Trust us: students design branding for new charity building

Edinburgh College students produce logo for Gorebridge Beacon

One of Scotland’s newest and most striking buildings has taken the latest step from drawing board to a reality with the help of two young trainee graphic designers from Edinburgh College.

The Gorebridge Community Development Trust, a volunteer-led charity that supports local economic and social regeneration, is creating a new £2.2m centre (above) and enlisted students Rhys McGeary and Liam Henderson to create its new brand identity.

The designers took the name suggested through a competition, the Gorebridge Beacon, and worked it up into a new logo that symbolises the point of the new centre, which opens next year (below). The new centre will provide affordable, subsidised business space for rental with meeting rooms, flexible conferencing and learning space, a community cafe, a Sure Start nursery and a youth space, giving the town of Gorebridge a major boost.

Stephanie Walker, co-chair of the Gorebridge Community Development Trust, said: “The Gorebridge Beacon is all about giving people a new start and making their lives better. Graphic design is a fiercely competitive career and getting started on your career can be extremely challenging. By working together, we’ve got a really professional product and the two designers have got something really solid and impressive in their portfolios which will hopefully give them a head start in establishing themselves as excellent creative designers.”

The designers, Rhys and Liam, both from Musselburgh, volunteered to help the trust through their course tutor Chris Hughes at Edinburgh College, where they are in the final year of the HND Visual Communication: Graphic Design course.

Rhys, Liam and the trust narrowed four approaches down to one final design, and this brand identity will now be used across the centre’s website, social media presence, signage and promotional material. It reflects the aspirations of the trust for the contribution the new complex will make in terms of improving lives in the community. The centre has to pay its own way in terms of attracting tenants for the centre’s office spaces and ensuring as many people as possible come in to use the centre’s cafe, performance spaces, youth rooms, nursery and meeting rooms.

Chris Hughes said: “This partnership worked really well for everyone – the development trust got access to highly skilled design professionals and our students got the chance to work on live commissions and see their work being put into place in a real world commercial setting.”

Rhys said: “The client brief was really interesting but challenging. In terms of the people the centre has to attract, because it offers so many different things – from the cafe to conference venues and offices for hire – the audiences are all ages, from school pupils, to teenagers right up to older people, from charities to professional businesses.

“The trust were also clear that they wanted something that reflected both the building, its name, and its ambitious social purpose.”

Liam said: “Getting a design right involves a lot of discussion while ensuring that the end product has purpose and meaning. It will help the client achieve their purpose such as summarising quickly the point of something to helping people get more familiar with the centre and more likely to use it.”

Stephanie Walker added: “Given all the Trust is doing, making this centre work is and continues to be a challenge for our small volunteer-led trust and that won’t get any easier when we open our doors as we will have difficult targets to reach. That’s where a good brand identity and excellent promotional work will pay off and we’ve been grateful to our supporters for their assistance, in particular Midlothian Council which has seconded Stephen Fraser to us part-time.”

“Stephen brought Edinburgh College in and we’re really grateful for their help. Rhys and Liam have listened carefully to our views and worked with board members to come up with a logo and other materials that neatly summarises our hopes for what the centre will provide for Gorebridge when it opens.”

The actual building of the £2.2m centre, known as capital development, has been funded from grants provided by the Big Lottery Fund, Social Investment Scotland and Midlothian Council, with the trust having to repay a loan once the centre is up and running, making it vital that the development is embraced by the Gorebridge community and used fully.

You’d be MAD to miss local cooking classes!

Mums and dads cookery classes start at Craigie on Monday

Creating streets fit for walking in Inverleith

Best foot forward in Raeburn Place and Comely Bank

Living Streets Scotland and Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership are working together on a project to understand how Inverleith can be more walkable – and we’d like your help.

We will be taking forward two Community Street Audits, with the aim of understanding better the assets and barriers to walking on a key route – Raeburn Place and Comely Bank.

The audits are an opportunity to bring together partners that live, work and study locally with partners that plan, manage and maintain local streets, to better understand what works and what could be improved for walkers of all ages and abilities.

If you or someone you know would like to participate, then please get in touch with penny.morriss@livingstreets.org.uk

Also, if you’d like to comment on your experience walking in the area, but won’t be able to make the audit, please feel free to drop us an email. The audits are:

Tuesday 27 October: Meet at Broughton High School 2pm.

Saturday 31 October: Meet at Stockbridge Library 1pm.

Pioneering advice project helps boost low-income household budgets

“Poverty has a huge impact on health and wellbeing, including damp housing, hunger, lack of access to healthy food, and stress and depression.” – Graham Mackenzie, Consultant in Public Health, NHS Lothian

Two Lothian projects that began with a midwife helping mums improve their nutrition have evolved into a support network ensuring low income families access thousands of pounds of unclaimed entitlements.

The projects in Leith and West Lothian have each had a welfare rights adviser working since March with a team of NHS Lothian, council and voluntary sector workers.

The welfare rights advisers are funded by the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) as part of its Tackling Money Worries programme.

In Leith, Granton Information Centre (GIC) has provided money and welfare rights advice to 89 families referred by midwives, health visitors, Dr Bell’s Family Centre, Citadel Youth Centre, nurseries and early years centres, and working with Edinburgh Community Food.

For these families the total financial gain during 2015-16 is projected to be £404,000, or an average of £4,500 per client. The maximum financial gain for one client so far has been £15,000.

This is in addition to the support GIC (pictured below) has already provided to the most vulnerable families in the North Edinburgh area, who are not included in these figures.

Citizens Advice Bureau West Lothian has been supporting families in West Lothian in a similar project, also funded by SLAB. In that project around 200 clients have gained £300,000, an average of almost £5,000 per client.

Over half of those accessing support for the first time have been in work, and were not aware of their unclaimed entitlements (e.g. tax credits, benefits) and other help available (e.g. advice about debt, access to hardship funds).

The figures have been released during Challenge Poverty Week 2015 which aims to raise awareness of poverty and to highlight the great work that community organisations are doing to help those in crisis.

Graham Mackenzie, Consultant in Public Health, NHS Lothian, said the success of the advice projects illustrated the importance of the NHS and other services working with welfare rights advisers, and could be repeated in many other parts of the UK.

“This work, which started with a single midwife focusing on ensuring families were claiming food vouchers they were entitled to, has expanded into a sophisticated package of support that we are aiming to offer to hundreds of families over the coming year.

“Poverty has a huge impact on health and wellbeing, including damp housing, hunger, lack of access to healthy food, and stress and depression.

“With hundreds of thousands of pounds secured for families, and more to come, we are taking practical steps to help families tackle the consequences of poverty.”

The Lothian projects were formed following work started with Healthy Start food and vitamin vouchers, a UK-wide scheme designed to improve nutrition for low income families. Across the UK around a quarter of eligible families miss out on these valuable vouchers, with the number of pregnant women and children under four years old in receipt of vouchers falling over recent years. In Lothian, however, after concentrated work with NHS Lothian staff and families, the number of pregnant women in receipt of vouchers increased from 294 in March 2014 to 368 in July 2015.

The work started with simple insights from a single midwife about how to make the application process more reliable, and secure vouchers for women earlier in pregnancy.

From 10 weeks of pregnancy to the child’s fourth birthday Healthy Start vouchers are worth up to £899 in total.

With 76 more women benefitting across Lothian as a result, this work has boosted family budgets by tens of thousands of pounds; this in addition to the hundreds of thousands secured through the Tackling Money Worries work. Vouchers can be spent on fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables, milk and formula feed. Vitamin vouchers are provided separately.

This work, part of the Scottish Government Early Years Collaborative, provided insights that have now been applied to much greater effect through the Lothian Tackling Money Worries projects by providing families with money and welfare rights advice.

Celebrate Maggie’s 19th birthday!

Friday 6 November 10am-4pm

West Pilton’s Christmas Fair

Hate to use the ‘C’ word when it’s only October, but …

West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre are holding their annual Christmas Fair on Saturday 28 November from 12.0 -2.0pm.

Anyone wishing to take a table, particularly those selling Christmas crafts, should call Linda Chandler at the Centre on 551 3194.

Social housing boost as Hanover secures bank deal

Hanover Scotland secures £40m in first-of-it’s-kind deal

Hanover Scotland has secured a £40m funding facility in an innovative agreement which is the first of its kind in the social housing sector. The transaction, which combines a linked revolving credit facility and private placement, was arranged by Bank of Scotland.

The funding will be used to support the ongoing development plans of Hanover, which manages 5,000 properties on 200 developments across Scotland, with a particular focus on housing for older people. Hanover’s business plan includes a goal of building at least 40 new units each year.

It has secured a new five-year, £20m revolving credit facility (RCF) from Bank of Scotland, with whom it has had a relationship for almost 20 years.

At the same time, the housing association has also agreed a £20m private placement, funded by an institutional investor. This finance, which will be drawn down in 2018 and mature in 2048, will be used to repay the RCF, which will itself be adjusted to £5m in 2018.

The structure of the facility is the first of its kind in the social housing sector as the RCF and private placement are formally linked and share the same security. Meanwhile, the mix of short-term funding from the RCF combined with a longer-dated private placement provides Hanover with a flexible finance package tailored to its ongoing needs.

Helen Murdoch, Chief Executive of Hanover Scotland, (pictured above) said: “The versatility of the structured borrowing fully meets our planning requirements. Hanover has an established history in providing high quality affordable housing for the elderly and this funding will enable us to continue to meet our ambitions to provide much needed new homes.

It is clear that Bank of Scotland fully understand our sector. We believe that our arrangement provides good value for money for our existing and future residents, which is extremely important and is our ultimate goal.”

The RCF was arranged by Bank of Scotland’s dedicated social housing team, while the private placement was handled by the bank’s debt capital markets team.

Marc Ward, relationship manager in the social housing team at Bank of Scotland, said: “This is a tailored, innovative solution which meets the long-term funding needs of Hanover Scotland while also providing short-term liquidity to support its development goals. We believe the structure – combining a conventional revolving credit facility with a private placement – is the first of its kind in the sector.

“Meanwhile, the dual role on this transaction played by our sector-focussed social housing team and our colleagues in debt capital markets demonstrates the breadth of our offering to clients.

“These are transformative times for housing associations as the funding environment continues to shift around them. This deal, which includes securing funding from a blue-chip institutional investor, underlines that the investment community continues to place great value on the social housing sector and the crucial role it plays in the UK.”

Hanover was founded in 1979 and is today Scotland’s leading housing association for older people, with local developments in Stockbridge and Trinity. Its head office is in MacDonald Road and it also has offices in Glasgow and Elgin.

Let the presses roll!

Top Scottish authors on hand as Des McDonald opens his first Edinburgh edition

A new chapter opened on George Street yesterday when some of Scotland’s literary greats were the first guests at the official opening of the The Printing Press Bar & Kitchen.

To mark the opening of the new restaurant, respected restaurateur Des McDonald was joined by head chef Colin Fleming to serve some of Scotland’s literary elite, including leading Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin, Chris Brookmyre, Sue Lawrence, Doug Johnstone, Jenni Fagan and Lin Anderson.

Des, who has over 20 years’ experience running some of London’s most high-profile restaurants, has shaped every aspect of The Printing Press – including the concept design and menu – in what is his maiden venture in Scotland.

Housed in a Georgian townhouse on George Street, The Printing Press pays homage to the capital’s rich literary heritage: number 25 was home in the 1780s to the acclaimed novelist Susan Ferrier and in late 1840 records show one John Oliphant living there – Oliphant’s and Ferrier’s descendants founded Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, one of Scotland’s most prestigious publishing houses, best known for the series of Famous Scots books.

Now, a multi-million pound refurbishment has created an elegant, all-day, 180-seat restaurant and bar that restores many of the building’s original Georgian features alongside contemporary touches to create a series of rooms that are elegant and comfortable from morning though to the wee hours.

“We set out with a clear vision to create a warm, distinctive restaurant and bar in the heart of Edinburgh’s New Town that nods to the heritage of the building and the city itself,” says Des. “We’ve worked with some of the most reputable suppliers in Scotland, as well as talented designers and contractors to bring this new restaurant experience to Edinburgh’s dining scene.

“It’s a great achievement to see The Printing Press officially open its doors and I can’t think of a group of guests more fitting to join us on our first day of business than the literary greats of modern-day Edinburgh.”

Open seven days a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner – with a late bar serving food and drink till 1am – The Printing Press has already found favour with some of Edinburgh’s most influential food writers, including Alright Treacle’s Anna Hamilton, who loved the “quality of the ingredients” and “the incredibly flavoursome dishes”, which give the restaurant “all the makings of an Edinburgh gem.”

Pictures by Sandy Young

Carve a pumpkin with the Centipede!

And there’s a free meal too – see below for details!

Special double bill at North Edinburgh Arts tonight

Tonight at NEA: The Bridge and Remembering Tomorrow

We are delighted to be presenting not one but two fantastic events on Friday 23 October, from Annie George, and the North Edinburgh Theatre project:

7pm THE BRIDGE by Annie George

TICKETS: £8 full/£5 concession/£3.50 Good Neighbours
Box Office 0131 315 2151, admin@northedinburgharts.co.uk

Written and performed by Annie George
Directed by Sarah MacDonald
Composer, Niroshini Thambar
Design by Alice Wilson

The Bridge is a compelling and inspiring piece of visual theatre, which tells a remarkable story of the short life and lost work of PM John, a poet and author from Kerala India, living in the days running up to Independence from the British in 1947. His story is interwoven with that of his family, their struggles, and journeys they took across continents to new lives and opportunities.

8.30pm Remembering Tomorrow

A short film from the North Edinburgh Theatre project as part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts & Film Festival

Join us for the premiere of a short film devised and presented by the group who brought you the sell-out 1D Tenement Opera in January this year, The North Edinburgh Theatre group (above) have used film, scripted and devised pieces to reflect on their own and others’ experiences around wellbeing.

Director: Stephanie Knight
Filmmaker: Elliott Hatherley

Free – but contact the box office to book. The cafe will be open serving light refreshments, wines and beer so why not join us for the evening?