Sign up for North Edinburgh community conference

SAVE THE DATE: Saturday 13 February 9.30 – 3pm

NORTH EDINBURGH COMMUNITY CONFERENCE

Organised by Community Action North and Granton Improvement Society

WHAT NEXT FOR OUR COMMUNITY?

Challenges and opportunities facing North Edinburgh

North Edinburgh is facing tough times. Services are being cut, jobs are hard to come by and some of our projects are struggling to survive.

But maybe it’s not all doom and gloom. Our community has some great resources, and chief among these is our people: the activists and the volunteers, young and old.

This important conference will discuss what our community needs – and work out how, together, we can get where we want to be.

We believe the people who know best are the people who live here. North Edinburgh needs your ideas – come along and help us to map out a positive future for our community.

Lunch provided

Free crèche available (MUST be booked in advance)

Contact: 0131 315 6405 or email communityactionnorth@gmail.com | grantonimprovementsociety.wordpress.com

SOS – Save Our Services!

Members of the Power to the People group are calling on local groups and individuals from North Edinburgh to join them at a lobby of the full council meeting on Thursday 21 January to protest against what Unison describe as the “worst cuts in living memory”. Continue reading SOS – Save Our Services!

Houses of the Holy?

Student flats set for St Paul’s site

A planning application has been lodged to build 36 student flats on the St Paul’s site off Pennywell Road in Muirhouse:

https://citydev-portal.edinburgh.gov.uk/idoxpa-web/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=NYU979EWLO000

http://www.urbanrealm.com/news/5864/Edinburgh_church_to_make_way_for_new_student_housing.html

Get festive with the Centipede Project today

Winter Wreath Walk

Today 1 – 3pm

Picture this: Total Craigroyston infographics online

Total Craigroyston have produced several ‘infographics’ to aid conversations about what’s happening in the area. Continue reading Picture this: Total Craigroyston infographics online

NEDAC needs your support

Local service NEDAC has supported thousands of local individuals and their families for more than thirty years. Now, NEDAC needs YOUR support:

NEDAC has been embedded in the local community for the past 30 years, we grew out of the HIV and AIDS epidemic in Edinburgh and was initially started by local residents in response to this.

Over the past 30 years we have gained the trust and credibility of the local community and have developed services to meet the ever-changing needs of this diverse population. We have a strong community identity and links with all partner agencies involved in all aspects of substance use and mental health and we have gone a long way to reducing substance related harm for both individuals and family members as well as the community as a whole.

The current contract is about to be awarded to Lifeline which is an English National organisation based in Manchester, this decision will be made at the Finance and Resources committee on 14 December.

The loss of a locally developed service which has evolved and developed to meet the ever-changing needs of the local community will be a devastation for both the locality and the partnership approach to working with this client group. We believe that there will be a huge reduction in the level of service provided and the lack of a quick response to changing client needs will have a negative impact on the communities most vulnerable people

We are hoping to gain your support on this issue and saving a much needed community resource

GO TO www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/nedac-a-quality-local-service-axed

Tomorrow’s People exhibition opens … tomorrow!

Tomorrow’s People exhibition to open in North Edinburgh Arts shop unit

The National Galleries of Scotland and Tomorrow’s People would like to invite you to the opening of their exhibition on Monday (7 December), 12-5pm.

You can view this collaborative piece of work in The Artists’ Shop (inside Muirhouse Shopping Centre, closest to NEA).

Also a great opportunity to speak with Tomorrow’s People to find out more about the organisation and all the brilliant work that they do around our community.

www.tomorrows-people.org.uk
www.nationalgalleries.org

A very merry night in Muirhouse!

Miss the Community Action North Christmas Tree event on Thursday? My colleague Andy captured the whole thing on video – and you can watch it in under twenty seconds!

I also captured a snippet of the Craigroyston musicians during rehearsals for the evening event:

And if you’d prefer a more leisurely idea of what went on, Broughton High School’s Morgan Creamer braved the elements to capture some memories of a special night in Muirhouse … thanks, Morgan – hope you have dried out!

More of Morgan’s pictures on our Facebook page

Can we have a Christmas tree? Yes we CAN!

Community celebrates despite deluge

It lashed down with rain all afternoon and into the evening – a real Muirhouse monsoon! – but local people came out in their droves to see the Christmas tree lights being switched on in Muirhouse Shopping Centre last night.

Craigroyston High School’s Josh Hardwick did the honours and kicked off an evening of music, food and fun that seemed to get everyone in the festive mood!

So many people to thank:

Craigroyston Community High School for sharing their wonderful musical talents – the band and the choir were superb.
Local schools Oaklands, Rowanfield, Pirniehall, St David’s, Forthview and Craigroyston for creating the beautiful snowflakes that now adorn the centre
Fleurtations for delivering, erecting and decoration the tree
Urban Union for supplying the Christmas tree
The City of Edinburgh Council for their support and advice throughout
Weber Shandwick for getting things done
North Edinburgh Arts staff for their wonderful support: particularly John for his technical wizardry, Michelle and her team for the fabulous food (and wonderful winter punch!) and for sharing her artistic skills to make the shopping centre look great
Local police for supervising the event
The Tomorrow’s People team for all their hard work in decorating the Centre and making the event such a success.
Santa for … well, just being Santa!
And finally, the children and families of North Edinburgh who came out on such a horrible night to support the event. Comments have been overwhelmingly positive – maybe we’ll try another event in the New Year?

Thanks, everyone!

Andy & Dave, Community Action North (CAN)

Our day in pictures (below)

There are more on Facebook too …

Tree-mendous: Christmas arrives in Muirhouse!

Tonight’s the night at Muirhouse Shopping Centre

Dull old Muirhouse Shopping Centre will be transformed into a local winter wonderland tonight when Community Action North (CAN) kicks the Christmas season off in style!

Why are we doing this? During the first phase of the Community Action North project we spoke to dozens of local groups and hundreds of local people – and one of their biggest complaints was about the state of the shopping centre. Everyone agrees it’s not the most welcoming environment, so we decided to do something about it – even if only temporarily. And when Urban Union kindly offered to donate a real Christmas tree we thought: if places like Corstorphine, Morningside and Stockbridge can have public Christmas trees, why not Muirhouse too?

It’s taken a while to organise and has presented a number of challenges – I’m sure Santa’s Christmas present run is easier to plan – but we’re almost there and tonight we hope local people will join us to celebrate our community at a very special time of year.

We’ve been working away to make the Centre look a little bit brighter – children from the local primary schools created some brilliant snowflake stencils and these are now being painted on the walls by a team from Tomorrow’s People, supported by Austeja from North Edinburgh Arts.

Our Christmas tree, a mighty twenty-two foot Norwegian Spruce, was delivered and erected yesterday and will be decorated today. We’ll also be adding some more lights around the Centre to give it that festive feel. There’s still a lot to be done, but we’ll get there!

So what could possibly go wrong? Well, quite a lot – as many local people have been quick to point out! However we’ve looked at all the possibilities, we’ve weighed up all the risks and we’re giving it a go. Christmas is a time of hope, of new beginnings and more than anything it’s about children – and we believe our local children deserve to have their own tree, here in their community.

Among tonight’s highlights:

Christmas Tree lighting ceremony
Music from Craigroyston Community High School
Free festive food and drink at North Edinburgh Arts
Sweets for the children
A visit from Santa
An opportunity to hear about CAN – what CAN can do for you, for groups and for our community

The festive fun kicks off at 5pm. Santa Claus is coming to Pennywell tonight – we hope you will too!

Andy and Dave, Community Action North CAN