Day: November 30, 2019

Kick off your December festivities with a Christmas carol!

Nativity Carol Concert

3pm on Sunday, 1 December

Mound Place, Edinburgh (in front of Assembly Hall)

Kick off your December festivities with traditional Christmas carols this Sunday!

Choirs from across Edinburgh gather on Mound Place to perform some of the best-loved traditional Christmas carols, including O Come, All Ye Faithful and Joy to the World.

This year the Edinburgh’s Christmas’ Nativity is supporting the Salvation Army Christmas present appeal – any presents can be left unwrapped at the collection point.

Nativity Scene donated by Sir Tom and Lady Farmer.

All you want for Christmas at Waverley Mall

Waverley Mall is treating its customers to a fabulous array of festive treats, FREE entertainment, competitions and more this Christmas.

They have kicked off the season’s celebrations with the installation of their giant illuminated star on the centre’s roof from 12th November. The star, which proved an incredibly popular attraction with visitors throughout its debut last festive season, provides the perfect photo opportunity for couples, families and friends visiting the city centre.

To add to the festive cheer, Waverley Mall will be giving shoppers the chance to win a £200 gift card to spend in a store of their choice at Waverley Mall, when they break into festive song under the star.

To enter, participants simply need to sing their rendition of their favourite Christmas song under the giant star and film it, before uploading the video to Facebook or Instagram along with #starunderthewaverleystar.

The competition runs until 15th December 2019 with a winner being chosen in time to enjoy their prize for Christmas.

This will be followed by the first of two festive editions of their popular monthly live music event, ‘The Waverley Sessions’ in partnership with The Youth Radio Network, which will see dozens of young and aspiring musicians taking to the stage across the weekend of 30th November and 1st December.

The second event will take place across the weekend of 21st and 22nd December, with customers promised a variety of festive merriment across both weekends.

In a move to spread festive cheer and good will even further, Waverley Mall has offered a variety of local schools, choirs, charities and community groups the opportunity to use space within the centre for carol singing and festive performances to raise funds for a cause of their choice.

Organisations that have jumped at the opportunity include Edinburgh based mental health charity – Health in Mind who will be carol singing in the centre between 4.30pm and 6.30pm on Thursday 5th and Wednesday 11th December and award-winning women’s barbershop and a cappella chorus ‘Forth Valley Chorus’ who will perform at 30 minute intervals from 1pm – 3.30pm on the afternoon of Sunday 8th December to raise funds for cancer care charity ‘Maggies Centre’.

On Friday 13th December, the centre will welcome a group from Broughton High School to raise funds for their musical and on Saturday 14th, Armdale Academy will be raising funds for their school show.

On Sunday 15th December, Dunedin Wind Band will be playing to raise funds for Crisis – the national charity for homeless people. More groups are yet to be added to this fabulous line up.

Visitors to the city centre are encouraged to come down to Waverley Mall and show their support for these fantastic groups as they soak up the festive atmosphere.

As an extra special treat this year, Waverley Mall will be dishing out a variety of free treats throughout the festive season – customers should keep an eye on the centre’s social media channels to find out about the latest freebies and where and when to find them. 

Jacquelyn Stewart, General Manager, Waverley Mall says: “We wanted to make Christmas a little bit special this year, full of the anticipation, fun and surprises of the festive season, while raising awareness of those less fortunate and doing a little bit to help.

“As well as offering a little ‘thank you’ to our customers by way of a few free treats.”

Citizens’ Assembly: Weekend 2

We are looking forward to the second meeting of the Citizens’ Assembly which takes place at the Golden Jubilee in Clydebank from Friday evening through to Sunday. The weekend 2 agenda has been published which sets out what will be covered across the weekend by members.

The outputs from the first weekend have now been published on our website. The outputs online include the weekend 1 report, a series of factsheets and an explanation of terms. We are delighted that some members have shared their experience of weekend 1 through their diaries which can be found on the blogs pages.

Due to the proximity to the General Election we have reluctantly come to the conclusion that it would not be appropriate to live-stream the forthcoming meeting of the Citizens’ Assembly.

This is because it is important that we do nothing that might lead to suggestions that we are drawing attention away from or otherwise intervening in the General Election, which could have the effect of undermining public confidence in the independence of the Assembly.

The relevant parts of the meeting will be recorded and may be viewed on the website after the General Election. Evidence presented to the Assembly will be published on the meetings page of the website over the weekend.

We realise this will be a disappointment to the many people who followed our last meeting and intend to do so in the future. We have not taken this decision lightly, but believe it is the right thing to do.

There are a limited number of places for people to apply to attend in person to observe the public session of the Assembly. Details can be found here.

Best wishes,

Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland Secretariat