The Christmas Charity Festival will be taking place at Inverleith Park on 6 & 7 December and organisers are looking for choirs to help provide some seasonal song at the popular event.
A number of slots are available throughout the day – if you’d like to take part contact Terry Crossley – email terry@greatscottishevents.org.uk – or telephone 0131 208 2500.
Visit www.christmascharityfestival.com for more info on the weekends’s events
The children will be required for the following rehearsals:
Saturday 8th November 12 noon – 2pm at North Edinburgh Arts
Saturday 15th November 12 noon – 2pm at North Edinburgh Arts
Saturday 29th November 12 noon – 2pm at North Edinburgh Arts
Saturday 6th December 12 noon – 2pm at North Edinburgh Arts.
The children will also be required for rehearsals from 2nd January – 17th January. Performances are on 15th, 16th & 17th January.
Please get in contact with me or Kate Wimpress, if you would like to discuss this further. People who have already expressed an interest – again, please confirm this to me by 7th November.
Visit to National Library of Scotland Monday 8 December
I have heard back from some of you, but if there is anyone else who should like to come, please let me know by 7th November.
Stephanie Knight, North Edinburgh Theatre Project
A quick reminder that Pilton Youth & Childrens Project (PYCP) annual general meeting is on Friday (7 November) at 2pm in The Greenhouse. Details below:
North Edinburgh Young Peoples Forum member LAURA says we must speak out when we encounter homophobia …
How are the LGBTQIA* community portrayed in the media?
Society has certainly progressed in the acceptance of people identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex or asexual, but how do we portray them in media?
Many people are still offended by people identifying as LGBTQ, but with same-sex marriage being legalised in many countries and states, the media is starting to recognise and portray more LGBTQIA people in films and TV Shows.
However, if a character in a TV show is portrayed, for example, as being lesbian, their sexuality is almost always a huge part of the plot and they are commonly shown as having had many girlfriends just to prove that they are lesbian. The same goes for people being portrayed as gay.
But TV shows are reluctant to feature transgendered people, whether they are trans-male/trans-female or simply non-binary, and asexuals/aromantics are normally shown as people who haven’t ‘met the right person’.
However, while TV Shows and films are certainly improving the way they portray LGBTQIA people, some channels are still portraying them negatively.
Stonewall, a charity for LGBTQIA people, discovered that “Gay people and their lives are five times more likely to be portrayed in negative terms on the BBC” and that “BBC programmes frequently use gay sexuality for making jokes or as an insult, and rely heavily on clichéd stereotypes”.
In July 2010, Stonewall published research about representation in youth television: 49% of portrayal was stereotypical and 0.6 of the content they viewed portrayed LGBTQIA people ‘positively and realistically’.
So what is there to do about negative portrayal of the LGBTQIA community in media?
Obviously, you can complain to the television companies, but not a lot can come from a single complaint letter or e-mail. The key to making a difference is to get LOUD.
You can get into contact with various different charities, Stonewall is an excellent example of one of them, and organise a protest or campaign. You can get your friends and families all to write letters of complaint – the more the merrier. You can put what you’ve seen on the internet for the world to see. There are countless other ways to stop discrimination against LGBTQIA people, and its easy to get involved.
Whether you’ve read something homophobic in a newspaper or magazine, seen stereotypes of LGBTQIA people on TV, or heard something offensive on the radio, it’s easy to get involved, and it’s your responsibility. If everyone waits for somebody else to do it – nobody will.
You can see Stonewalls page about the portrayal of LGTQIA people in the media at: http://www.stonewall.org.uk/what_we_do/research_and_policy/2875.asp
Laura, North Edinburgh Young Peoples Forum
Pictures by Nicki and Josh (NEYPF)
* Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex and asexual.
You can give blood at
St Columba’s Parish Church, Hillhouse Road
on Wednesday 5 November
from 2.30 – 4pm and 5.30 – 8pm
East meets West in Scottish Cup Third Round clash
The Spartans are hoping that Hearts and Hibs fans with a free weekend will swell the ranks of the Spartan Army as they face the challenge of Barry Ferguson’s Clyde in the third round of The Scottish Cup at Ainslie Park this afternoon.
Both clubs go into today’s clash in fine form. Spartans are enjoying a ten match unbeaten run, and while the local club are underdogs they are looking forward to the opportunity to tackle the SPFL2 side.
Spartans Manager Dougie Samuel said: “We go into Saturday’s game in a healthy position, with arguably nothing to lose. Playing against higher ranked opposition means that we find ourselves in the unusual position of going into a home game as genuine underdogs; that said, it’s a tag we will set out to enjoy.”
Clyde have been making steady progress under ex-Ranger Barry Ferguson and, unbeaten in five games, currently sit in sixth place in SPFL2 The ‘Bully Wee’ have a fine Scottish Cup history and, as the ‘big’ team in the tie, start the game as firm favourites.
Can Spartans defy the odds? It promises to be a cracker, and don’t be too surprised if the two sides have to do it all again at Broadwood on 8 November.
Kick off today is 3pm.
Admission is by cash at the gate: £8 for adults, £5 for concessions and FREE entry for all under-12s. Due to the anticipated crowd at Ainslie Park, entry will be via the turnstiles at Pilton Drive and Pilton Avenue (open from 2pm).
Among the delegates at last night’s Inverleith Community Conference was a group of Edinburgh University students – yes, those enthusiastic young guys in the bright red tops!
The students are working with Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership on a project to look at more innovative ways to encourage walking and cycling – and they want to hear from you! Let them explain:
Edinburgh Living Lab is a new partnership involving the City of Edinburgh Council and students and staff from the University of Edinburgh.
The goal of the Living Lab is to encourage innovation in the development of services, processes and products in the city. What makes the Living Lab different is not so much it’s aims as it’s methods.
Developing new solutions should always involve users from the start, and as far as possible should take place in real world contexts: on the street, in parks, cafes, community centres, homes and offices rather than in contrived laboratory settings.
As well as designing in collaboration with users there is an emphasis on rapidly implementing project ideas, testing and measuring their effectiveness, refining them or throwing them away as required.
We are currently involbed in a ten week pilot project with Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership, where teams of Masters students from the University’s Design Informatics degree are experimenting with novel ideas for increasing the uptake of active travel in Inverleith. Data plays a central role in their projects: some of this will be existing data sets such as those produced by the Council, but some will be freshly collected during the course of the projects, using surveys, observation and digital techniques.
Edinburgh Living Lab is currently at an experimental stage and we welcome contributions from participants at the conference and of course from the residents of Inverleith.
Interested? To find out more visit www.edinburghlivinglab.org/
BRAINS ON BIKES
Do you want to help improve cycling in Inverleith? Want to take part in a short study where you will get to wear Google Glass and a high tech EEH headset?
Intrigued? Contact Kim Taylor on 0754 161 0222 or email kimritaylor@gmail.com for more information!
To sign up for the study go to: http://goo.gl/forms/9vXJCxE4y2
Government will explore compulsory microchipping
The vast majority of people who responded to a consultation on responsible dog ownership in Scotland have said they are NOT in favour of compulsory muzzling of all dogs in public places.
The consultation, Responsible Dog Ownership in Scotland, asked members of the public for their views on how to improve public safety in Scotland.
Over 97 per cent of those who responded were against the proposal for muzzling.
Other measures, including compulsory microchipping, were also consulted on and the Scottish Government has published the full responses today (see link below).
The majority of respondents were also in favour of a system of compulsory microchipping and the Scottish Government is now considering the practicalities of introducing this across the country.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said: “We already have long-standing laws in place to help protect members of the public from dangerous dogs, but this consultation has provided us with the opportunity to see if there is anything more that can be done to strengthen legislation in Scotland.
“Authorities already have the option of muzzling available for dogs in certain cases but this consultation allowed people to offer their views on whether a more general system of muzzling of all dogs is practical or justified.
“It was a radical proposal but it was important that communities across Scotland has the chance to give their views of every option available.
“It is clear from the responses that communities right across Scotland do not think this is a measure that will encourage responsible dog ownership and, as such, we will not be progressing with any policies on this.
“Answers to other aspects of the consultation were much more varied and, as such, it is important that the Scottish Government considers these fully with a view to publishing a full response in the near future.
“It is crucial that our approach fits the needs of our communities. Every incident is one too many – we need to ensure Scotland’s system continues to focus on preventing these tragedies.”
Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead said: “The Scottish Government recognises microchipping as an effective method of identifying animals and can help re-unite dogs with owners where the dogs have been lost or stolen and the owners of dangerous or out of control dogs can already be required to microchip their dogs.
“The responses to questions clearly show an overwhelming public appetite for some sort of compulsory microchipping scheme. This is really positive however it is only right that we fully explore the practical aspects of this, including costs, before we make a definitive decision and my officials will continue to work on this with a view to announcing a decision in the near future.”
Walking, cycling and sustainable transport were the themes of Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership’s annual community conference held at Broughton High School last night.
Active travel, in particular encouraging walking and cycling to school, features high on the list of community priorities in Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership’s hot-off-the-press local community plan for 2014 – 2107, so the conference theme was well chosen.
Around fifty delegates attended the event which was hosted by Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership convener Councillor Nigel Bagshaw, who spoke enthusiastically of the considerable health and environmental benefits of choosing to walk or cycle rather than take the car.
Transport, Infrastructure and Environment Convener Cllr Lesley Hinds outlined the city council’s current transport systems, ongoing initiatives and future plans before delegates broke into workshop groups to discuss: ‘What are the challenges to making walking and cycling better in Inverleith?‘ and ‘What are potential solutions to improve and increase walking and cycling, including how can we make best use of local greenspace?’
A full conference report will follow, meanwhile here are some images taken during the event:
