Now in its fourth year, I'm proud to be a sponsor of the E17 Art Trail, a firmly established event on the cultural calendar for Waltham Forest. This year there are 138 listings in 86 separate venues, representing an estimated 300 artists in total! The launch for the Art Trail will take place on Friday 5 September at the Vestry House Museum 6-9pm and continue afterwards at Ye Olde Rose and Crown Theatre Pub on Hoe Street.

The E17 Art Trail website is excellent and provides full details of all the different exhibitions. You may also have seen around Walthamstow the maps for the trail which show activities range from small showcases in people's houses, such as one taking place on Sunday 7 September of the work of local artist Alke Schmidt at 7 Aubrey Road between 12 - 6pm, or major exhibitions featuring a range of artists like the one at Inky Cuttlefish Studios which will showcase works by many local artists and will move on to Berlin and Durban, South Africa. You could have a go at being creative yourself at the craft workshops at the Hornbeam Centre on Hoe Street throughout the Art Trail for residents of all ages. Registration for workshops is appreciated, so to let them know you're coming or to find out more contact: 020 8558 6880, info@organiclea.org.uk.

Or if you would like to support our local artists when you're in central London, David Sullivan  is exhibiting in the The Threadneedle Prize exhibition at the Mall Galleries. The exhibition finishes on the 6 September. David will also be part in the e17 Art Trail, exhibiting at North Tutorial, a show of Royal College of Art painters which will be taking place at a brand new space for contemporary art in Walthamstow at The Red Room, on Richards Place which is behind the Rose and Crown.

Several readers have contacted me recently regarding plans for Walthamstow to join in the 2012 Live Sites project for the Olympic Games. This could involve the provision of a permanent 25sq metre screen in Walthamstow town centre. It will broadcast for sixteen hours a day and show a mix of national sporting and cultural events as well as local films and cultural endeavours too. The plan is for this screen to be in place by this August so that it can broadcast the Beijing Olympic games, with its contents being supported and managed by the BBC as well as Waltham Forest Council. These proposals are at an early stage and there are plans for a consultation on the scheme in the near future so if you would like to register interest in this scheme or learn more about how to participate in the planning process please get in touch.

Amongst its many great contributions to public life, Walthamstow has played a key role in the development of the British film industry. You can learn more about this at the free one-day film festival which is being run by the McGuffins's this Saturday, the 5th January 2008 at the Victoria Bar, 186 Hoe Street (adjacent to the EMD Cinema). This event will also commemorate five years since the closure of the EMD Cinema and celebrate the contributions to film made by the people of Waltham Forest. There will be a quick photocall outside the cinema at 5pm and festival will start at 5.30pm. The bill includes a documentary on the EMD "A Cinema Near You", a look at the role of Walthamstow in the development of the film industry "Hollywood E17"; Alfred Hitchcock's "Number Seventeen", a biopic on William Morris called "News from Nowhere" staring Timothy West and "It was an Accident" a gritty urban black comedy starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton and James Bolam filmed almost entirely on location around Waltham Forest. Further details about this event and the McGuffins group can be found at the McGuffin website: www.mcguffin.info.