Top Award for Botanic Garden’s night light show

The Night in the Garden event at The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) has been named as one of the best museum projects in the UK at the Museums & Heritage Awards for Excellence.

The project was a magical combination of light and nature – the first outdoor light experience of its kind to be organised by the Garden – was open to visitors between 30 October and 23 November. It was named as the winner in the Trading and Enterprise category at the Awards, presented by comedian and TV personality Marcus Brigstocke yesterday at the Historic State Rooms of 8 Northumberland Avenue in central London.

Accepting the award, RBGE Director of Enterprise Heather Jackson said: “It is a particular honour to be recognised by our peers. Now, our ambition is to build on the success of that inaugural event and create an evolving annual experience that will showcase the Garden and inspire visitors to support the wider research and conservation work of the organisation.”

The Awards are judged by a panel of senior sector professionals including Bernard Donoghue (Director, Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA), Diane Lees (Director General, Imperial War Museums), Matthew Tanner (Chief Executive of ss Great Britain), Sam Mullins (Director of the London Transport Museum), Maggie Appleton (Chief Executive, RAF Museum), Diana Owen (Director, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust) and Stephen Duncan (Director of Commercial and Tourism, Historic Scotland).

The judges commented: “This organisation successfully managed to maximise the opportunity to generate additional income during a period which was traditionally quiet, managing to attract crowds to the great outdoors during winter, paving the way for a future programme of revenue-generating events.”Now celebrating its thirteenth year, the annual Awards, created by The Museums + Heritage Show, recognise the leading lights of the heritage sector and celebrate excellence and innovation at museums, galleries and visitor attractions across the UK and Europe.

Hundreds of sector professionals joined together at the ceremony – the ‘Oscars’ of the museums and heritage industry – to celebrate the groundbreaking achievements and spectacular projects taking place in cultural attractions over the past 12 months.

Among the night’s big winners were London’s Imperial War Museum’s WW1 galleries that walked away with the top honour of the ‘Best Permanent Exhibition’ accolade. While Michael Day, Chief Executive of the Historic Royal Palaces received the award for Outstanding Contribution by an Individual to the heritage sector.

Other 2015 winners were Kent Life Wildlife Farm Park for Outstanding Customer Service; The Black Country Museum for Project on a Limited Budget and Renfrewshire District Council took the award for the best restoration project for its work to restore the Grand Fountain in Paisley.

The winner of the International Award was Tinker Imagineers from Rotterdam for the DOMunder archaeological visitor experience, while the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh received the Winstan Bond Trophy for Trading and Enterprise.

Other winners included The National Trust for Scotland in Partnership with Historic Scotland & Designers Bright White Ltd which walked away with the Innovations award; Oxford University Museum of Natural History took the top Marketing award and London’s Historic Royal Palace’ ground-breaking installation, Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red was named as the best Temporary or Touring exhibition.

The winners and highly commended entries (listed below) are a reflection of the industry’s resilience. Each museum, cultural and heritage visitor attraction is recognised for its excellence – whether for an innovative and groundbreaking exhibition or for making a considerable achievement on the smallest of budgets.

2015 WINNERS & HIGHLY COMMENDED

OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION BY AN INDIVIDUAL

Michael Day, Chief Executive, Historic Royal Palaces

CUSTOMER SERVICE AWARD
Sponsored by BDRC Continental

Kent Life Heritage Farm Park: More than a Guest, More than a Vision, More than a Job

Highly Commended: The Lightbox: The Lightbox Front of House Team

INTERNATIONAL AWARD
Sponsored by Martello Media

TINKER imagineers: DOMunder: archaeological visitor experience

Highly Commended: Natura Artis Magistra, Micropia

PROJECT ON A LIMITED BUDGET
Sponsored by Sweett

Black Country Museum: WW1 Greengrocers

Highly Commended: Woodhorn Museum: Stand up for Woodhorn: Making a Case for Comedy in Museums

RESTORATION OR CONSERVATION
Sponsored by FWA Group
· Renfrewshire Council: The Grand Fountain Restoration, Paisley

Highly Commended: Coventry Transport Museum: 1916 Maudslay Subsidy Chassis

WINSTAN BOND TROPHY FOR TRADING & ENTERPRISE
Supported by Association of Independent Museums

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh: Botanic Lights: Night in the Garden

INNOVATIONS AWARD
The National Trust for Scotland in Partnership with Historic Scotland & Designers Bright White Ltd: The Battle of Bannockburn Visitor Centre

High;y Commended: Mather & Co on behalf of Manchester City Council: Archives +

MARKETING CAMPAIGN
Sponsored by Volunteer Makers

Oxford University: Museum of Natural History Goes To Town

Highly Cemmended: Imperial War Museums: First World War Galleries

PERMANENT EXHIBITION
Sponsored by Martello Media

Imperial War Museums London and Casson Mann: First World War Galleries

Highly Commended: The National Trust for Scotland in Partnership with Historic Scotland & Designers Bright White Ltd: The Battle of Bannockburn Visitor Centre

EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVE
Sponsored by Arts Award

Imperial War Museums: Transforming Imperial War Museums London Learning Projects – JOINT WINNER

· Shakespeare Birthplace Trust: Shakespeare Week – JOINT WINNER

TEMPORARY OR TOURING EXHIBITION

Historic Royal Palaces: Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red

Highly Commended: The Royal Air Force Museum: Pilots of the Caribbean

CULTURE PROS PICK
In partnership with The Guardian Culture Professionals Network

People’s History Museum in Manchester

Beltane to spark a celebration of summer

Organisers have released details of how Edinburgh’s world-famous Beltane Fire Festival will mark the coming of summer tonight.

The Beltane Fire Society, the charity of volunteers who run the event on 30 April each year, say the modern take on an ancient celtic festival will be an incredible spectacle. They want everyone – locals and tourists, old hands and those new to the event – to book tickets now and be part of the celebration.

Beltane Fire Festival takes place as the sun sets on the last night of April (gates open 8pm), at Calton Hill. This year hundreds of specialist volunteer performers will welcome in the summer with more than 40 drums; fire dancing, fire sculptures and flame torches; a huge performance of physical theatre on the national monument; a procession of weird and wonderful characters awakening from their winter sleep around the hill; and the lighting of a huge bonfire by the incarnation of summer, the May Queen, and her counterpart the Green Man.

The 2015 Beltane will incorporate new elements too. Performers will be using fire in dramatic ways not seen before, and there will be the international debut of interactive sound and light performance ‘Spark’.

The festival will also include a faerie garden of giant, glowing toadstools and mushrooms made from candle wax reclaimed from Edinburgh’s underground caves. Also this year, the Incorporation of Candlemakers of Edinburgh will take part in the event. The candlemakers were part of Beltane celebrations in the Capital as far back as medieval times.

Lila O’Leary, Festival Secretary of the Beltane Fire Society, said: “Beltane is a huge community project, kept alive and reinvented every year by hundreds of dedicated volunteers. The night itself is always special, the result of months of hard work, and this year will be particularly impressive. We’re going all out with dazzling fire performances, mysterious characters and stunning costumes. Beltane is something we are really proud of and we want people across Edinburgh – and Scotland – to get tickets, join us on the night and be proud too.”

The modern Beltane Fire Festival has run since 1988 and is the spring and summer counterpart to Samhuinn Fire Festival, which is held in the city centre on 31 October. The events are modern re-imaginings of ancient celtic festivals marking the turning seasons. The Beltane Fire Society is a charity run by volunteers, dedicated to marking the fire festivals of the ancient celtic calendar and keeping traditional Scottish skills of street theatre, music and pageantry alive.

Advance tickets are available via The Hub and www.beltane.org from £10 + booking fee, and at the event gate, subject to availability

Local learners on a high!

Local young people short-listed for learners award

Late last year I spent time with a bright and enthusiastic group of young adults at Royston Wardieburn Community Centre to plan a piece of work. Their mission? To choose a subject of relevance to young people, research and then write an article on that subject for North Edinburgh News.

The group has now produced their article (see below) – and all their hard work is to be recognised too!

Community Learning & Development tutor Karen Riddell, who supported the group during the project, explained: “They really were a vibrant group of young people with strong opinions and it was great to see them engage with the topic and undertake the various activities related to building their skills and putting the article together.

“The group was nominated for an Edinburgh Adult Learners Achievement Award and I’m delighted to say that they have been short-listed for an award in the Young Adults Category.”

The Tomorrow’s People team will learn their fate at an event at the City Chambers on 20 May. Fingers crossed for you, guys – and here’s your article …

LEGAL HIGHS: Is It Worth It?

Local young people speak out against ‘legal highs’

We are a group of young people from Pilton who have just spent 16 weeks on the Tomorrow’s People employability programme. Part of our course helped us brush up on our literacy and critical thinking skills through a weekly CLD Practical Journalism course held at Royston Wardieburn Community Centre.

Dave Pickering, the editor at the North Edinburgh News, very kindly gave us the opportunity to write an article for his paper, so after much debate we decided to research and write about Legal Highs.

We compiled a local survey and found out that most of the young people who responded to the survey had either used Legal Highs or knew someone who had. The main reasons cited were: they were easy to get, friends were trying them, they’re cheap – at least half the price of illegal drugs, they give you a really good high, taking them gives you something to do, boredom and peer pressure.

Even although a high percentage of young people surveyed had used them without any serious long term consequences, we did find out that at least 68 people died last year as a direct result of using them, so they are not quite as harmless as some people think.

We found that their name made them quite misleading and people thought it meant they were pretty safe to use. The truth is that drugs councilors now advise their clients to stick to their heroin as legal highs are even more dangerous, burning the skin as it is injected and causing blistering and serious infection.

Most people who completed the questionnaire had also tried illegal drugs and strongly felt that these were safer than Legal highs. As a group, we definitely agreed with that.

We also feel that the government are failing to make drug taking safer. No matter what you might feel about drugs, a lot of people from literally all walks of life use them and are going to continue to do so. David Cameron dodges the issue for fear of losing votes and insists that ‘What is in place is working’ despite the fact that over 2500 people died from drugs-related causes last year in the UK.

Is it not time to follow Portugal and make drugs a health issue rather than a criminal one so that people are offered more protection? In Portugal they found that de-criminalising it didn’t bring about any increase in the level of drug use by people and also that millions was saved on the essentially ineffectual enforcement of drug laws.

Across Europe clubs have drug-testing facilities so that people can test substances before they take them – surely that must offer people more protection than kidding on that ‘what is in place is working’!

A recent Home Office report that we looked at said that having tough drugs laws didn’t make any difference to the level of drug use but Home Secretary Teresa May had this part of the report removed and it was only found out about when Norman Baker revealed the findings after he resigned! This just goes to show that governments make useless drug laws to kid on they are in control of the problem when they’re really just doing it as a vote catcher.

Present policy bears no relation to the reality of people’s recreational drug use and it’s time for the government to introduce some new policies to protect its citizens and not put their own vote-catching first.

We need much better drug education to help us keep ourselves safe, and the obvious place for this to take place is in schools. We felt strongly that a peer to peer support programme in schools would help young people make informed choices about drug use and help keep them safer.

Our research found that young people felt there needed to be far more opportunities for young people in the work-place and much better affordable or subsidised recreational facilities to offer them the chance to experience other kinds of ‘legal highs’, their own ‘natural highs’ like ski-ing, skating, abseiling, snow-boarding, canoeing, dirt-biking, go-karting etc. Risk-taking is part of brain-development for young people and we need to offer them the opportunity to explore this in a safer environment.

Drugs become a problem when there is little else in the drug users lives. We found out that in an experiment, mice which were separated from other mice kept going back to drink the drug-laced water whereas mice that lived in groups didn’t. The experiment showed that lack of strong emotional bonds in your life can drive you to bond with legal highs or drugs instead.

They say it takes a community to bring up a child so that’s why it’s very important for us to work together to stop the reckless experimentation that can lead to addiction, to value the young people of Pilton and provide them with the support they need to keep their use of drugs and alcohol to an acceptable level and help them realise their potential.

It seems to us that one of the worst thing about legal highs is the hypocrisy of supposedly ‘respectable’ shop-keepers who are prepared to stock them in the full knowledge that people, especially young people, buy them to consume them. We feel a local campaign should be set up to stop these shops from selling them.

Good websites:

(1)Anyone’s Child; Families for Safer Drug Control – www.anyoneschild.org

(2) Release.org

Gruffalo enjoys a Big Lunch in Stockbridge!

Edinburgh City Libraries and The Big Lunch organised a special Gruffalo-themed storytime event for parents and children in Stockbridge Library yesterday. The event was launched by Councillor Richard Lewis, City of Edinburgh’s Convener for Culture and Sport.

Toddlers were treated to a Gruffalo themed Big Lunch and Bookbug session. Bookbug sessions are regular free events for babies, toddlers, pre-schoolers and their families to enjoy together and meet others in the local area. The children joined in with a reading of the popular story and then enjoyed some songs, rhymes and party treats.

The Big Lunch – the UK’s annual get-together for neighbours – is funded by The Big Lottery Fund and partnered by Halifax and ASDA. Now in its seventh year, the simple idea from the Eden Project aims to provide neighbours with an opportunity to get to know one another better. The Big Lunch takes place on the first Sunday in June each year – this year it’s 7 June.

The Gruffalo is The Big Lunch’s animated ambassador this year and The Big Lunch in Scotland has partnered with the Scottish Book Trust and Bookbug to help encourage more Scottish communities to take part.Councillor Richard Lewis said: “We wanted to tie in with The Big Lunch this year as there is a shared community ethos between the campaign and the work we do in our libraries. Libraries are a community hub and an important local resource. We know that Bookbug sessions are popular with young families acoss the city. This is especially important as being a new parent can be an isolating time and having additional support within the community can really help.”

“Initiatives like The Big Lunch are encouraging people to break the ice with their neighbours in a fun and easy way. We’ve loved supporting the campaign and hope to hear of lots of lunching going on in Edinburgh this June on Big Lunch day!”

Edinburgh neighbours are being encouraged to host Big Lunch events to help build community spirit and connect with those they live beside.

Anyone who is interested in getting involved can get started by requesting a free Big Lunch pack from www.thebiglunch.com. Packs contain invitations and posters to adapt for your community, Gruffalo stickers as well as seeds, recipes and activity ideas.

All pack materials are undated so communities can have a Big Lunch when best suits them if they can’t join in on Sunday 7 June. For more information, please contact Emma at The Big Lunch in Scotland on emma.smith@thebiglunch.com or 0141 559 5066.

A new future for historic Madelvic House?

Open Day: Saturday 9 May @11am.

Madelvic House, Granton Park Avenue,

Edinburgh, EH5 1HS

OPEN DAY POSTER 9TH MAY

We are a community group in Granton looking for people to attend an open day in Madelvic House.

The building dates back to 1898 as the offices of the Madelvic Motor company; the first custom built car factory in Britain. We are developing ideas for the building to offer the local community somewhere to relax and come together.

The current plan is to develop a creative hub with resident artists on the upper and gallery/event space on the ground as well as a café and craft area where we can offer activities for the community.

Come support us to make this happen! Or if you can’t make the event but would like to know more about what we are trying to do, please contact Wendy Wager, chair of the group at

email: madelviccommunity@gmail.com

Local project’s films to premiere at Filmhouse

Films produced by local young people screening at the Filmhouse this Saturday

Screen Education Edinburgh has announced that five short films -produced by an innovative new North Edinburgh partnership and made entirely by young people – will receive their premieres at the Edinburgh Filmhouse this Saturday (2 May).

The films will be shown with ten other shorts from their wider BFI Film Academy and CashBack for Creativity projects.

The North Edinburgh partnership, a joint initiative involving Screen Education Edinburgh and Total Craigroyston, with funding from CashBack for Creativity, encourages young people to get involved in filmmaking rather than crime. Five of the films to be shown during the special two hour event were made by young people who are at risk of offending or reoffending.

Irvine Welsh, Patron of Screen Education Edinburgh, said: “If you come from a disadvantaged area, the world can often seem to conspire against you, constraining your vision to the streets around you and the urgent here and now of simply getting by. Cinema is a wonderful tool in combating that horrible malaise, opening up windows into different worlds, and helping us to understand our own ones better through the broadening of our horizons. The skills you learn through being part of a committed team, working on a task that can create a little bit of magic are transferable to other areas of our life.”

The partnership works with groups of 11-19 year olds from the city’s Pilton and Muirhouse area – currently ranked the worst for crime in the whole south east of Scotland – teaching young people film making skills in the evenings. The initiative was set up to improve the lives of families living around Craigroyston Community High School and is a co-ordinated effort to encourage and stimulate young people’s interest in film when they might otherwise be out on the streets.

The short films were all written, directed, filmed and acted in by the youngsters. These films explore issues through drama and music videos including motorcycle theft, the feeling of being alienated, first love and peer pressure.

Graham Fitzpatrick, Creative Manager at Screen Education Edinburgh, said: “The Pilton and Muirhouse area experienced serious issues of crime involving youths, and sometimes children, throughout 2014.

“The aim of this scheme is to help young people engage and deal with their offending issues, whilst giving them positive activities throughout the week, particularly late evenings.”

James Riordan, Lead Youth Development Worker with the Alternative to Crime Project added; “Through being involved in diversionary activities and projects such as the film programme with Screen Education Edinburgh, Young People, who have been involved in anti-social/offending behaviour in North Edinburgh, have the opportunity to be part of something positive and to get a taste of new activities and skills they wouldn’t normally have access to.

“Through working with Screen Education Edinburgh the Group have learned to adapt to different scenarios which in turn has led to them increasing their levels of self-esteem, allowing them to develop as confident Young People”.

Screen Education Edinburgh (formerly Pilton Video) was founded in 2010 to help young people develop and express themselves through film making. Edinburgh born novelist, playwright, storyteller and screenwriter, Irvine Welsh became patron of Screen Education Edinburgh in March last year.

Screen Education Edinburgh is currently running three separate local projects. One, based at FACE North (Focussing on Alternative’s to Crime Edinburgh North) and POP (Preventative Opportunities Programme), is making film drama with groups of 14 to 19 year old males, whilst another focuses on music video production with 10-12 years olds in four local primary schools.

The third supports children and youth workers based out of the Muirhouse Millennium Centre, providing film skills training to the workers, helping them to support large groups of young people in their first forays into film production.

This partnership was funded through the CashBack for Creativity scheme, part of a wider £45 million Scottish Government initiative which reinvests the proceeds recovered from criminals for the benefit of young people.

Saturday’s event at the Filmhouse will showcase the films to parents, friends, the community, councillors and guests.

The screening will also incorporate films from all Screen Education Edinburgh’s CashBack for Creativity projects, including; Score Scotland, Panmure School, MYPAS Dalkeith, Bridges Project Musselburgh, Edinburgh Young Carers and from the advanced BFI Film Academy South East of Scotland initiative.

Edinburgh College students to launch Let’s Glow festival

Edinburgh College invites you to join students and staff from our Creative Industries courses as they launch this year’s Let’s Glow festival!

The launch event takes place at La Belle Angele off Guthrie Street this Thursday evening at 6.30pm

Let’s Glow is a two-month celebration of the dazzling creative talents of Edinburgh College students, with a programme of performances and exhibitions around the city.

The launch event at La Belle Angele will feature performances by student musicians, actors and dancers.

The Let’s Glow festival will give Edinburgh the chance to enjoy performances and exhibitions from college students covering everything from music, theatre and dance to photography, film, art, animation, textiles and design. The programme of events will showcase the skills and talents of the students, demonstrating the work they have been undertaking at college over the last year.

Let’s Glow runs from 4 May to 22 June, with events taking place at venues across Edinburgh – including the college’s campuses and the likes of Summerhall and The Queen’s Hall.

www.edinburghcollege.ac.uk/letsglow

#letsglow

Small grants available in Inverleith

Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership’s small community grants fund is available again this year to support small, one-off projects. Proposed projects should show how they help progress one of our four key priorities and any group that is constituted and has a bank account can apply.

We have £26301 to allocated this year and welcome applications now for our meeting on 25 May. Other applications can be assessed and decided at future meetings.

Please click here for guidance and application form.

Sharp rise in applications for welfare

New figures show 135,000 households have received help

The number of applications to councils for welfare assistance rose by 13 per cent in the last year, according to the latest statistics.

Scottish Welfare Fund statistics to 31 December 2014 show that during the most recent quarter (October to December 2014):

23,715 Crisis Grants were awarded, 10 per cent more than the same quarter last year. These were predominantly for food, heating costs and other living expenses, with an average award value of just over £70;
12,290 Community Care Grants were awarded, 15 per cent more than the same quarter last year. These were predominantly for home furnishings and white goods, with an average value of just under £600.

Welfare Minister Margaret Burgess said: “Scottish Welfare Fund grants are a vital lifeline for people in crisis. Since the Fund launched in April 2013, 135,000 households have received help to buy everyday items and with basic living costs including eating and heating. It’s so important that we continue to reach out and that’s why we are making £33 million available this year to the Scottish Welfare Fund to help low income households.”

In April 2013, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) abolished two elements of the Social Fund – Community Care Grants and Crisis Loans – and transferred funds previously spent on them to Scottish Ministers. In its place, the Scottish Government established the Scottish Welfare Fund (SWF). The Scottish Welfare Fund is a national scheme run by local authorities, based on guidance from Scottish Ministers. The guidance has been developed in partnership with COSLA, local authorities and other stakeholders.

Since the scheme began in April 2013 nearly 135,000 households have received at least one award from the Scottish Welfare Fund. Around 55 per cent of households in receipt of funds were single person households with no children. Around one third were households containing children. During the first nine months of 2014/15, 72 per cent of Scottish Welfare Fund budget has been awarded.

City’s lost treasures to be revealed

‘For us, this is a true lost treasure’ – David Patterson

Original architectural drawings of the Usher Hall, not seen in public since 1910, are to be displayed for the first time in the concert hall between 12 May and 1 September.

Vintage drawings of the Edwardian venue were recently discovered by an architect in Leicester that traced its roots to Stockdale Harrison & Sons, the architectural practice that won the competition to design the hall.

The folder of drawings only recently came to staff at the Usher Hall’s attention when the architect in Leicester contacted the venue. The archive contains over 200 items including early sketches of the venue, water colour impressions, detailed competition drawings, exquisitely coloured drawings of lighting and sculptural designs, blueprints for heating layouts, ironmongery and terrazzo floors.

The Usher Hall is owned and managed by the City of Edinburgh Council. Councillor Richard Lewis, Edinburgh’s Convenor for Culture & Sport said: “It has been well documented that a competition took place to design the Usher Hall and that the winning idea was built thanks to funding from whisky distiller Andrew Usher, but the architects who worked on the building and their designs have remained a bit of a mystery.

“The design’s backlash against gothic buildings of the time and the venue’s unusual curved walls are as stunning today as they were 100 years ago. To rediscover these vintage drawings is one thing but to have them in our archives and put on public display is extra special.”

David Patterson, Collections Manager at the City of Edinburgh Council, said: “For us, this is true lost treasure. I knew as soon as I saw the drawings how important they were, not just for the Usher Hall, but for Edinburgh. They represent a piece of the jigsaw of the capital’s history and we are delighted to be able to put them on show for the first time.”

In 1896 Andrew Usher gifted £100,000 to The City of Edinburgh Council. The purpose of the money was to provide a City Hall, to be used for concerts and recitals and in 1910 architects were invited to design a hall to the cost of £65,000. In total, 133 designs were considered and all were exhibited in the hall of the New Corn Market in Gorgie. The designs were voted on anonymously and the winners were announced on 22 July 1910. The preferred design was a joint entry from Stockdale Harrison & Son and Howard H Thomson of Leicester.

In addition to the architect’s drawings, a watercolour by Shirley Harrison, the architect’s son, will be displayed (above). The watercolour shows the building in 1914 and the venue’s first audience arriving in Edwardian dress.

Entry to the exhibition will be free of charge.