Weather’s no match for local Army Cadets!

Nearly one hundred Army Cadets aged 12-18 years shrugged off freezing temperatures during a recent training weekend in the Pentland Hills, their first camp of 2015.

The weekend saw cadets based at Granton Square overcome snow, ice and sub-zero temperatures to put into practice the skills taught at their local Detachment.

Cadets took part in navigation training, first aid and fieldcraft. During the fieldcraft phase, cadets learned how to build improvised shelters and secure a ‘temporary home’ known as a Harbour Area.

Senior Cadets under the supervision of the Adult Volunteers grasped the opportunity to demonstrate to the younger Cadets how preparedness, teamwork and self-discipline can determine your success and survival, whatever the weather.

Major John Tonner, Officer Commanding of the weekend said: “I am extremely impressed with the abilities demonstrated by the Cadets and their maturity in applying themselves in the adverse conditions brought by the cold weather.

“It is a very unique opportunity for individuals to witness how valuable skills provided within our Youth Organisation can steer young people to go further in their chosen path in life”.

The ability to adapt quickly was demonstrated by all of the Cadets resulting in many new qualifications gained and successful testing to allow Cadets to progress onto the next stage of their Cadet careers with 17 Cadets gaining new First Aid qualifications and five Adult Volunteers receiving their First Aid at Work qualification.

17 Platoon is part of Lothian & Borders Army Cadet Force and have training nights every Monday and Wednesday evenings between 7 – 9pm. They welcome cadets between 12 and 18 years of age and encourage parents to get involved too.

You can find out more about the Cadet’s sporting and adventure training activities by visiting their Detachment at the Army Reserve Centre at Granton Square, online at www.lbcadets.co.uk or by calling 01506 856 698.

Power to the Pupils!

Broughton S2 group looks at local democracy

As S2 pupils at Broughton High School we undertook an inter-disciplinary learning (IDL) course as part of our S2 elective subject choice called ‘Power to the Pupils’ which was run by Callum and Stephan from Community Learning & Development (CLD).

The course – called Power to the Pupils – has been great as it has had a local focus which has allowed us to gather and identify issues that directly affect us as young people growing in the north Edinburgh area. We had great debates and positive discussion and of course great fun as well deciding which were there most important topics that we could address!

Our top issues were:

Negative stereotypes given for young people need to be challenged
Cyber Bullying
Free bus passes for all young people
Reduce the amount of bullying/name calling in Edinburgh
Reduce the cost of bus travel of young people
Young People should have more of a choice in the curriculum
Young People are unable to use some words (e.g. due to PC issues/double standards/they’re inflammatory etc.)
Dog fouling in the streets/parks which young people use
Young people not having a vote
Edinburgh should have a theme park like M&Ds
Cinema prices are too expensive.

Since coming to ‘power to the pupils’ we have been involved in some trips out to places like the City Chambers (above)and the ‘main cooncil headquarters’ where we learned about democracy, how decisions are made and who makes them on our behalf.

We even got to meet a real councillor – Nigel Bagshaw, who represents the Green Party in this area (Inverleith ward) in Edinburgh. He was really great! He listened to our concerns and he also gave us some fantastic advice on how we could take our issues forward. We also saw lots of famous people in some of the paintings that are hanging on the walls in the council building.

After visiting the city chambers we realised we should lobby on a more local level so we had a visit to the local Neighbourhood Partnership office based in North Edinburgh (above).

We raised several concerns that we had identified as being important to us. Negative stereotypes of young people, dog fouling in public spaces were just a couple of subjects we raised. The staff were great they listened all our questions and gave us some really positive feedback. They agreed that they were very important issues that needed tackling and gave us brilliant advice on methods to take our campaigns forward which was good.

We have learned some great new techniques and various methods to make our voices heard. Having the opportunity to access politicians with our issues by lobbying council officials as well as on a more local level with the North Edinburgh Neighbourhood Partnership has been fantastic and we all hope we have influenced them in a positive way.

The course has allowed us to learn new skills which will help us in the future there has also been lots of great discussion, debates which was interesting and above all it was great fun!

Here are some quotes from members of our group:

“The stuff we have learned will be useful in the future” – Harry Hunter S2

“Visiting the city chambers was really interesting it is a very old building with lots of traditions and history” – Simran Singh(S2)

“We hope we can make a difference and change people’s opinions of young people” – Chloe Carr (S2)

“It has been an amazing course and interesting” – Gabriella Borges (S2)

“I have made new friends as well as learnt some new skills” – Kyle Crooks (S2)

Power to the Pupils!

Keir concerns over Local Plan

‘I fear traffic gridlock, major health issues and the holding back of the economic potential of our capital city and nation’ – Colin Keir MSP.

Edinburgh Western MSP Colin Keir has written to to Cllr Lesley Hinds, Convener of Transport & Environment at the City of Edinburgh Council, to express his fears over the latest Local Plan.

Mr Keir raises concerns over the ability of the existing roads network to cope with all of the proposed housing sites being released for development and also expresses fears over pollution and air quality.

In his submission Mr Keir states: “The city of Edinburgh is an economic driver for Scotland. We know that every town and city must grow. The difficulty our city has is that there is no connected vision between development and methods of sustainable transport that anyone is aware of in relation to the west of the city.”

The city council is expected to make a decision on the Local Development Plan on 26 February.

Lesley Hinds LDP letter

Operation Quarterlight: cracking down on car crime

Quarterlight update: six arrests last week

Operation Quarterlight is a Police Scotland initiative aimed at tackling motor vehicle crime in hotspot areas. Since the start of the initiative in January 2015, local officers involved in the operation have made 24 arrests and solved 68 crimes related to motor vehicle offences.

In the last week officers in Edinburgh have arrested five men and one woman for various offences related to motor vehicles crimes. Of those arrested a 22-year-old man has been remanded in custody on multiple charges.

Additionally in the last week there has been 15 stop searches in hotspot areas and 41 bail curfew checks completed on some of Edinburgh’s most prolific offenders.

Police have also charged a 41-year-old woman with the theft of a pedal cycle. This had previously been advertised as for sale on a website. The bike has now been recovered and returned to its owner.

PS Tom Mallinson, who runs the Quarterlight team, said: “We have solved almost seventy crimes since Quarterlight began and well over half of these relate to vehicle crime. We are quite clear with offenders – we will continue to investigate all crimes linked to vehicles across the city.

“Many of these individuals will be involved in assaults, hate crimes, vandalisms and serious driving offences while in the commission of motor vehicle offences and our team has prioritised access to forensic services, CCTV and national vehicle crime experts to combat the challenge of autocrime.”

Chief Superintendent Mark Williams, who oversees Operation Quarterlight locally, pressed home the point about car security and improving results. He said: “We have seen a week on week increase in detection rates, as well as a driving down of car crime as the message gets out.

“We have increased preventative night time patrols in hot spot areas and officers have conducted over a hundred searches resulting in numerous arrests.

“We still want car owners to be careful – secure their vehicles, park in well-lit and overlooked spots and ensure valuable items are removed or at least not on show in their vehicles.”

Spartans: be the twelfth man!

Local club The Spartans play Berwick Rangers this Saturday (7 February) at Ainslie Park in the fifth round of the Scottish Cup. If we win we will make history as the first non-league team to play in the quarter-finals of the Scottish Cup for 55 years!

This Cross-Border clash sees the Lowland League title holders take on their third SPFL opponents on the Road to Hampden. We have already beaten Clyde and Morton and in both games the bumper home support has made all the difference.

Can you be the twelfth man on 7 February? We are making a big plea for everyone in the North Edinburgh community to come along and back their local team as we aim to make history!

The TV cameras will be along, “Pulse of the Place” our local Samba band will provide the pre match entertainment and hundreds of local youngsters will be bringing a real family atmosphere. It promises to be a magical afternoon.

Our Ainslie Park arena holds 3500 people, with 500 seats in our covered stand. Kick-off is at 3pm so please come down early if you want a seat.

Admission is £12 for adults, £8 for concessions and Under 12 s are free (pay at gate) – continuing our commitment to offer affordable football for all. With a bumper crowd expected, we have entrances open on both Pilton Drive and Pilton Avenue.

You can keep up to date with the pre-match news, previews and interviews on our hat-trick of social media sources:

website: www.spartansfc.com,

twitter: @spartansfc and Facebook: Spartans FC

The Spartans Football Club

| Live together, Play together, Win together

Safer Internet seminar

Last chance to book – you do not have to be working online to make use of this session, or be an ‘expert’ in social media!

As in previous years, as part of Safer Internet Day 2015 we will be hosting a seminar especially for youth workers on Tuesday 10 February at Gilmerton Community Centre from 6– 8pm.

Booking is essential for this event as there are only limited spaces at the centre. The seminar is open to all youth workers across the City, Council or voluntary sector, paid staff or volunteers.

For the seminar, Liz Ely from Zero Tolerance will present their research on young people’s attitudes and then take us through some of the useful approaches that they have developed for youth workers in their ‘Under Pressure’ resource.

http://zerotolerance.org.uk/sites/all/files/Peer%20Research_1.pdf
http://zerotolerance.org.uk/UnderPressure

This promises to be an engaging seminar in an area of concern for many young people, parents and workers. To book your place, please email:

gavin.crosby@edinburgh.gov.uk

with your name, email address and organisation.

Places will be limited to one per centre in the first instance, any spare places will be offered up to others nearer the event.

Places may be available to non-youth work agencies (e.g. housing, social workers or teachers) but priority will be given to youth work staff.

Inverleith NP: Nature in your Neighbourhood

Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership

Monday 23 February 6.30 -8.30pm, Blackhall Library

You are warmly invited to the next meeting of the Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership. The main theme for this meeting is ‘Edinburgh Living Landscapes’ where you can have a say in identifying potential areas to be part of this project to create, restore and connect green areas of the city, making attractive and biodiverse landscapes to be enjoyed by residents and visitors.

There will also be a presentation on local roads and pavements budgets – come find out how much we have and how we decide where it gets spent!

Also, come and see a display of plans for Fet-Lor Youth Club’s new building and hear decisions by Board on our Community Grants Fund applications.

We’d love to see you and full papers will be available in advance of meeting by following this link:

http://www.edinburghnp.org.uk/neighbourhood-partnerships/inverleith/downloads/links-to-inverleith-np-papers/

The meeting will take place on

Monday 23 February at Blackhall Library, 6.30 – 8.30pm.

INP ad

Elaine Lennon, Partnership Development Officer
Tel: 0131 529 5270

Third Sector: talk BOLD today

Just in case you missed this …

The City of Edinburgh Council is planning major changes to the way that it delivers services at a local level and how it collaborates with partners. TODAY (3 February), the Council is holding an engagement session to brief the third sector on the proposed changes and provide an opportunity to influence them. There are still some places available, but spaces are limited so please contact Tasha on email below as soon as possible.

A summary of the Council proposals can be found in the Better Outcomes Leaner Delivery (BOLD) Business Cases paper and the Organise to Deliver paper.

The meeting will take place at 2pm in the European Room at the City Chambers. If you would like to book one of the places, please email Tasha MacKenzie who works in the BOLD team in the Council: Tasha.MacKenzie@edinburgh.gov.uk.

Voluntary Sector Forum dates set

Get your diaries out … Forth and Inverleith Voluntary Sector Forum meetings have been set for the rest of the year … and the first one of 2016 has been scheduled in too!

22 APRIL

22 JULY

21 OCTOBER

20 JANUARY 2016

The meetings will be held on Wednesday mornings from 10am – 12 noon at venues to be confirmed.

Let’s talk about Dementia

STARTING this month, Alzheimer Scotland – Action on Dementia is launching a Let’s Talk about Dementia campaign. The campaign aims to open up more discussion on the subject of dementia and to raise awareness of the importance of early diagnosis.

Stigma, negative perceptions of people with dementia and perceptions that there is little or no help available are some of the reasons which prevent people from seeking help sooner rather than later. The negative perceptions also create fear and worry meaning that many families avoid talking about dementia.

The worry that you or someone close to you may have dementia is one of the most difficult conversations we may have. The Let’s Talk about Dementia campaign hopes to raise awareness and get families talking to each other and medical professionals so that more people living with dementia can get the help and support they need in place to ensure they have the best quality of life possible.

Alzheimer Scotland’s Let’s Talk about Dementia campaign will offer detailed information, support on the organisation’s website (www.alzscot.org/conversation) and via the Dementia Helpline (0808 808 3000) which is free to call and available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Alzheimer Scotland will be promoting the campaign on radio, in print and through social media (Facebook and Twitter). Social media is particularly important, as these difficult conversations are often intergenerational; involving partners, adult children, grandchildren, other family members and beyond. We want people to share their own experiences of these often difficult conversations and if, in hindsight, they would have handled things differently. Alzheimer Scotland will also be sharing real life case studies, information and advice via its Facebook page and Twitter feed.

www.facebook.com/AlzheimerScotland

www.twitter.com/alzscot

“I wish I’d trusted my instincts about dad earlier. Got us to sit down as a family and discuss it. If I had the chance again, that’s what I’d do.” Ian

“I knew there was something wrong with me and I kept asking questions until I found out what it was. My family and friends have been wonderful – they support me in so many ways and I’m glad I can talk openly to them. Nobody should have to face dementia alone. Never be afraid to ask: ask people, ask questions and ask for help.” Anne

“Nobody’s happy to get a diagnosis of dementia, but it was so much better than the not-knowing. It gave mum, and me, a way of dealing with the changes that were happening in her life.” Donna