Author: davepickering

Edinburgh reporter and photographer

Still caring …

Muirhouse Millennium Centre’s JAMES McGINTY reports on North West Carers annual general meeting,  which took place last week …

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Ian Huggin (Chairperson, above centre) welcomed everyone to the AGM, and introduced all members of the board to the audience.

Ian stated he was especially grateful to many who had helped the Carers during the last year to steer the finances to a strong position as they go forward to next year. Concern was raised as to the future funding of the Young Carers and, as treasurer Eddie Thorn explained, funding was difficult for all concerned.

Many of the Directors gave a huge thank you to their main funder, the City of Edinburgh Council, for their continued support not only financially, but from the Commissioners during a difficult period.

A very personal, human story from speaker Gordon told why he had found the project such a great support.

A video shown by Marcia showed the Young carers at a weekend respite camp enjoying a disco, fun park and a concert which included the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. She explained the work that N.W.C.C. did with them, and what the young people did as Carers.

Project manager Angela Diaz gave a brief report of the partnerships involved with the N.W.C..C project, and praised her staff and board for their industry & commitment during the last year.

Minutes of the last A..G.M. were approved and seconded as an accurate report.

Fiona Drinna and Linda Paterson were elected to the Board; Margaret Robertson retired and stood down from the board and was presented with a floral arrangement by staff.

Finally, the Young Carers performed a spirited song and dance routine, much to the delight of the audience (below). Roll on next year for this excellent project!

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Words & pictures by James McGinty

AARG! Exciting news from Auld Reekie Roller GIrls!

Change of season for city team now world-ranked 60!

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We are excited to announce that the Auld Reekie Roller Girls Intraleague Home Season for 2015 is being held at a new time!

As our loyal fans will know, for the past three years we have run our Home Season from January – April. However, 2014 has seen our league take on a lot of new directions as we continue to grow, not only in number but in standing in the roller derby world.

In the past year, we have gone from being ranked #103 with WFTDA to being #60 in the world. That’s right, our wee Scottish team are the 60th best in the WORLD!

We are super proud of what we have achieved. We plan to continue this until we are #1, so we’ve made some changes and moved some things around – and that includes our Home Season!

So, exciting … we will now have our Home Season from September – November 2015!  Keep a look out for dates which will be announced later next year.

Because this means we have a whole batch of amazing new rookie skaters who are having to wait a little bit longer to show off their skills in public, we are super excited to announce that we will be holding our first ever InARRGuration game on 30 November!

This is a closed game – friends and family of skaters only – but our whole league will be out in force to cheer on our new guys! The skaters who are making ARRG history have been teamed up as follows:

TEAM GREEN:

Bruiser Black #369, CirqueduSlay #23, Comet Sans #88, emKa#17, Harlot Bronte #303, Hex #71, Klara #14, Lannthrax#92 (guest – New Town Roller Girls), Major Vengeance #1984, Pummela#321, Shamonster#123, Trojan Virus #526, McSpeedy#145, Rage More #96, Bench – Chasing Katy. LUM –BintImperial

TEAM BLACK:

Bacon Roll #4, Ba Humbug #0131, Bunsen BurnHer #61, Coco Schnell – #39 (guest from Newcastle Roller Girls), Calamity Pain #808, Diamond Slayher #10, Jammy Mammie #333, Khal JoJo – #H2O (guest from Newcastle Roller Girls), Looney Tunes #148, Mairi #99, Pukeahontas #92, Roxy Rebel # 31F (guest from Fierce Valley Roller Girls), Teapot Rebellion #24, Tank Girl #46, Bench – DeeDee. LUM – Shiv

We are as excited as they are to watch their first ever inARRGuration game!

GO ARRG!!!”

http://arrg.co.uk/inarrguration-game/

'Auld enemy' clash to help boost Ebola response

Government to match up to £5 m of public donations to UNICEF’s Ebola appeal

shake handsThe British government will support a major fundraising appeal to help children who have been made orphans because of Ebola in Sierra Leone.

Up to £5 million of donations from members of the British public to UNICEF’s Ebola appeal will be matched by the UK Government, providing urgent support for families and children living under the threat of the disease.

Building on the success of SoccerAid, UNICEF, the world’s leading children’s organisation, will use the upcoming Scotland v England football match to boost their emergency appeal. Britain and Sierra Leone share a mutual love of the beautiful game, making this appeal particularly poignant due to the fact that football matches in Sierra Leone have been cancelled since August.

Ebola has put thousands of children in danger with many being orphaned by the disease. With schools closed, children have been cut off from their friends and many are fighting for survival on a daily basis. This funding will help care for and protect some of the most vulnerable children, especially those who have lost their parents and are in desperate need of food and other supplies.

Prime Minister David Cameron said: “The UK has secured real action from G20 leaders here in Brisbane but the generosity of the British people in helping those caught up in the Ebola crisis in West Africa has been second to none. That’s why we will match up to £5m of the money raised during Tuesday’s match, helping to make a real difference to the families and children living under the threat of the disease.”

International Development Secretary Justine Greening said: “This week’s Scotland v England match will give the British public the chance to show their support for UNICEF’s Ebola appeal in Sierra Leone.

“By matching pound for pound all public donations to the appeal we will help UNICEF give double the support to children who have been orphaned and had their lives turned upside down by this dreadful disease.”

This is the second time the Government has activated the UK Aid Match Scheme in response to Ebola, underlining the unprecedented nature of this outbreak. The British people have already responded generously to the DEC appeal and again the government is helping this appeal go twice as far by matching donations from the UK public pound-for-pound.

The UK has committed £230 million to date supporting the global effort to contain, control and defeat the disease in Sierra Leone. This includes:

  • Supporting 700 treatment beds to help up to 8,800 patients over 6 months;
  • Opening up to 200 Community Care Centres where people who suspect they might be suffering from the disease can seek swift and accurate diagnosis and appropriate care;
  • Building, running and staffing three new labs in Sierra Leone to help check the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, quadrupling the number of tests that can be carried out every day;
  • Supporting NGOs on the ground to work with people to agree practices which will allow them to honour their friends and relatives, while ensuring bodies are safely buried;
  • Doubling the number of burial teams in Freetown – and providing twenty more across the country. We have already made extensive progress on this, with UK support burial teams in the western area, which accounts for approximately a third of Sierra Leone’s population, are now burying 100% of reported bodies within 24 hours and,
  • Supporting a command and control centre to manage burials and Ebola patients across Freetown and the Western area.

In addition, RFA Argus and three Merlin helicopters are in Sierra Leone to deliver transportation and logistical support for medical teams and aid experts working in the country. In total, around 800 military personnel have been deployed to help with the establishment of Ebola treatment centres and an Ebola training academy.

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Pensions: Government gears up to launch 'Guidance Guarantee'

Pensions explained: minister to promote importance of retirement planning

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As the government gears up to launch its ‘Guidance Guarantee’ to help people approaching retirement make sense of pension reforms, the minister in charge of pensions is to launch the radio equivalent of a soapbox tour.

Minister for Pensions Steve Webb takes to the airwaves this week in the first of a series of radio phone-ins, in which he hopes to give local radio listeners in every part of Britain the chance to quiz him on the government’s pension reforms.

Beginning with a session on BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Show tomorrow, the minister will repeat his live phone-in surgery every week between now and Christmas, hitting BBC stations serving Scotland, Manchester, Newcastle and Kent.

And the minister plans to continue his commitment into the new year, aiming to cover dozens of local BBC and commercial stations ahead of April next year when major pension reforms come into effect.

The new initiative comes alongside other efforts to help the public better understand how pensions work and make it easier for people to save for the future. Today (17 November 2014), the Department for Work and Pensions also launches PensionTube, a new online hub within the video sharing website YouTube, bringing together content from the government and trusted independent sources that will in time cover the whole spectrum of pension-related issues.

And this comes ahead of a major advertising campaign, themed ‘Your Pension, Your Future’, which will be launched this week to raise awareness of reforms to the State Pension. These changes will turn it into a clearer and fairer foundation for people to build their own retirement saving upon. Minister for Pensions Steve Webb said:

“We are delivering some of the most radical reforms to our pensions system in a generation, introducing a clearer and fairer State Pension and bringing in unprecedented flexibilities that give people the freedom to make their savings work for them.

“It’s only natural that people will have questions about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it and how it will affect them – and I want the chance to speak to as many of those people as possible.

“Politicians should be accessible and this is a great way for me to engage with people all over the country about pensions in a direct way.”

Dr Ros Altmann, independent pensions expert and the Government’s Business Champion for Older Workers, will be one of the first vloggers to appear on PensionTube, discussing the reforms to the State Pension for people reaching state pension age after April 2016. She said:

“The launch of PensionTube is a great idea and I’m very pleased to be one of the first contributors to this exciting new online resource. There are so many changes going on in pensions at the moment, and people need to know what’s happening.

“All the jargon surrounding pensions can be really confusing, so it is important to have a trusted and accessible source of information that people can use when they want to understand what the changes mean.

“I hope that people will get used to using this and follow all the updates as they are released. The more people can understand pensions, the better they can plan for their future.”

To watch PensionTube go to www.youtube.com/pensiontube

Granton & District Community Council meeting

RWCC (2)
Granton and District Community Council will meet on Monday 24 November at 7pm in Royston Wardieburn Community Centre. All welcome.
Check out our web site – we regularly update.
Dave McNab (Secretary, Granton and District Community Council)
http://grantonanddistrictcommunitycouncil.com/
Follow us on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/GrantonDistCC

 

Minister hails latest organ donation figures

Scotland ‘making excellent progress’

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The number of people waiting for a transplant has fallen to its lowest level since 2006, a report detailing Scotland’s organ donation record has shown. The average number of people waiting for a transplant has fallen by a quarter in the last seven years – from 793 in 2006/7 to 595 in 2013/14.

The figures, detailed in a ‘report card’ published this week by the Scottish Government, shows marked improvement in nearly all areas of the organ donation process – with donor and transplant numbers up significantly in the last few years.

This is the first time the Scottish Government has published a report card on NHS performance in this area and it is to be widely distributed to staff and patients across the country annually.

It fulfils a commitment made in the Scottish Government’s A Donation and Transplantation Plan for Scotland 2013 – 2020, to publish an annual report card on four or five key national measures on organ donation and transplantation.

The report shows that the number of living and deceased donors rose by almost 60 per cent between 2011/12 and 2013/14 and, over the same period, the number of transplants from living and deceased donors rose from 345 in a year to 425 in a year.

In addition the number of patients referred to the organ donation service has more than doubled in the last three years, meaning more patients who have expressed a wish to donate their organs after death have had those wishes honoured.

Public Health Minister Michael Matheson said: “Over the last few years we have made important strides in raising awareness of the importance of organ donation in Scotland and we have been encouraging more and more people to make their wishes known to friends and family.

“We want Scotland to be amongst the best performing countries in the world for donation and transplantation, and this year’s report shows we are continuing to make excellent progress towards this goal.

“This is thanks to every donor and every donor’s family who have demonstrated such compassion and generosity in the face of tragic and difficult circumstances. It is also testament to the work of staff across the NHS in Scotland who work tirelessly to ensure that people’s organ donation wishes are respected and that every donation counts.”

The publication also highlights the need to increase the number of families who agree for donation to go ahead – which has seen a gradual rise from 57.1 per cent in 2010/11 to 61.6 per cent in 2013/14. Around 90 more lives each year could be saved if this figure rose to 80 per cent.

Mr Matheson added: “This year our public campaign focuses on encouraging people to talk to their friends and family about their decision to donate. Letting those closest to you know your decision makes it easier for them to honour your wishes if they ever need to.”

To register or find out more visit www.organdonationscotland.org or telephone 0300 123 2323

GMB call for increase of £1 an hour

‘Members across Scotland say that in their experience you need at least £10 an hour and a full working week to have a decent life free from benefits and tax credits’ – GMB Scotland

coinGMB Scotland is calling for an increase of £1 per hour towards the GMB Congress target of a living wage of at least £10 per hour.

The items in the trade union’s claim, submitted to Cosla last Friday, are: £1 an hour increase on all hourly rates of pay, consolidation of living wage supplements and the removal of all pay points below the living wage pay level. The next review of pay is 1 April 2015.

GMB Scotland launched the pay campaign with photo calls at ten locations across Scotland, with GMB members employed by Scottish local authorities holding up large replica of a £1 coin

Alex McLuckie, GMB Scotland’s Senior Organiser, said: “GMB is kicking off this campaign for Scottish local council workers to receive a £1 an hour increase on their basic salary from April 2015. This is a step towards the target of a living wage of £10 per hour set by GMB Congress in 2014.

“GMB members across Scotland say that in their experience you need at least £10 an hour and a full working week to have a decent life free from benefits and tax credits. Less than £10 an hour means just existing not living. It means a life of isolation, unable to socialise. It means a life of constant anxiety over paying bills and of borrowing from friends, family and pay day loan sharks just to make ends meet.

“Many of our members provide vital frontline services and while these jobs are crucial to many of Scotland’s councils, the people providing these services are some of the lowest of paid.

“Over the years Scotland’s council workers have either received a minimal pay rise or no pay rise at all. Further to this many GMB members may have suffered a cut in earnings through hours being reduced, while at the same time having their workload increased with staff leaving without being replaced.

“With the reality of low pay and increasing workloads, coupled with the vital services which our members provide for Scotland’s councils, GMB Scotland believe £1 an hour rise on all basic salaries is a way of acknowledging the work done by Scotland’s council workers.”

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