A Moment of Peace Day

Sister Anne from St Pauls RC Church Muirhouse and Centipede Project are delighted to welcome everyone in North Edinburgh to “A Moment of Peace Day.” Sister Anne has put a lot of time and effort in to arranging this in conjunction with the Centipede Project; she is someone who is passionate about North Edinburgh and how the community coming together can make a big difference.

Date for the Diary: “A Moment of Peace Day”

Tuesday 9^th October 10. 30am – 2.30pm

North Edinburgh Arts – 15a Pennywell Court

Free snack lunch will be provided

All Welcome

Sister Anne is hoping that people will take a few hours out their busy lives and join her and others in a calm environment for a while. This free event will have meditation sessions as well a fun aspect with Laughing Yoga and more.

Why not come along to this fantastic event and enjoy the calm environment? You can either join us all for the full event 10.30am – 2.30pm or stay for as long as you like.

Sister Anne would like to thank the Centipede Project for their support, for more information on the Centipede Project visit www.centipedeproject.co.uk or email centipedeproject@gmail.com

Robert Pearson

Welfare reform: getting the facts in Forth

The current reform of welfare and benefit payments is the biggest to be undertaken for over sixty years. Whether you agree with the reforms or not, the changes will affect hundreds of thousands of people across the country. How will you be affected? Find out at a briefing and information session later this month.

Forth Neighbourhood Partnership’s Health Action Group is hosting a briefing on the Welfare Reform Act on

Wednesday 17 October from 10 – 11.30am in West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre.

Granton Information Centre’s Roddy Samson (pictured below) will be leading the session – which is aimed at local community, voluntary and statutory organisations – and there will be ample opportunity for questions and discussions.

Roddy Samson said: “The Welfare Reform Act 2012 introduces the greatest changes to welfare benefits in sixty years. These changes will have far reaching impacts for benefit claimants and their families, particularly for vulnerable people and the services which support them. The impact of these changes will affect those in receipt of Incapacity Benefit, Employment Support Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, Housing Benefit, Working Tax Credits and Job Seekers Allowance. This event will give you the opportunity to learn about the latest details of the Government’s welfare reform programme and help you to understand the new system and prepare for the changes ahead – where possible.”

To find out more or to book your place at the West Pilton briefing, contact Forth Neighbourhood Partnership’s partnership development officer Jim Pattison on 529 5082 or email jim.pattison@edinburgh.gov.uk

Going Forth with Granton Youth Centre

Nae work? Nae money? Nae chance? Nae choice? Bored? Nowt to do?

Granton Youth Centre’s Go Forth team can help find you work, support you to make money and offer you choices and chances to improve you and your life.

Contact Jamie, Mary or Tracey on 467 5854 or just drop in for an informal chat at Granton Youth Centre at 3 – 11 West Granton Road (near Granton Square) – it might just change your life!

Invite to bfriends at Prentice Centre!

Paul Burke writes:

“As the Project Development Worker for CHILDREN 1ST bfriends service in North and West Edinburgh, I would like to invite you along to an Open day on Friday 12 October from 12 – 2pm at our base in The Prentice Centre at 1 Granton Mains Avenue.

In April 2012, CHILDREN 1ST re-opened its bfriends base in North Edinburgh and we feel this will be a nice opportunity to meet with local agencies and let everyone know more about our service, volunteers and the young people we work with. Please try to pop along any time between 12-2pm – as we are meeting over lunch time, we will provide a small buffet so you won’t miss out on lunch!”

If you plan to attend you can contact Paul at paul.burke@children1st.org.uk or telephone 552 8265.

Take part in Sainsbury’s ‘Million Meal Appeal’ this weekend

Sainsbury’s Blackhall colleagues are encouraging residents to help tackle food poverty this October by taking part in a nationwide food-drive run by Sainsbury’s and FareShare, the national charity tackling hunger across the UK. The second annual Million Meal Appeal takes place this weekend on Saturday 6^th and Sunday 7^th October and will benefit more than 700 charities and projects across the UK.

Last year’s ‘Million Meal Appeal’, which took place on Saturday 26^th November, was a huge success and involved 600 Sainsbury’s stores including Blackhall. Thanks to customers’ generosity, together with Sainsbury’s pledge to match donations, FareShare could deliver food for over 1.2 million meals to 700 charities and community projects it supports. Blackhall residents’ contribution was significant, with enough food collected at the retailer’s Blackhall store to provide 4000 donations to charities across the UK including Granton Youth Centre.

This year’s appeal will see over 900 stores involved in the two-day food-drive to help 720 charities and community projects which FareShare supports. Customers will again be able to choose to donate an item from the Million Meal Appeal shopping list which consists of long-life products including tinned goods, dried pasta, pasta sauce, rice, tea and instant coffee. The items are purchased as normal and then placed in the collection box after checkout. Customers shopping on Sainsbury’s Online can also choose to make a £1 donation between 3 – 9 October.

Sainsbury’s Community Affairs Manager Andy White said: “We had such an overwhelming response from our customers to last year’s initiative and we’re excited to be working with FareShare on the second ‘Million Meal Appeal’. The total of 1.2 million meals donated in 2011 would be enough to feed a sold-out London Olympic stadium 15 times! We hope from this year’s campaign that we can further raise the awareness of food poverty in the UK and support those charities and projects that need our help.”

Assisting in the food drive will be local volunteers who are currently being recruited by FareShare. Potential volunteers are encouraged to visit www.fareshare.org.uk with their family and friends to register. Participants will be able to choose their preferred Sainsbury’s store to volunteer at and have the choice of a morning or afternoon shift.

Lindsay Boswell, CEO, FareShare, added: “The Million Meal Appeal has come at a crucial time. Around 5.8 million people live in deep poverty in the UK, meaning they struggle to afford everyday essentials like food. I hope many Sainsbury’s Blackhall customers can support the Appeal and help us to provide even more food to the charities and community projects we support across the country”.

NEN AGM Minutes

NORTH EDINBURGH NEWS Ltd

NORTH EDINBURGH NEWS MEDIA & COMMUNICATION TRUST

Annual General Meeting

27th September 2012 07:00pm in Drylaw Parish Church.

MINUTES

Present:

As per Attendance Sheet.

In Attendance:

Dave Pickering (Editor)

The meeting was chaired by Martin Hinds who opened the meeting and welcomed everyone.

Apologies:

Councillor Cammy Day, Stuart McIvor.

Previous Minutes:

Approved by Eddie Thorn & seconded by Willie Black.

Chairperson’s Report:

Martin Hinds opened by saying that since the last AGM, 18 months ago, in which there was fear it might have been the last and along with the sale of the office at Crewe Road North, the future looked very bleak. Following on from a successful Community Conference in Telford College, however, which generated a lot of support, it was agreed that a community paper with a successful history of 30 years should just not be allowed to die. The board with that support and with the residue of funds left over, decided that the paper should not be allowed to disappear and plans were put in place to keep the NEN going, mainly in the early days via the Blog, and slowly build up to the re-launch in February. This was mainly down to the hard work of Dave Pickering (Editor) and Alan Lennon (Lennon Design) who redesigned the paper, and the board of directors both old and new, Martin expressed his thanks to all for their hard work to get where we are today. Martin also thanked Scotmid & PCA for their sponsorship each of an edition. He added that the Board had been in getting a community grant from the Inverleith Partnership, which would allow the NEN to start a series of Social Media Workshops (NENgage) and hopefully the end product will produce a community reporter(s) for the paper.

Martin closed on a note of caution with regards to the finance side in which he explained that unless there is a significant uptake in advertising income the paper had only enough funds left to produce 2 more editions (October & December). With this in mind he, along with 3 fellow members of the board, met with local councillors from both Forth & Inverleith wards to look at ways of increasing funds. The outcome is an application for a grant, which will be made to both Forth & Inverleith Partnerships for sponsorship, which would enable the paper to continue into next year. By this time it was hoped that some form of partnership working could be agreed with the Council.

There followed a fairly long debate on the future plus various suggestions were made. Board noted them and they will be fully discussed at future board meetings.

Editor’s Report:

Dave Pickering opened by remarking that a lot had happened since the last AGM and a lot has changed. In fact he had not envisaged another NEN AGM, but because of the hard work of the board members, who refused to let the paper die, we are here tonight!. It is all down to them, volunteers who have given up their own time and because of that the community owes them a debt of gratitude that the NEN is still here, clinging on but surviving.

Follow the success of re-launching the paper the other major success story is that of the blog with 90 blog followers, 410 twitters & 52 facebook ‘friends’ . On average the blog is visited 300 times per day and because of that we are looking at ways to try and get paid advertising on to the blog.

Dave ended with his thanks to the board and to the community for sticking with us so far and looked forward to continued support in the future.

Appointment of Auditor:

The meeting agreed to the re-appointment of Alison Glass as Auditor.

Finance Report:

Eddie Thorn Company Secretary/Treasurer produced and explained the Accounts for Year ending 31^st March 2012 for both the NEN Ltd & NEN Media & Communication Trust.

There were no questions with regard to the accounts.

Councillor Hinds gave thanks to Eddie for a clear and precise set of accounts.

Nominations/Election of the Board:

Martin Hinds reported that Thomas Brown had resigned from the board.

Martin Hinds moved- That the existing board with exception of Thomas be re–elected. This was unanimously agreed. There were no other nominations.

AOCB:

One Question on NENgage : If was still possible to attend the Workshops. Dave explained that it was still possible. The next one is on Thursday October 4 ^th in Stockbridge Library.

Date of Next Meeting:

In 12 months’ time in a place and time to be confirmed.

Alex Dale,

1^st October 2012