the results at the Civic Centre last week and will now join members drawn from all over England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The UK Youth Parliament (UKYP) was set up nine years ago as a way to improve youth participation in decision-making.

Harrow had previously been allowed just one elected Member of Youth Parliament (MYP) on the UKYP and one deputy, but has been asked to elect two of each for the past two years.

An internet class that helps Muslim women detect the tell-tale signs of extremism in their children has been praised by government officials.

The Harrow Council scheme, launched earlier this month, was one of three Harrow-run projects up for awards in the Prevention of Violent Terrorism awards, held last Tuesday.

Labelled the E-safety training workshop, the idea saw off competition from Brent, Hounslow and Lambeth in the best women's project category.

The class aims to cover safety advice on the use of internet messaging, social networking websites and chat rooms, but also helps to alert Muslim mothers about teenagers who might be enticed to look at websites which promote terrorism or extremism.

The event, which was organised by the Government Office for London and the London Prevent Network, was hosted by minister for London and Harrow East MP, Tony McNulty.

Harrow was also shortlisted for prizes in the best youth project and innovation categories.