SUNDAY 16 MARCH from 11am – 1pm
Lauriston Agroecology Farm
Interested in supporting local biodiversity whilst spending a great morning outdoors?
Let’s plant some trees and have some fun!
Get in touch with us at c3r@elrec.org.uk for more details and to register!
A LINLITHGOW referee has received the accolade of ‘Local Legend’ as part of Specsavers’ partnership with the Scottish FA.
With thousands of people giving up their time each week across the country to ensure their community can enjoy football, the Local Legends campaign aims to shine a light on the unsung heroes dedicated to grassroots football.
Cameron Stirling, from Linlithgow, has been recognised as a Local Legend for his dedication to refereeing and for promoting officiating to youngsters as a route for development within football.
At just 21, Cameron is a category three referee, balancing officiating Lowland League games with his studies at Edinburgh Napier University.
The business management and marketing student is also a Youth Referee Ambassador, starting out in refereeing at just 16, making the senior list at 17, and hopes to one day officiate a game in the Scottish Premiership.
Speaking upon receiving the award, Cameron said, ‘I’ve played football pretty much my whole life and just love the game.
‘It’s very nice to be recognised and I’m honoured to receive it, especially when the nomination came from my peers in the referees’ department.’
From Stranraer to Banks O’ Dee, Cameron has already travelled the length and breadth of the country as both a referee and a linesman.
His passion for the game comes from growing up playing football, but now hopes refereeing can provide him with a path to the top.
As part of his recognition, last November Cameron enjoyed a day out at Hampden Park to watch Scotland’s thrilling 3-3 draw with Norway in a UEFA Euro 2024 qualifying match, courtesy of Specsavers and the Scottish FA.
Cameron also received a signed Scotland top from Steve Clarke’s men’s national squad as a part of their accolade.
Specsavers’ Arlene Stephenson, Scottish Divisional Chair, says: ‘Specsavers is proud of our long tradition in backing Scottish referees, but our current partnership sees us going further than ever, helping to raise awareness of grassroots football across the country.
‘Our Local Legends campaign is all about shining a spotlight on those away from the glamour of the top divisions, but who work just as hard to ensure Scotland’s communities benefit from the beautiful game.
‘From managing their local teams and making sure the pitch is in top shape for matchday, to referees making sure everyone’s game goes ahead or even just fervently following your club for decades – these unsung heroes embody what football is all about.
‘We are delighted to celebrate Cameron’s contribution to both football and his profession as a referee, particularly for one so young.
‘In our eyes, he truly is a Local Legend.’
Specsavers announced in 2021 that it renewed its’ sponsorship deal with football referees in Scotland, marking more than 20 years of support – one of the longest agreements of its kind in sport.
The deal has seen the partnership continue into 2024, not only helping with the training and development of referees, but also helping to raise awareness of para football and grassroots football in Scotland.
The city council is are developing designs for improvements along the Roseburn to South Gyle route known as Quiet Route 9, which extends west to east between South Gyle and Roseburn Park.
The first phase focuses on sites in the Balgreen area, and we would like to get people’s views to help us shape the final designs.
The work will help to make the streets safer and easier to use for anyone walking, wheeling and cycling.
You can comment and share your views before 27 March at:
THURSDAY 22 FEBRUARY from 2 – 4pm
at WEST PILTON NEIGHBOURHOOD CENTRE
Join us for a Cyber Safety Information Session!
Where: West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre (19 West Pilton Grove, Edinburgh EH4 4BY)
When: Thursday, 22 February, 2pm – 4pm
Free event! Sign up in advance to secure your place at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/…/make-it-happen-cyber…
Learn how to stay safe online, protect your personal information, and recognise risks of fraud, scams, and identity theft at this free information session!
Presented by North Edinburgh Arts’ Make it Happen project in partnership with People Know How.
For more information or questions, please email Asia at asia@northedinburgharts.co.uk.
Proudly supported by the Scottish Ecosystem Fund 2023-24.
Just a reminder that we are now looking for donations for our Big Swap event at St Martin’s Community Resource Centre, Edinburgh, which will take place on Saturday 2nd March.
Big Swap is a big FREE giveaway of all preloved items including clothes, shoes, household items, books, toys etc.
At the moment, at Granton Parish Church, Edinburgh we are accepting the following donations until Thursday 29/02:
– good condition household items,
-men and teenager clothes and shoes.
All donated items must be CLEAN and in GOOD, WORKING CONDITION.
Any questions-email: anna@grantongoesgreener.org.uk
Road policing officers are appealing for information after a pedestrian was struck by a bus in Edinburgh. The incident happened on Oxgangs Road North, near the junction with Oxgangs Avenue, around 8.50pm last night. (Friday 16 February).
The 74-year-old male pedestrian was taken to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh for treatment to serious injuries.
No one on the bus was injured.
The road was closed until around 3.25am this morning (Saturday, 17 February) to allow for an investigation at the scene.
Sergeant Grant Hastie, of the Road Policing Unit in Edinburgh, said: “Our enquiries are ongoing and I would urge anyone who may have information to get in touch.
“We would be keen to speak to anyone who was on the bus who hasn’t yet spoken to an officer, or anyone who may have dashcam footage from the area around the time of the collision.
“Anyone who can help is asked to call 101, quoting reference 3657 of 16 February.”
INFORMATION SESSIONS TOMORROW AND MONDAY
We’re putting the finishing touches to our brand new Stockbridge shop, which will now open on Wednesday 21st February instead of Saturday 17th!
We can’t wait to welcome everyone along to Stockbridge’s newest addition at 10-12 Hamilton Place at 10am!
Do Ho Suh: Tracing Time
National Galleries Scotland: Modern One
17 February – 1 September 2024
Admission Free
Do Ho Suh | Tracing Time | National Galleries of Scotland
Immerse yourself in the imagination of one of the world’s leading contemporary artists. This weekend, Do Ho Suh (born 1962, Seoul), brings his first Scottish exhibition to National Galleries Scotland: Modern One.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to marvel at Do Ho Suh’s larger-than-life thread drawings, take in his never-before-seen sketchbooks and wander through the artist’s iconic architectural hubs, experiencing Suh’s colourful, interconnected, life-size ‘homes’.
Opening today. Do Ho Suh: Tracing Time is free to visit, taking over the entire ground floor of Modern One in Edinburgh until 1 September 2024.
This major solo exhibition by the South Korean-born, London-based artist will be the largest European exhibition to date of his work on paper, with artworks spanning 25 years of Suh’s career. With over 100 works on display, many never seen before, the artist poses questions such as ‘Where and when does home exist?’ and ‘What defines our sense of place?’.
Do Ho Suh: Tracing Time explores the important role that drawing and paper play in Suh’s work, focusing on his collaborative methods, experimental techniques, and ingenious use of materials. The exhibition will travel forwards and backwards in time, organised according to the artist’s transformative approaches to drawing as a toolkit with endless possibilities.
Visitors will discover Suh’s compelling and technically innovative thread drawings, where multicoloured threads are embedded in handmade paper to create sewn images of some of the artist’s most iconic motifs. Thread takes on a new form as a mode of drawing, mirroring the use of fabric in the artist’s sculptures.
The thread drawings are created at STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery, Singapore, where Suh has been working collaboratively with the Creative Workshop team for over a decade; experimenting together to produce his works on paper. Works on display from this series include the dazzling Staircase/s (2019); a seemingly impossible vertical stack of colour, winding and repeating the communal staircase from Suh’s New York apartment building, the embroidery process creating a cloud of loose threads in its wake.
These monumental thread drawings will be exhibited alongside animations, architectural rubbings, paper sculptures, printmaking and watercolours, including works such as A Perfect Home (1999); a simple, even childlike, drawing of a tiny home and garden, perched in an impossible location.
This watercolour was the starting point for the artist’s longest running research project, The Bridge Project, which explores the idea of his ‘perfect’ home. The project considers what form this home might take and questions whether such a thing exists. For Suh, it’s located in the centre of a bridge that connects Seoul, New York and London, the three cities he has called home. The Bridge Project demonstrates that a sketch has the power to develop into something far greater.
A selection of the artist’s sketchbooks will also be shown publicly for the first time, giving visitors an insight into the personal, unconstrained spaces in which Suh explores his past, present and future.
Using both practical problem solving and imaginative sketching, drawing helps Suh to imagine new relationships between architecture and the body, and new ways of challenging and re-defining shared public spaces.
The exhibition includes an immersive installation of Suh’s famed ‘hubs’; life-size sculptures that recreate in colourful fabric transitional spaces – thresholds, corridors and doorways – inspired by sites meaningful to the artist. Visitors to the exhibition can enter and move through these installations, giving a real-scale sense of the places which hold significance to the artist.
The translucency of the fabric which forms these hubs expands on the idea of memory being personal and subjective. It also highlights the rigidity of Western architecture in comparison to traditional Korean buildings. Suh’s fabric architecture can be packed down and transported; a means of carrying home with you.
Paper is also treated as sculptural material. Tracing Time includes a series of Suh’s ‘rubbings’; works made using a physically challenging process of coating the entire interiors of rooms in paper, which is then carefully rubbed in pencil and chalk to create an impression of the original spaces.
Suh’s engaging and imaginative artworks collectively ask questions about home and identity, inviting visitors to consider their own answer. Individual experiences of what home is on a personal level can create a fundamental part of who we are, often influenced by day-to-day life and deepest memories. Drawing is Suh’s way of navigating the world, capturing overlooked details, and making sense of how we relate to one another.
Tracing Time gathers many threads of the artist’s work and its celebration of human collaboration and creative networks.
Do Ho Suh said: “I am thrilled to be presenting my first exhibition in Scotland at the National Galleries.
“Paper has been a foundational element of my practice for as long as I’ve been working. It’s more than a medium for me and I’ve sometimes felt that in the West, paper’s strength – literally and symbolically – is underestimated.
“For me, it has sculptural, architectural and bodily qualities. It works in part because of its mercurial capacities – the ways in which it can absorb, and integrate with, other materials, rather than merely providing a surface for them to sit on.
“It’s exciting to have this element of my practice engaged with so sensitively and I cannot wait to share this body of work at Modern One.”
Anne Lyden, Director-General at the National Galleries of Scotland said: “The National Galleries of Scotland are delighted to welcome the wonderfully imaginative and thought-provoking artwork of Do Ho Suh to Modern One; a monumental first not only for the galleries but for Scotland.
“Do Ho Suh: Tracing Time challenges our perception of the art of drawing, showing the endless possibilities that can stem from putting our ideas, thoughts and dreams onto a blank page.
“Tracing Time also provides a space to reflect and consider the topic of ‘home’; the interconnecting thread which collectively binds us to the places, and people, that impact us the most.
“We hope our visitors will join us in witnessing this awe-inspiring experience at Modern One and take some time to marvel in the ingenious, creative flair of one of the most remarkable artists working today.”
Do Ho Suh: Tracing Time opens at National Galleries Scotland: Modern One today = on Saturday 17 February 2024.
Steps to address depopulation and help future-proof communities
A wide-ranging plan to strengthen communities facing population decline, including funding for local-led research, initiatives, and community support has been published.
Projections show that Scotland’s population is set to fall from 2033, with fourteen local authority areas projected to experience population decline over the next decade. The Addressing Depopulation Action Plan will set out the Scottish Government’s strategy to support people to live, work and raise families in the places affected – many of which are rural and island areas.
A £180,000 Addressing Depopulation Fund will initially help three acutely affected local authorities trial ways of retaining and attracting people to their communities. The projects to receive funds will be announced later this year.
Part-funding has been provided this financial year by the Scottish Government for Community Settlement Officers in Argyll & Bute, Highland and Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, enabling them to continue supporting people living in or moving to those areas. Part-funding for these roles has also been put forward for the next financial year, as well as support for a Community Settlement Officer to be established in Inverclyde.
Dumfries and Galloway Council will receive £30,000 to research the causes of local population decline, to inform the development of future policy interventions.
Launching the plan at the Nevis Centre in Fort William, Migration Minister Emma Roddick said: “The factors that lead to depopulation are complex and interdependent, and every place is affected differently.
“This plan cuts right across government – in policy areas including housing, healthcare, transport and education – to help deliver solutions that address the needs of individual areas.
“Local leaders, councils and organisations are the people who know their communities best – that’s why this plan commits to channelling community expertise and backing a range of local-led initiatives. This will not only benefit the places leading these projects, but could also generate learnings that can be applied elsewhere.
“Bringing together new actions with a programme of ongoing government work, these steps will underpin our work to ensure every place in Scotland is equipped with the population it needs to thrive into the future.”
