Keeping St Denys connected
What is the Itchen Sink - and who is it for?
Grassroots community media is about connecting people, sharing stories, and keeping local life alive.
In this audio, Anna Carr chats to Deb Wilks about The Itchen Sink, a hard-copy newsletter for around 2,000 people in and around St. Denys.
The latest issue is about to hit St Denys doormats.
Packed with local events, classes, spaces to hire, a bit of history, and even a joke or two, it ensures people who aren’t on social media or online still know what’s happening in their community.
“What we wanted to do was make sure that people that weren’t on computers, weren’t on social media, were able to catch up with what’s going on,” Deb explains.
Deb talks about how it’s made: a labour of love that starts on the kitchen table with colour, scissors, and old-fashioned cut-and-paste, before moving to digital layout. Volunteers then deliver it through letterboxes, helping everyone feel included and connected.
Started just after lockdown, The Itchen Sink continues to foster community spirit, keeping St. Denys residents informed and involved. Deb invites contributions, articles, or a helping hand via stdenysnews@gmail.com.
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Thank you.
Interview
Use the player below to hear the interview. A transcription follows.
Transcription
A lightly edited AI-generated transcription follows. It’s not perfect and may well contain errors and some wrong attribution, but we feel it gives a reasonable sense of the chat. Let us know if you find it useful!
[Anna Carr]
Hi Debs.
[Deb Wilkes]
Hi Anna.
[Anna]
Hi. What’s The Itchen Sink?
[Deb} The Itchen Sink is a hard copy of a newsletter that goes to 2,000 people in and around St. Denys.
[Anna]
2,000 people? That’s quite a lot. Yeah. What has it got in it?
[Deb]
It’s got everything that’s happening in St. Denys, which sometimes doesn’t feel like a lot, but actually we’ve got two sides of A3 paper filled up with events coming up like the Carnival and river walk. It’s got classes that are happening, places that you can hire, a little bit of historic about St. Denys. There’s a joke.
[Anna]
Oh yeah, what’s the joke? Can you tell me a joke?
[Deb]
I can’t remember jokes!
It’s lots of little bits and pieces from various people that send in what’s going on really. So what we wanted to do was make sure that people that weren’t on computers, weren’t on social media were able to sort of catch up with what’s going on.
[Anna]
And why is it called The Itchen Sink?
[Deb]
Well, like anything, like naming a band, that took up the most amount of time really. It was going to be Primrose Knickers because there was a famous sort of happening on the Cobden Bridge years ago where people threw primroses at each other. Anyway, somebody didn’t want Knickers in the title.
It’s The Itchen Sink. This time is changing slightly actually.
[Anna]
Oh, why?
[Deb]
Should I tell you what it is?
[Anna]
Come on, please.
[Deb]
Well, it might be The Itch and Stink.
[Anna]
Okay – yes!
[Deb]
But there’s a couple of other things up our sleeves, Anna, so watch this space.
[Anna]
Oh, I see what you did there. I really want to know more. I really want to know more....
So how do you pull together all of that information and manage to put it on an A3 sheet?Like what does that involve?
[Deb]
Well, so I guess the hardest bit is always asking people and then people are busy, aren’t they? So some people come back straight away and you’ve got the info and other people - like you and your advert, Anna - take a bit longer.
So we ask people for contributions and then basically on our kitchen table three of us get together and we colour things in and we cut things out and stick them on like old-fashioned cut and paste.
[Anna]
Yeah.
[Deb]
And then the two that are good with the computer stick it on Canva.
[Anna]
What a labour of love. Why do you do it?
[Deb]
I think the sense of community in St Denys is quite high and sort of trying to continue that and pull it together, especially, you know, there’s quite a lot of sheltered housing in St Denys. People, I guess, probably aren’t looking at what’s on on Facebook and other things like that.
So it’s to give them particularly a sense of belonging, and we decided a while ago not to have it online because it felt really nice to have it like we do it at the moment.
[Anna]
Have the paper. Yeah.
Wow.
[Deb]
So yeah, so pulling people together and we first started it actually just after lockdown. So this is our seventh edition.
The first edition was in July 2021.
[Anna] And how often does it come out?
[Deb]
Well, it’s been a bit erratic.
Now it’s once a year. So the first couple of years there was two a year and then this year there’s one, last year there was one.
[Anna]
And … is there funding to make this happen or is this a labour of love purely?
[Deb]
The funding originally - so it’s about, it’s about £350to get it printed. That’s what it costs, yeah. So originally the money came from Transition Southampton for their Growing Places project and then since then St Denys - the Friends of St Denys have got a little pot of money which is now divided into The Itchen Sink, the Carnival and something else that I can’t remember.
So that, there’s a little bit of pot of money there. So that’s where we get it from. But if anybody does want to contribute, even a tenner here and there would be really helpful because it is nice to be able to do it.
But obviously we need those funds.
[Anna]
Yeah, to keep it going. Yeah, it sounds really valuable. But also it sounds really great that there are these, yeah, groups of people that are really invested in these like community happenings.
[Deb]
And then we got a big, a big bunch of volunteers who then put them through letterboxes, which is really helpful.
But you know those letterboxes with those really annoying brush things?
Yes. They are just so hard to put through, aren’t they? But yeah.
Once it’s done, that’s the easy bit is delivering it I guess. But if anybody wants to volunteer to do that. I would.
Or to even do a small article for next time we do it, then they’re very welcome.
[Anna]
That sounds great. I love this, the idea that you’ve got all these people that are like ready at your, at your command to like distribute to 2,000 people. Brilliant.
Is there anything else that you want me to know about it?
[Deb]
I don’t think so. Hopefully the next one is going to print on Monday [23/3/26].
[Anna]
Monday.
[Deb]
And that’s it. Then they’ll be delivered and that will be it. There is an email address actually, which I’ll give it out now, and that’s stdenysnews at gmail.com.
So if anybody wanted to contribute any money, just to send us a message and we’ll say where to put that. Or write an article, help out with anything else.
[Anna]
Great. Big thank you to you Debs for having the vision and making it happen and drumming up the support that you, that you need for that.
[Deb]
Thank you for airing it.
[Anna]
Alright, thanks Debs.