Artists of every kind will be exhibiting their work this coming weekend In Wivenhoe’s regular Art Trail event in which artists open their homes to showcase their work.

Visitors are encouraged to stroll around the village, popping into the artists’ houses and galleries to see the results of months of work by the many local artists who live in the area.

Alison Stockmarr is part of the team which organises the Wivenhoe Art Trail. She says it’s been carefully thought out: socially distancing rules are being observed and much of it can be seen on line…but, she says, it’s an event which shouldn’t be missed.

A Colchester legal secretary who works in Immigration Law is limiting the amount of food she’ll be eating next week to raise money to help Syrian refugees in camps in Jordan. Harriet Frank has signed up to the so-called Ration Challenge and says it’s to make people aware of how hard life is for people in the camps. Colne Radio caught up with Harriet.

Martin Newell talks about how being involved with Colne Radio's predecessor Radio Wivenhoe revived his career learning how to make jingles and

Martin Newell previews his Slippery Slope broadcast - a show explaining how Colne Radio helped him with his own musical and production techniques.

Colne Radio caught up with Gurpeet, one of the organisers behind the launch of the Black Lives Matter in the Stix group. 

A fun way to raise money for Colchester and Ipswich hospital charities has just been launched. People walking round Colchester this summer will see individual wooden letters, positioned in various places, which spell out the words IN COLCHESTER and where they can attach messages of love with padlocks to show their support for the NHS.

The new campaign is called Lock It With love and it’s been organised by BID – an organisation which represents more than 400 businesses in the town and aims to make Colchester an even better place to work and visit.

Local Alresford based charity Boots2Africa has put out a call for sports bras to be donated for female African footballer players. Colne Radio caught up with the charity to find out more.

Games development is one of the biggest growth areas of any industry and Colchester has its fair share of companies which are starting to make their mark in this highly lucrative area.

Now the not-for-profit company, Game Anglia, in partnership with Colchester Borough Council has organised a series of online networking and educational seminars for digital industries in the area, to support them through the disruption caused by the coronavirus.

The co-founder of Game Anglia, Chris Filip, says, although the biggest game hubs in the area are in Cambridge and Norwich, there are at least 200 students studying on games courses in Colchester and its industry is growing in importance here.

And you can find out more about the series of seminars on gameanglia.co.uk.

The Mercury Theatre in Colchester has been incredibly active in the local community during lockdown. One of the projects has been a creative songwriting competition. Colne Radio finds out more.

An appeal is being launched for men in the Colchester and Tendring areas to act as reading mentors for young boys who, for whatever reason, are without a father. It’s a new project being piloted by the award-winning not-for-profit company Lads Need Dads, which is based in Clacton.

The scheme will run at four primary schools across the area to help those boys without fathers or a male role model in their lives to improve their reading.