Day: September 8, 2013

The search is on for community-minded individuals who want to make a difference in their local area.

Nominations are now being sought for people to take up places on all of the Capital’s 42 Community Councils, which offer an opportunity for the City of Edinburgh Council and local communities to work together.

The first Community Councils were established in Edinburgh in 1980 in Merchiston and Longstone, and more than 500 people are now members.

They each receive a grant to cover running costs and training is available. They are represented on each of the city’s 12 Neighbourhood Partnerships and work alongside elected members, representatives from NHS Lothian, Police Scotland, the voluntary sector and Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to improve local areas and to allocate local grants.

Anyone aged 16 years or older and registered to vote can join. Nomination forms are available here and the nomination period ends on September 23.

 

 

If you live in Edinburgh and provide unpaid care to family, friends and neighbours, you can have your say on how public and voluntary organisations can provide you with better support.

The City of Edinburgh Council has launched a consultation on its draft Joint Carers’ Strategy, developed in partnership with NHS Lothian, the voluntary sector and carers themselves.
The Joint Carers’ Strategy, and consultation, covers six priorities:

• identifying carers – helping people who care for others realise they can get support
• information and advice – carer training, advice, help with finances and benefits
• health and wellbeing – emotional, social and practical support to improve health
• short breaks and respite – giving carers a break from caring
• young adult carers – supporting the transition to adulthood for carers
• personalising support for carers – support that meets the individual needs of carers

The Council offers a range of support to carers, including a pilot scheme to provide a one-off Carer Support Payment of £250, which was recently highlighted as an example of best practice by the Scottish Government. The payment was made available to unpaid carers, adult and young carers who met the criteria, allowing them to spend some time on themselves to improve their health and wellbeing.

Another successful scheme has been the Carer’s Emergency Card, which was launched in November 2012. These cards are designed to inform emergency services that the holder is a carer and that someone depends on them. It also provides the names of people who can be contacted in case of an emergency. To date 258 carer’s cards have been registered and these will continue to be promoted.

Both schemes received positive feedback in a newly published carers’ survey, designed to evaluate these and other initiatives. The Carer Support Payment proved to be particularly popular, with 738 payments made to adult and young carers. 84% of people in receipt of the fund said that it provided them with the support as they intended and 30% chose to spend the money on respite or a short break.

A pilot has been launched to encourage Edinburgh’s growing small to medium sized business sector to connect to superfast broadband.

The scheme is part of the UK Government’s £150 million super connected cities programme and is being delivered locally through Business Gateway.

Vouchers will be awarded to businesses to help cover the installation costs of connecting to superfast broadband services up to the value of £3,000. Businesses will pay the VAT costs and the ongoing subscription. The pilot is open until the end of September with the application process taking a couple of weeks to complete, therefore businesses need to move quickly to take advantage of the opportunity.

To qualify for a voucher, applicants should be small to medium sized or be a third sector organisation located in the City of Edinburgh Council area, have fewer than 250 employees and a turnover of less than £40m. Further information and the application form can be found at www.connectionvouchers.co.uk/edinburgh.

Sainsbury’s Blackhall have got their big bike ride under way. Last week a
spin bike arrived in store until Sunday. Colleagues will be taking turns
to cycle the distance from Nairn to Carlise in store whilst other
colleagues take to the road and cycle the route stopping in at
Sainsbury’s stores along the way to fundraise for Maggie’s.

Gail and Aidan cycling today in-store said ‘customers have been very generous and a lot of them have personal experience with Maggie’s’s.