Pilton Community Health Project (PCHP) has come through a tough year, and it would have been no surprise to have found staff and board feeling a bit down at their recent annual general meeting. That wasn’t the case, however, and a steady succession of staff and volunteers took turns to highlight some of the exciting initiatives they have planned for the year ahead.
PCHP is one of North Edinburgh’s oldest community organisations. Set up originally as The Health Hut, the project celebrated it’s 25th anniversary in 2010. Like all community projects PCHP has had it’s share of ups and downs over the years but there’s no doubt that last year was one of the toughest of them all.
Chairperson Irene Garden told the annual general meeting on 26 June: “As in previous years we were faced with severe cuts, so we have had to say goodbye to the Barri Grubb shop, with four redundancies. That was a very sad time for us all, and other, much-valued staff have also had to leave because their funding was not renewed. Our former manager Dave Hewitt left at Christmas, so we have lost a lot of good colleagues; familiar faces that were popular and well-known in the community”.
However Irene went on to highlight some of the project’s successes. “There is still a lot to be positive about – among other things we have recruited a new worker to do some research for Barri Grubb, the Muirhouse Million Steps project (pictured below) was both original and very successful and our school counselling sessions have been very well received. Women Supporting Women continues to offer excellent one to one support and we are delighted that waiting lists are now coming down and that people in our community are getting counselling when they need it. Thanks to our brilliant volunteers our Befriending Service is also going from strength to strength – and volunteers are the backbone of the very successful Walking Project too”.
Manager Jen Richards (pictured below) told the meeting: “I have already spent two and a half years here in different roles and I am very passionate about keeping our services going – Pilton Community Health Project has been part of this community for 27 years and I’d love to think we can be here for another twenty-seven”.
Jen said her priorities over the coming months will be to raise the project’s profile, maximising funding by looking at new income generation streams and developing and building new and existing partnerships.
“There have been a lot of changes and I’m very grateful to very talented and totally dedicated we have here – I really value their support in a very challenging environment. Yes, it is challenging but I’m sure we’ll come out smiling at the other end!”
Local councillor Cammy Day then conducted election business before the staff team gave updates on both what’s been happening and what’s going to be happening this year. And there’s an awful lot to look forward to at PCHP …
Community Healthy Lifestyles Project’s Motivate to Move and Muirhouse Million Steps 2012, Use Your Loaf – a bread baking class that will be taking place at North Edinburgh Arts Centre, a major consultation into men’s health to find the gaps in current service provision. Then there are plans to develop the popular walking programme, the possible development of a Zumba class in Stockbridge as a social enterprise, continuing to meet the needs for counselling services. The recently launched SOURCE information room will be developed and good news about Barri Grubb, too – Barri’s no’ deid at a’! While the shop is no more, the service has been restructured and Barri Grubb will be relaunched – maybe with a name change – in the near future. In the meantime summer events are planned; a community food map, more partnership working and the Food for Thought forum will be expanded …
That’s quite a catalogue – check out Pilton Community Health Project’s website at www.pchp.org.uk for more information.
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