Young people from Muirhouse Youth Development Group (MYDG) will be staging an art exhibition at North Edinburgh Arts Centre next week.
The Arts Cool and Urban Arts exhibition opens with a launch event at the arts centre on Thursday 29 March from 5.30 – 7.30pm, and everyone’s welcome!
For further informaiton email joanne@mydg.org.uk or telephone 332 3356.
Young people from Muirhouse Youth Development Group (MYDG) will be staging an art exhibition at North Edinburgh Arts Centre next week.
The Arts Cool and Urban Arts exhibition opens with a launch event at the arts centre on Thursday 29 March from 5.30 – 7.30pm, and everyone’s welcome!
For further informaiton email joanne@mydg.org.uk or telephone 332 3356.
West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre will be home to a new food co-op soon – and they need your help to name the new service.
They’re looking for a catchy name for the Food Co-op, which will sell fresh fruit and vegetables at competitive prices – and there’s a basket of fruit awaiting the winning entry.
To win the prize, pick up and fill in an entry form at West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre in West Pilton Grove. Closing date for entries is Wednesday 28 March and the winner will be selected the following day, so get your thinking caps on now!
Forthview Primary School celebrated the culmination of the year-long ‘Forth Views, Pilton People’ project with a film launch and photo exhibition at the school on 12 March.
The Friends of Forthview parents group received Lottery funding last year to ‘create new opportunities for local children and their families to acquire new skills and develop confidence and self-esteem through participation in exciting and innovative creative activities’. Since then, groups have been working hard on three different elements – and last week’s event was the perfect opportunity to showcase all that they’ve achieved.
Forthview Family Support Worker Tracey Berry (pictured below), who has worked with the group throughout the project, explained: “We carried out three projects which were geared towards the development of a caring tolerant and creative school and community. Adults and children worked together in an intergenerational and multicultural context to explore cultural similarities and differences with a focus on equality. The three projects were:-
Family Storytelling – We had two groups – one group for dads and their children, the other mums and their children. Each group worked to create a story book which can be used as a resource in our school. The adults and children were extremely enthusiastic and have produced three fabulous story books, with amazing themes – children shrinking the dads, children being rescued by mums from Volcano Island and Fairyland! An award from Radio Forth’s “Cash for Kids” allowed us to print many copies of each book.
Family Photography – Carers & children worked together to produce fun and unusual family portraits.
Film Making – This part of the project introduced carers to using digital media as a means of expression. The result was the production of the “Pathways to Pilton” film, which follows the diverse roads our children & their carers have travelled to reach Forthview School.”
It’s been a lot of hard work, but it was worth it and Forthview’s 12 March event proved to be a huge success, with participants joined by friends and family and the wider community too. Forthview’s new school choir got proceedings off to an upbeat start and this was followed by presentations by participants, who talked about what they had learned during the project and what it had meant to them. The premiere screening of the excellent ‘Pathways to Pilton’ film followed and the event was rounded off with an opportunity to visit an exhibition of work carried out during the year-long project and to meet and chat to participants.
There have been many paths to Forthview – no less than 28 different nationalities make up the school community, and others have made their way there following the closures of Inchview, Craigmuir and, more recently, Royston schools. It’s a fascinating story, and one man who has travelled further – and longer – than most is 102 year old Sam Martinez (pictured below), one of the stars of the film. Sam came to the UK from what was formerly British Honduras seventy years ago to help with the war effort – and he’s been here ever since!
The retired forestry worker was joined at the event by granddaughter Stacey and her son Sam, who is a P5 pupil at Forthview (youngest son Jack attends the school’s nursery). Sam’s never had any regrets about leaving home to come to Edinburgh. “The road has been open and smooth – no obstructions. This is a wonderful place”, he said.
North and Leith MP Mark Lazarowicz attended the celebration event. “This has really been a tremendous occasion. The film was very impressive and the exhibition is fascinating. Congratulations to everyone at Forthview – you should be very proud indeed”.
Drylaw film student Kevin Pickering will be going back to the future when he starts filming his latest project next month. Needing funding to support his latest project, the Edinburgh College of Art student turned to new ‘crowd-funding’ website Bloom to appeal for backers – and Kevin’s ‘Wake Up Call’ has become the first project to reach it’s target on Bloom. Now Kevin can revisit a story he first told on an award-winning short film film ten years ago.
Bloom Venture Catalyst is the first crowdfunding platform of its kind in the UK, enabling anyone with an idea, anywhere in the world, to reach out and receive donations from across the globe, using their social networks. The company, which launched last November, offers an alternative route to finance for startups, community projects and social enterprises. Kevin became the first in Scotland to crowdfund his new movie, reaching his target in just four days and going on to raise 46% more than his target by the end of the crowdfunding campaign.
Bloom’s Amanda Boyle said Kevin’s project was a perfect example of how to pitch and run a crowdfunding campaign. She said: “Wake Up Call was a great story told well, and Kev put the effort in to make his campaign a success. He reached out to his friends and family first to ask for their support and create a series of fab rewards. Who wouldn’t want to be credited as Executive Produce on a film? Kev made the connections, put the effort in and reaped the rewards. This project was one destined to win from the outset.”
Kevin was a young Royal High School pupil when he made ‘Wake Me Up’, and he now plans to take up the story where the original tale left off – and he’s tracked down the original cast members to make the sequel.
“I have always been passionate about film and cinema and I was fortunate enough to win an award from First Light to make ‘Wake Me Up’. We had a budget of £10,000 to make the film – that was a lot of money then; it still is! Even now it’s the biggest budget I’ve ever worked with. The film premiered at The Odeon cinema in Leicester Square and that was quite a buzz – ‘Wake Me Up’ went down really well”.
Since that 2002 breakthrough, Kevin has gone on to make a succession of critically acclaimed low-budget films, many of which focus on the darker elements of human nature and the criminal underworld. Now, with funding raised through the Bloom ‘crowd funding’ website, he will make a sequel to the film that set him on the road all those years ago.
“I had been thinking about making a sequel to ‘Wake Me Up’ for a long time, it was always something I wanted to return to at some stage”, he said. “Due to other filming and college commitments I’ve not really had the time to think about the project in detail, but late last year I wrote a draft script for ‘Wake Up Call’ and decided to seek out funding sources that would allow me to make the new film”.
Kevin pitched his idea on Bloom, a new ‘crowd funding’ website, appealing for financial support. He set a very small target, looking for only £400, but offers of support steadily rolled in. When the closing date was reached over £600 had been pledged.
“That might not seem like a lot of money – and nothing like the budget we had for ‘Wake Me Up’, but I have done my sums and, together with the money I am putting in myself, I think that will be enough to make the movie and do it justice. People, especially family, have been very generous,” Kevin explained. “So much changes in ten years – people change, life changes and I thought it would be interesting so look at how the lives of the main characters in the original film had developed – for better and worse. My idea was to track down as many of the original cast as I could to give the new film a real authenticity, and fortunately every one I contacted agreed to come on board. Rehearsals are under way and I’m very excited about how the new film is developing.”
‘Wake Up Call’ will be shot in Edinburgh next month with the release planned to coincide with the tenth anniversary of ‘Wake Me Up’ in October.
Drylaw film student Kevin Pickering will be going back to the future when he starts filming his latest project next month. Needing funding to support his latest project, the Edinburgh College of Art student turned to new ‘crowd-funding’ website Bloom to appeal for backers – and Kevin’s ‘Wake Up Call’ has become the first project to reach it’s target on Bloom. Now Kevin can revisit a story he first told on an award-winning short film film ten years ago.
Bloom Venture Catalyst is the first crowdfunding platform of its kind in the UK, enabling anyone with an idea, anywhere in the world, to reach out and receive donations from across the globe, using their social networks. The company, which launched last November, offers an alternative route to finance for startups, community projects and social enterprises. Kevin became the first in Scotland to crowdfund his new movie, reaching his target in just four days and going on to raise 46% more than his target by the end of the crowdfunding campaign.
Bloom’s Amanda Boyle said Kevin’s project was a perfect example of how to pitch and run a crowdfunding campaign. She said: “Wake Up Call was a great story told well, and Kev put the effort in to make his campaign a success. He reached out to his friends and family first to ask for their support and create a series of fab rewards. Who wouldn’t want to be credited as Executive Produce on a film? Kev made the connections, put the effort in and reaped the rewards. This project was one destined to win from the outset.”
Kevin was a young Royal High School pupil when he made ‘Wake Me Up’, and he now plans to take up the story where the original tale left off – and he’s tracked down the original cast members to make the sequel.
“I have always been passionate about film and cinema and I was fortunate enough to win an award from First Light to make ‘Wake Me Up’. We had a budget of £10,000 to make the film – that was a lot of money then; it still is! Even now it’s the biggest budget I’ve ever worked with. The film premiered at The Odeon cinema in Leicester Square and that was quite a buzz – ‘Wake Me Up’ went down really well”.
Since that 2002 breakthrough, Kevin has gone on to make a succession of critically acclaimed low-budget films, many of which focus on the darker elements of human nature and the criminal underworld. Now, with funding raised through the Bloom ‘crowd funding’ website, he will make a sequel to the film that set him on the road all those years ago.
“I had been thinking about making a sequel to ‘Wake Me Up’ for a long time, it was always something I wanted to return to at some stage”, he said. “Due to other filming and college commitments I’ve not really had the time to think about the project in detail, but late last year I wrote a draft script for ‘Wake Up Call’ and decided to seek out funding sources that would allow me to make the new film”.
Kevin pitched his idea on Bloom, a new ‘crowd funding’ website, appealing for financial support. He set a very small target, looking for only £400, but offers of support steadily rolled in. When the closing date was reached over £600 had been pledged.
“That might not seem like a lot of money – and nothing like the budget we had for ‘Wake Me Up’, but I have done my sums and, together with the money I am putting in myself, I think that will be enough to make the movie and do it justice. People, especially family, have been very generous,” Kevin explained. “So much changes in ten years – people change, life changes and I thought it would be interesting so look at how the lives of the main characters in the original film had developed – for better and worse. My idea was to track down as many of the original cast as I could to give the new film a real authenticity, and fortunately every one I contacted agreed to come on board. Rehearsals are under way and I’m very excited about how the new film is developing.”
‘Wake Up Call’ will be shot in Edinburgh next month with the release planned to coincide with the tenth anniversary of ‘Wake Me Up’ in October.
The Craigroyston Primary School community celebrated last week when participants in the FAST programme received certificates following the completion of the project. Friends and families were joined by senior Children and Families officer Maureen Bryce and Save the Children’s Douglas Hamilton at the ‘graduation ceremony’.
Craigroyston was first school in the city to launch FAST, an innovative eight week programme which aims to help children to succeed at home, in school and in their communities by building strong relationships.
FAST – Family and Schools Together – is an evidence-based programme that has been shown to help children become successful learners. The FAST programme provides learning opportunities for children to develop confidence, take responsibility and contribute to the family, school and the wider community. The programme promotes an ethos of acceptance, trust, and respect and research has shown that FAST activities promote family communication, stability and cohesion.
Craigroyston Depute Head Teacher Ann Gallagher explained: “The team who run FAST is made up of school staff, parents, community workers and volunteers. The team goes through two days of training before running the eight week programme – the final week is a ‘Graduation ceremony’ to which special guests are invited. The idea comes from America and the sessions are made up of activities which involve families doing things together. The children then have ‘kids time’, where various activities are organized only for the children – things like sports activities, arts and crafts, ICT, and story time – and this means the parents can then have ‘parents time’ where the adults have a chance to talk together.”
She went on: “The main activity after that is called ‘special play’ when the adult has 15 minutes of uninterrupted one-to-one time to enjoy playing with one child in their family with special play resources. Groups are focused round 3 ‘hubs’ which have approximately 10 families in each, and one family each week provides a meal for their ‘hub’. It is targeted at children between the ages of three to eight but siblings can come along too.”
The programme proved very popular with participants. Mum Tina has two boys at Craigroyston and she really enjoyed the experience. “It’s really been amazing”, she said. “You spend time with the bairns and time with other adults too. I think I enjoy it more than the kids do! It’s so important to be able to spend time ‘one on one’ – it’s helping us a lot”.
Kerry – who has children at nursery and in school – agreed. “It’s been great, really good fun. I’ve had a lot of laughs with the other mums and I’m really glad we have taken part. We’ve all learned quite a lot and I hope they run the programme again”.
Save The Children’s Douglas Hamilton said: “The project has clearly been a great success and it’s been a pleasure to have been here to join in the celebrations. Well done to everyone who has been involved in the programme – it’s a fantastic achievement”.
The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Right Reverend David Arnott, visited Muirhouse St Andrew’s Parish Church on Monday. David met the kids of the Messy Church Monday Group, joining in play activities and showing that he’s a real dab hand at quoits!
Welcoming the Moderator was Muirhouse St Andrew’s locum minister Linda Dunbar. The pair (pictured below) are old friends – David was Linda’s ‘boss’ when she was in her final year of training for the ministry in St Andrews in 2000.
Comely Bank’s Flora Stevenson Primary School was evacuated yesterday when asbestos was discovered during building maintenance work.
Speaking last night, Head of Schools Mike Rosendale said: “Pupils at Flora Stevenson’s Primary School were relocated to a local high school on Thursday morning as a precaution, after a small amount of asbestos was disturbed. An independent inspection was carried out on Thurdsay afternoon and has indicated that the building is safe. A full clean will now take place with the aim of reopening the school on Monday. We would like to thank all parents and staff for their cooperation and assistance.”
