成人快手

Morph

Morphing rubbish into fine furniture

Inside Out London looks at how new life can be breathed into old junk - resulting in imaginative furniture.

Morph is a social enterprise which is helping the community and transforming the way Londoners buy affordable second-hand furniture.

Based on the Kingsland Road in Hackney, the furniture shop Morph offers a whole new way to buy stylish lo-cost furniture is bright airy surroundings.

Morph is inspired by similar schemes in continental Europe where recycling and social enterprise is big business.

The project offers training opportunities for the long-term unemployed, ex-offenders and apprentice carpenters.

It also provides training for otherwise marginalised people in retailing, customer care, merchandising, website management, carpentry, upholstering, warehouse and distribution.

New life for old junk

Funded by the council to stop local residents fly-tipping their unwanted home ware on the streets, Morph takes in people's unwanted junk and crafts them into affordable bespoke designs.

The result is unique, custom designed furniture made from recycled materials.

Recycling the modern way

This is how it works - Hackney Council's bulky waste team collect unwanted furniture items from households in the borough.

The Morph van crew then picks up the items from a depot in Hackney and takes them to the Morph warehouse.

They then decide whether the items can be cleaned, polished, restored and sold in the shop or whether they need to be recycled.

If this is the case they get sent down to Morph design in Orpington where teams of young trainees work their magic and turn an old wardrobe or dresser into anything from desks to kitchens.

Morph also has their own website where customers can browse the latest selections and even order online.

Green solutions

The whole Morph experience is geared up to making second-hand furniture buying more of a 'normal' shopping experience - as opposed to browsing cramped stacked up charity shops.

There's also another outlet of Morph in Camberwell.

The project has proved so inspiring that other local councils have been in contact with Morph to get advice on setting up similar projects in their own boroughs.

Inside Out presenter Sumit Bose visits the Morph shop in Kingsland Road where we hook up with the van crew.

Inside the furniture workshop at Morph

Anthony and his two trainees who are ex-offenders on a work programme with Morph to rehabilitate them into employment.

We also talk to trainees from the furniture workshop where the hard graft is actually done.

The hard work is done by trainees like Mike who left school at 14 and has not stayed in a job for more than a few weeks before he started an apprenticeship at Morph.

We also speak to John Fleming General Manager of Morph to find out about the project and plans for a further ten Morph outlets around London.

"Morph has the real potential to revolutionise the high street," says Fleming.

"It's a great idea that incorporates recycling, working with disadvantaged people and providing good value products for those with a limited budget."

Social enterprise

But just how big a business could Morph become?

To find out if Morph has what it takes, Inside Out gets some expert advice from Michele Giddens, an Executive Director of Bridges Community Ventures the UK's first community development venture capital company.

Fun furniture and it's green!

Michele has spent the last 10 years building up a formidable wealth of experience of development and community finance.

Sshe notes that social enterprises set out with great expectations for helping the community but have an unclear route to sustainability.

"Social enterprises must view and run themselves as a business in order to be self-sustaining," says Michele who then takes a look at Morph's business plan.

She evaluates whether the project is on the right track or not.

"The jury is still out," says Michele on Morph's future.

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Brownies

Be prepared - the Brownies are back!

We live in a world full of i-pods, computer games and the internet, so it may surprise you to learn that a very traditional children聮s pastime is still as popular as ever.

It seems more and more parents are keen to see their daughters join up as Brownies to learn a few old fashioned skills.

The organisation started back in 1910 when the Girl Guides gatecrashed the very first rally of Robert Baden-Powell聮s boy scouts.

Since then the movement has grown with Rainbows, Brownies and Guides encouraging girls of all ages to fulfill their potential through games, cooking, crafts, camping and doing a good deed every day.

Today, more than half of Britain聮s women have been Brownies or Girl Guides 聳 including Cherie Blair and Kate Moss.

As a former Brownie herself, Vanessa Feltz traveled to North London to find out why demand is at all time high.

Thriving pack

Gill Douglass has been a Brownie leader for 20 years and her pack is thriving.

She believes that Brownies are good for the girls in many ways:

"They get a lot of teamwork out of it, and enjoyment. They do things that they probably wouldn't be doing at home, because parents are working now. We try and do activities that provide social skills for them."

So why is there such an upsurge in demand? Gill believes it is the freedom of choice:

"The programme has changed, they have modernised themselves. The Brownies love it. I think it's the way forward for them."

Gill also thinks the parents are happy as they can go away, knowing their children are safe.

Brownies have truly kept up with the times. So much so that there is now a huge national backlog for free spaces.

In London there are over 2,000 girls who may have to wait months or even years before they can become Brownies.

Shortage of volunteers

The guidelines stipulate that there should be no more than 10 girls for every adult 聳 the problem is that there are just not enough adult volunteers coming forward.

In the past Brown Owls were traditionally mums and older women with time on their hands.

Nowadays with the increasing demands of work and family, people are too busy to make a commitment.

The situation is so bad that Brownie packs have had to close down, meaning some girls might never get the chance to be a Brownie at all.

The Guide Association are trying to address the problem and are looking for a new generation of volunteers.

Volunteers have to pass a stringent criminal record check and undergo a year of training.

This means that the Brownie waiting lists take time to reduce, especially those packs with long lists.

To volunteer: If you want to join call 0800 1 69 59 01 or email join.us@girlguiding.org.uk

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Bomb danger?

Potentially deadly? Old UXBs may pose a threat

Inside Out investigates how dangerous live military shells and bombs are going missing before the Army or Police can make them safe.

Renegade military dealers and collectors are stealing 'live' chemical shells and bombs from the battlefields of Belgium and France.

They are then smuggling these potentially deadly munitions back through the Channel Tunnel or on the ferries into the UK for sale on the military black-market or on the web.

Trench warfare

Our story starts 90 years ago. The Great War claimed over 15 million lives and focused on a narrow strip of land in Belgium and France.

This intense trench warfare led to constant shelling by both sides, but not every bomb fired exploded. Hundreds of thousands failed to detonate.

Today the remains of the Belgian front line can still be seen - some trenches are still visible, and visitors can walk past the barbed wire and inspect the rusting military hardware left behind.

And it is those shells that are now resurfacing and presenting a new threat.

Ammunition sales

Inside Out's investigation was kick-started last autumn by a set of brothers.

Chris and Matt Haffenden are military collectors from Hailsham in Sussex and they told us they聮d seen live First World War ammunition on sale in the South East of England.

One man who did smuggle in a live military bomb was Stephen Hart from Tunbridge Wells.

Last summer he was handed a nine month suspended prison sentence and a hefty fine after being caught with a unexploded mortar shell in the boot of his car at the entrance to the Channel Tunnel.

This case made Inside Out wonder just what could a military enthusiast get hold of abroad so we headed off to the battlefields of Belgium to have a dig around.

Bombs and shells

A large amount of ammunition has been unearthed in the fields around the town of Ypres - and that is exactly where we headed.

We wanted to find out where you could get live bombs and shells, and we also met with someone who had first hand knowledge that ammunition was being stolen off the battlefields.

Domenik Dendooven is a curator at the museum and was worried live bombs and shells were disappearing before the army could make them safe.

Some of the live shells going missing are toxic and contain chemicals that could kill.

Trench warfare - bombs are still being uncovered

It appears that toxic shells containing mustard gas and and phosgene were being stolen and were finding their way illegally back into the UK.

So many live bombs are unearthed by farmers, there are designated spots where they are left for collection by the military.

They may be 90-years-old and look harmless but the chemical agents can be as deadly as the day they were first made. Destroying them has to take place inside a high security lab.

The scale of the problem is frightening and with toxic agents like phosgene and mustard gas, it is dangerous work.

Credits

Trench photograph courtesy and copyright of Associated Press.

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