Welfare reform: getting the facts in Forth

The current reform of welfare and benefit payments is the biggest to be undertaken for over sixty years. Whether you agree with the reforms or not, the changes will affect hundreds of thousands of people across the country. How will you be affected? Find out at a briefing and information session later this month.

Forth Neighbourhood Partnership’s Health Action Group is hosting a briefing on the Welfare Reform Act on

Wednesday 17 October from 10 – 11.30am in West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre.

Granton Information Centre’s Roddy Samson (pictured below) will be leading the session – which is aimed at local community, voluntary and statutory organisations – and there will be ample opportunity for questions and discussions.

Roddy Samson said: “The Welfare Reform Act 2012 introduces the greatest changes to welfare benefits in sixty years. These changes will have far reaching impacts for benefit claimants and their families, particularly for vulnerable people and the services which support them. The impact of these changes will affect those in receipt of Incapacity Benefit, Employment Support Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, Housing Benefit, Working Tax Credits and Job Seekers Allowance. This event will give you the opportunity to learn about the latest details of the Government’s welfare reform programme and help you to understand the new system and prepare for the changes ahead – where possible.”

To find out more or to book your place at the West Pilton briefing, contact Forth Neighbourhood Partnership’s partnership development officer Jim Pattison on 529 5082 or email jim.pattison@edinburgh.gov.uk

Going Forth with Granton Youth Centre

Nae work? Nae money? Nae chance? Nae choice? Bored? Nowt to do?

Granton Youth Centre’s Go Forth team can help find you work, support you to make money and offer you choices and chances to improve you and your life.

Contact Jamie, Mary or Tracey on 467 5854 or just drop in for an informal chat at Granton Youth Centre at 3 – 11 West Granton Road (near Granton Square) – it might just change your life!

Invite to bfriends at Prentice Centre!

Paul Burke writes:

“As the Project Development Worker for CHILDREN 1ST bfriends service in North and West Edinburgh, I would like to invite you along to an Open day on Friday 12 October from 12 – 2pm at our base in The Prentice Centre at 1 Granton Mains Avenue.

In April 2012, CHILDREN 1ST re-opened its bfriends base in North Edinburgh and we feel this will be a nice opportunity to meet with local agencies and let everyone know more about our service, volunteers and the young people we work with. Please try to pop along any time between 12-2pm – as we are meeting over lunch time, we will provide a small buffet so you won’t miss out on lunch!”

If you plan to attend you can contact Paul at paul.burke@children1st.org.uk or telephone 552 8265.

Take part in Sainsbury’s ‘Million Meal Appeal’ this weekend

Sainsbury’s Blackhall colleagues are encouraging residents to help tackle food poverty this October by taking part in a nationwide food-drive run by Sainsbury’s and FareShare, the national charity tackling hunger across the UK. The second annual Million Meal Appeal takes place this weekend on Saturday 6^th and Sunday 7^th October and will benefit more than 700 charities and projects across the UK.

Last year’s ‘Million Meal Appeal’, which took place on Saturday 26^th November, was a huge success and involved 600 Sainsbury’s stores including Blackhall. Thanks to customers’ generosity, together with Sainsbury’s pledge to match donations, FareShare could deliver food for over 1.2 million meals to 700 charities and community projects it supports. Blackhall residents’ contribution was significant, with enough food collected at the retailer’s Blackhall store to provide 4000 donations to charities across the UK including Granton Youth Centre.

This year’s appeal will see over 900 stores involved in the two-day food-drive to help 720 charities and community projects which FareShare supports. Customers will again be able to choose to donate an item from the Million Meal Appeal shopping list which consists of long-life products including tinned goods, dried pasta, pasta sauce, rice, tea and instant coffee. The items are purchased as normal and then placed in the collection box after checkout. Customers shopping on Sainsbury’s Online can also choose to make a £1 donation between 3 – 9 October.

Sainsbury’s Community Affairs Manager Andy White said: “We had such an overwhelming response from our customers to last year’s initiative and we’re excited to be working with FareShare on the second ‘Million Meal Appeal’. The total of 1.2 million meals donated in 2011 would be enough to feed a sold-out London Olympic stadium 15 times! We hope from this year’s campaign that we can further raise the awareness of food poverty in the UK and support those charities and projects that need our help.”

Assisting in the food drive will be local volunteers who are currently being recruited by FareShare. Potential volunteers are encouraged to visit www.fareshare.org.uk with their family and friends to register. Participants will be able to choose their preferred Sainsbury’s store to volunteer at and have the choice of a morning or afternoon shift.

Lindsay Boswell, CEO, FareShare, added: “The Million Meal Appeal has come at a crucial time. Around 5.8 million people live in deep poverty in the UK, meaning they struggle to afford everyday essentials like food. I hope many Sainsbury’s Blackhall customers can support the Appeal and help us to provide even more food to the charities and community projects we support across the country”.

NEN AGM Minutes

NORTH EDINBURGH NEWS Ltd

NORTH EDINBURGH NEWS MEDIA & COMMUNICATION TRUST

Annual General Meeting

27th September 2012 07:00pm in Drylaw Parish Church.

MINUTES

Present:

As per Attendance Sheet.

In Attendance:

Dave Pickering (Editor)

The meeting was chaired by Martin Hinds who opened the meeting and welcomed everyone.

Apologies:

Councillor Cammy Day, Stuart McIvor.

Previous Minutes:

Approved by Eddie Thorn & seconded by Willie Black.

Chairperson’s Report:

Martin Hinds opened by saying that since the last AGM, 18 months ago, in which there was fear it might have been the last and along with the sale of the office at Crewe Road North, the future looked very bleak. Following on from a successful Community Conference in Telford College, however, which generated a lot of support, it was agreed that a community paper with a successful history of 30 years should just not be allowed to die. The board with that support and with the residue of funds left over, decided that the paper should not be allowed to disappear and plans were put in place to keep the NEN going, mainly in the early days via the Blog, and slowly build up to the re-launch in February. This was mainly down to the hard work of Dave Pickering (Editor) and Alan Lennon (Lennon Design) who redesigned the paper, and the board of directors both old and new, Martin expressed his thanks to all for their hard work to get where we are today. Martin also thanked Scotmid & PCA for their sponsorship each of an edition. He added that the Board had been in getting a community grant from the Inverleith Partnership, which would allow the NEN to start a series of Social Media Workshops (NENgage) and hopefully the end product will produce a community reporter(s) for the paper.

Martin closed on a note of caution with regards to the finance side in which he explained that unless there is a significant uptake in advertising income the paper had only enough funds left to produce 2 more editions (October & December). With this in mind he, along with 3 fellow members of the board, met with local councillors from both Forth & Inverleith wards to look at ways of increasing funds. The outcome is an application for a grant, which will be made to both Forth & Inverleith Partnerships for sponsorship, which would enable the paper to continue into next year. By this time it was hoped that some form of partnership working could be agreed with the Council.

There followed a fairly long debate on the future plus various suggestions were made. Board noted them and they will be fully discussed at future board meetings.

Editor’s Report:

Dave Pickering opened by remarking that a lot had happened since the last AGM and a lot has changed. In fact he had not envisaged another NEN AGM, but because of the hard work of the board members, who refused to let the paper die, we are here tonight!. It is all down to them, volunteers who have given up their own time and because of that the community owes them a debt of gratitude that the NEN is still here, clinging on but surviving.

Follow the success of re-launching the paper the other major success story is that of the blog with 90 blog followers, 410 twitters & 52 facebook ‘friends’ . On average the blog is visited 300 times per day and because of that we are looking at ways to try and get paid advertising on to the blog.

Dave ended with his thanks to the board and to the community for sticking with us so far and looked forward to continued support in the future.

Appointment of Auditor:

The meeting agreed to the re-appointment of Alison Glass as Auditor.

Finance Report:

Eddie Thorn Company Secretary/Treasurer produced and explained the Accounts for Year ending 31^st March 2012 for both the NEN Ltd & NEN Media & Communication Trust.

There were no questions with regard to the accounts.

Councillor Hinds gave thanks to Eddie for a clear and precise set of accounts.

Nominations/Election of the Board:

Martin Hinds reported that Thomas Brown had resigned from the board.

Martin Hinds moved- That the existing board with exception of Thomas be re–elected. This was unanimously agreed. There were no other nominations.

AOCB:

One Question on NENgage : If was still possible to attend the Workshops. Dave explained that it was still possible. The next one is on Thursday October 4 ^th in Stockbridge Library.

Date of Next Meeting:

In 12 months’ time in a place and time to be confirmed.

Alex Dale,

1^st October 2012

Times are tough but NEN fights on

NENagm2 — Eddie Thorn explains the fascinating details of the NEN accounts!

North Edinburgh News is fighting hard to stay afloat, attendees at the community newspaper’s annual general meeting heard last week. Chairperson Martin Hinds said that every effort is being made to attract the funding needed to keep the paper alive. The mood at the meeting was considerably brighter than that at the NEN’s previous AGM – where the organisation was wound down and staff said their goodbyes.

A small but select audience (!) heard that NEN was forced to close when the city council ‘disinvested’ in community newspapers in March last year. Three members of staff were made redundant, and to meet the organisation’s obligations to make redundancy payments the board sold off the NEN’s Crewe Road North office. After redundancy payments were made and outstanding bills paid the Board used the residue of cash raised from the sale of the office to try to resurrect the NEN in a ‘slimmed-down’ form late last year.

The NEN is now run with costs cut to the bone – the organisation has a desk at Telford College on West Granton Road, with part-time freelance editorial support and no staff. Despite this, the NEN hit the streets again earlier this year and has continued to produce, albeit now on a bi-monthly basis to keep costs down. The NEN’s online presence has also been beefed-up and is attracting more and more visitors – last month the online NEN passed 50,000 visitors and now attracts an average of 300 readers daily.

So, while the NEN’s future is far from secure, there are reasons for optimism. Martin Hinds told the meeting: “We have held productive talks with local councillors and hope that with their support we can we can forge a plan for the NEN’s longer-term survival. The NEN continues to have strong support within the community, and we need to build on that support. The NEN Board is made up of local people who all give up their time as volunteers, and we have worked very hard to keep the NEN alive – we remain totally committed to ensuring that the NEN will remain at the heart of the community.”

Treasurer Eddie Thorn went on to give a breakdown of the NEN’s finances before a general discussion on how the NEN can raise income to meet the challenges ahead. However at thirty years and counting, financial challenges are nothing new to NEN. You can’t help but feel we’ve not reached the end of this particular story yet!

OneOak: new exhibition at Botanics this month

OneOak is an educational project devised by the Sylva Foundation, a charity working to revive Britain’s woodland culture. The fascinating exhibition follows the full life story of an oak tree, and features no less than fifty items crafted from that one oak tree.

The exhibition opens in the John Hope Gateway on Friday 12 October and runs until Sunday 2 December. Free admission.

For more information on the OneOak project visit www.sylva.org.uk

Goodbye, Telford – hello, Edinburgh!

Telford no more, but new College is a class apart!

The vision to create a bigger, better and stronger college that will serve Edinburgh and the Lothians long into the future became a reality today with the launch of Edinburgh College. The new College is set on a clear path to provide improved opportunities and outcomes to everyone who walks through its door – and in turn help to kick-start the regional and national economy by delivering skilled people to those industry sectors where Scotland enjoys a competitive advantage.

New Principal Mandy Exley said the potential of Edinburgh College, both for students and for Edinburgh and Lothians, is limitless. She said: “This is a significant landmark in the history of education provision in Edinburgh and the Lothians. By being bigger and better, we can combine strengths and resources to give our students high quality skills that will allow them seize life-changing opportunities. Equally we will work hand in hand with businesses to ensure we are not just providing a curriculum of varied courses – but are actually focused on training future staff to work in those key industry sectors where there is high demand or in those sectors which have been identified as growth areas for Scotland. We want to be an economic powerhouse for the Edinburgh and Lothian region – helping to drive growth and prosperity to benefit both the local and national economy.”

The creation of Edinburgh College also marks the end of an era for three of Edinburgh’s most recognisable educational institutions – the College being a product of the merger of Edinburgh’s Telford College, Jewel & Esk College and Stevenson College.

Edinburgh College, which as a £60m business makes it the biggest FE college in Scotland, will accommodate more than 35,000 students – the biggest student body in Edinburgh. The College will employ around 1300 staff operate from four main campuses; Granton, Sighthill, Milton Road and Midlothian.

Mandy added: “In many respects today’s launch is just a start of a journey. We know there is a lot of hard work ahead to deliver our vision for the college. However, the depth and breadth of our staff talent and resources is enormous. By working together and ensuring staff and students play a key role in the decision-making, we can make Edinburgh College a real success story; a college that is inclusive, innovative and excellent. We know that this is a sad day for some as three institutions from Edinburgh’s educational landscape disappear. However, as Edinburgh College starts to deliver on its aims, I am confident it will become a name that will have real resonance across Scotland, the UK and internationally.”

The college in particular will look to focus on developing and promoting ‘centres of excellence’ in key learning fields; including engineering and construction (particularly renewables), hospitality and tourism services, creative industries, service industries, care professions and performing arts.

Ian McKay, Chair (Elect) of Edinburgh College, said the new Board will be looking to set the management team some tough targets both in the first year, and more crucially, in 2013-14, which will see the new college’s first full curriculum being rolled out.

He said: “Edinburgh College will be challenged to support economic growth by delivering the right people for real jobs through a high quality and evolving curriculum. It has an enormous role to play in offering hope and opportunity to our young people and providing the skills needed to benefit the regional and national economy. To achieve that, we will be looking to agree a series of objectives matched against positive outcomes that the college team can be measured against to ultimately demonstrate that Edinburgh College can deliver on its promises.”

Education Secretary Michael Russell said: “As one of Scotland’s largest colleges, Edinburgh College will have a key role to play across the country and particularly in Edinburgh and the Lothians. I believe it will offer new and greater opportunities for students and help make sure they have the skills and knowledge they need for jobs in the area. I know a lot of work has been required to deliver the new college and I am confident the college, staff and students will reap the rewards of this.”

Named after one of Scotland’s finest civil engineers, Telford College opened on Crewe Road South in 1968. The former Ainslie Park Secondary School was added as an annexe as the College population grew and space became an issue, and the College moved to it’s present – and final – custom-built home on Granton’s waterfront in September 2006.

Your Future, Your Police at Broughton High School

Lothian and Borders Police are holding an event in Broughton High School to find out what teenagers want from the police. Around 200 teenagers from a wide range of backgrounds will take part in the ‘Your Future, Your Police’ session at Broughton. Tourrettes sufferer John Davidson, who was the subject of an acclaimed documentary, is guest speaker at the event.

Using workshops and discussion groups, the 15-17-year-olds will be given the chance to give their views on how they think the police should interact with teenagers, and what relevance the new Police Service of Scotland will have to them. This is the fourth in a series of sessions to be held across the Lothian and Borders Force area.

John Davidson, subject of the 1989 QED documentary ‘John’s Not Mad,’ is guest speaker. He will talking about how having severe Tourette’s syndrome led to misunderstandings with the police in his teens, and how this was remedied through open and ongoing communication.

Deputy Chief Constable Steve Allen, said: “The best thing about this type of event is that it allows us to engage with our young people in a positive environment, and gives us the opportunity to listen to what they have to say. We will record their views and opinions of policing in the Lothian and Borders area and use them in shaping the future as we move forward to the Police Service of Scotland.”

City rivals team up with Pilton filmmakers

They’re bitter rivals on the pitch, but city rivals Hearts and Hibs have put hostilities on hold and have teamed up with a Pilton film project to help young people find their voice by making short films.

Screen Education Edinburgh (formerly Pilton Video) will work in partnership with Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian Football Clubs on ‘Xpress Yourself’, a short film making programme targeting city teenagers with priority given to those resident in areas of deprivation. The initiative is funded through the Cashback for Creativy scheme.

Free taster workshops will take place at Tynecastle and Easter Road, giving participants the opportunity to write, shoot and act, giving them a taste of the filmmaking process. The first session takes place on Friday.

From these taster sessions the most interested young people will move forward to form core filmmaking groups based at each club, with intensive training and support provided by Screen Education Edinburgh to enable the young people to produce short films.

Graham Fitzpatrick, Screen Education Edinburgh’s Creative Manager (and Hearts fanatic!) said: “We are delighted to be partnering for the first time both Big Hearts Trust and Hibernian in the Community to deliver another exciting opportunity for youngsters in the Capital. Learning all the aspects of short film-making, from screenwriting to final edit, the young people participating will devise and produce four short films, followed by longer term support from SEE to enhance their skills and knowledge further, enabling them to pursue an interest in film-making.”

Councillor Paul Godzik, Education, Children and Families Convener, City of Edinburgh Council said: “Screen Education Edinburgh provide some fantastic opportunities for young people to learn about filmmaking and put their creative sides into action. I’m really pleased that both Hibs and Hearts are on board and I would encourage 12-19 year olds who haven’t tried something like this before to give it a go.”

Stewart McGuire, Operations Manager, Hibernian Community Foundation said: “This programme is a terrific way to equip young people with skills and tap into their interests through filmmaking. We are pleased to be working in partnership with Screen Education Edinburgh to unleash the imagination and energy of young people as they gain confidence working together.”

Keir MacCulloch, Project Co-ordinator, Big Hearts Community Trust said: ”We are delighted to be working with Screen Education Edinburgh for what promises to be an excellent project and a brilliant opportunity for young film makers in Edinburgh”.

The taster workshops are being held on Friday 5 October from 1.30 – 4.30pm at Easter Road Stadium and at Tynecastle on Friday 12 October, again from 1.30 – 4.30pm. Bus fares will be reimbursed to the young people and snacks will be provided.

Interested? Young people should contact Sarah Drummond at Screen Education Edinburgh – mail sarah@screen-ed.org or telephone 07827 292 379.

Cashback for Creativity (formally Creative Identities) is Creative Scotland’s programme that provides young people across Scotland with access to high quality dance, film and music activities, funded by the Scottish Government’s CashBack for Communities programme which reinvests the proceeds of crime back into communities to benefit Scotland’s young people.