Upcoming Rockingham events

The TRA is hosting a variety of activities during halfterm starting with a spooky roller disco on Friday 24th October from 4:30-6:30pm. Children must be accompanied by an adult, please bring your own skates if you have them as there are only few spare, and you skate at your own risk (bring knee, wrist and elbow pads and a helmet!). Dress up if you fancy it!
On Monday 27th from 5pm until 8pm and Wednesday 29th from 4:30-6:30pm we have a drop in creative session for all. Come and make autumn decorations, write a story and more.

And on Friday 31st we celebrate halloween with a fancy dress party from 6:30 - 9:30pm! There’ll be refreshments, music, the chance to learn the Thriller dance, games and more fun for all the family...

The estate is hosting the Southwark Community Gardening Autumn Networking Event 2025 on 1st November.
For tickets go to: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/southwarkcouncil/1856131

Learn about the many benefits of adding a wildlife pond to your garden from amphibian experts Froglife. There is an opportunity to get involved with a practical pond-making session after the event for anyone who wants to stay until 4pm. We hope you can join us to meet other community gardeners in Southwark and get involved with another working party to discuss topics to make community gardening and food growing easier in the borough. Please book your tickets for this free event.
11am: Doors open, hot & cold drinks
11.15am - 12.30pm: Discussion about plant nursery followed by seed and plant swap
12.30 - 1pm: Talk from Harry from Froglife about wildlife ponds
1pm – 1.45pm: Lunch break
1.45 - 2.30 Tour of the gardening projects
Please bring seeds and plants you would like to swap with other members of the community! After the workshop, there will be ample time to mingle, share insights, and a tour of gardens on the estate.
We look forward to lively conversations, making new connections, and learning from each other. Soup, finger food and drinks would be available. Catering suitable for gluten free and vegan. If you have any allergies please let us know. If you have any questions in regard to the event or dietary requirements please contact us at communitygardening@southwark.gov.uk

On the 19th and 20th November Southwark Council are coming to the Rockingham Estate between 10am and 4pm for 2 Repairs Action days. On the 20th they will be joined by the Citizens Advice Bureau and the Cost of Living Roadshow from 10am - 1pm to offer advice and support for residents.

Previous events:

On Saturday 16th August 2025, 55 Rockingham residents went to Southend for the day. Everyone said they had a lovely time.

On Sunday 13th July 2025 the estate celebrated its 90th year with RockiFest. See rockinghamtra.org/rockifest for more details.

The Saturday mornings, funded by the Southwark Council’s Getting Involved Grant and the Residents Health and Wellbeing funding, were a lovely opportunity for all to gather and have breakfast, play games, do yoga, arts and crafts and more. It was also a great opportunity for us all to prepare of ‘RockiFest’. Additionally we had a lovely egg hunt at the easter gathering and SE1Solar joined us for a session offering residents free energy advice and measures to make our homes more efficient. We hope the sessions return in October.

 

On Thursday 12th June 2025, teenagers from the estate were joined by ‘Different Gravy’ (differentgravy.studio) for an introduction to film cameras. Funded by the Neighbourhood Fund and the Residents Health and Wellbeing funding, the group went to some of their favourite places and took some really interesting shots. These were exhibited at RockiFest and are shown on the heritage page.

Rockingham TRA hosted a ‘talent showcase’, funded by the Southwark Council’s Neighbourhood Fund, to see if Rockingham’s got Talent in preparation for RockiFest, and it seems we do, particularly amongst our young people who even took over hosting the event!! This was followed by bingo and congratulations to Holly and Sam who got the Full House! 

The Community centre hosted a contemporary dance event ‘Nothing’ on 21st February organised by William Lang.
The performances were stunning and it was wonderful to see the space used in this way.

The Rockingham Estate enjoyed its “Winter Feast” on Saturday 14th December 2024 and, despite bad weather and so many other competing demands this close to Christmas, their Community Hall was buzzing from mid afternoon till eight that evening with happy Rockingham residents. The feast was a combined celebration organised by the arts project, ‘Hear Your Story - Tell Your Story’, and the Rockingham Estate TRA with funding from Southwark Council. The event marked the end of the very successful community arts project, which was funded by the Open Collective and TSIP (The Social Innovation Partnership) and devised/led by Rockingham residents including the artist, Caroline Hands. The day was filled with a set of lively arts and crafts activities, with much laughter and conversation, lots of excellent food, including Bengali, West Indian and African dishes, with an excellent musical backdrop provided by DJ Jamie Renton. The hall was dressed with art created during the project and amazing hangings provided by Caroline Hands. People left full of the season’s cheer and looking forward to future events planned by the Rockingham TRA and Hall Committee. “We live in such an amazing place that we want to take every opportunity to support all our fellow residents and give them lots of reasons to come together and celebrate living on the Rockingham.” said Kenny Smyth, the Chair of the Tenants and Residents Association. Well, the Winter Feast certainly did that!

The community centre is hosting Dabke sessions, a Levantine folk dance particularly popular amongst Lebanese, Jordanian, Palestinian and Syrian Communities combining circle and line dancing. All ages and abilities are very welcome to join in!

Thanks to all who came to the bingo night on 18th October and congratulations to all the winners!




This month’s Family Roller Disco was a Halloween Special! Kindly funded by Southwark Council’s Getting Involved Grant.
 





We had such a wonderful Rockingham Late Summer Party on 7th September. Many thanks to all involved. Residents enjoyed live music from Arfoud Brothers and Sisters, Silent Ron and Sarah Bear; DJs, MCs and break dancing from Hiphopera Foundation; village fete games from Madcap; a keepie uppie competition - congratulations Ibrahim!; free refreshments; pool tournament, bouncy castle, and spending an enjoyable afternoon together. It was kindly funded by Southwark Council’s Neighbourhood Fund and Rockingham TRA.

Residents enjoyed a daytrip to Hastings on Saturday 17th August.
Many thanks to Southwark Council’s Neighbourhood Fund, Southwark Charities Funding and the TRA for covering the costs of the coach; everyone had a wonderful time at the seaside and we hope to arrange more trips out of town soon.



Thanks to all who came to our Spring Open Day on 13th April 2024.
We all had a lovely time and it was a great opportunity to meet some more of our neighbours. Some really wonderful artwork was created as well as some fantastic clay items (please do arrange to collect your pieces). Children enjoyed the kids zumba taster session and made giant bubbles outside, and the boxercise taster was a brilliant success! There was incredible facepainting and delicious food, all for free. Well done to all the volunteers for making it such a success.

Congratulations to our 8 new first aiders. It means we can have qualified residents at our Rockingham events.
The First Aid courses are funded by Southwark’s Getting Involved Grant and we hope to run another in the autumn.

Our family skate sessions are on the last Friday of the month from 4:30-6pm during term-time.

The community centre has been hosting Sunday Sounds, an acoustic cabaret, on the last Sunday of the month from 7-9:30pm.
We are having a short break from these sessions having outgrown the lounge and awaiting the acoustic sound panels to be installed in the hall.

Rockingham Gardening Sessions took place on the first Sunday of the month from March - October 2024 from 2-4pm.

The sessions were funded by Southwark Council’s ‘Getting Involved Grant’ and open to all residents. Led by community gardener Rose, the classes covered different aspects of growing including growing seeds, making compost, dealing with pests, watering and more.

Winter Gathering at the Community Centre
Saturday 20th January 2024 - 5pm-9pm

We all had a lovely time at the winter social, thanks so much to all who came. It was wonderful to meet so many new people from the Estate. Congratulations to Will from Longridge House who won the top prize in the bingo!

Community Day at the Community Centre
Saturday 2nd September 2023 - 11am-3pm

Thanks everyone who made it along to the community day. It was great to see the hall open and Rockingham residents enjoying the space. There were taster sessions for the upcoming classes at the community centre (see the Classes page) including Art, Taekwon-Do, Circus Skills and Zumba. Residents also participated in the Rockingham Heritage Project by recording their oldest memories of the Estate. The day gave people the opportunity to explore all the green spaces of the Estate on the Rockingham garden tour as well as finding out more about pollinators from Steve Bolton who came along from Butterfly Conservation. The kids loved the face painting, and some people went home with some new outfits from the clothes swap. And we all enjoyed the refreshments.