Having a Bank Holiday Weekend spring clean out? Did you know you can donate many different items to the Hospice?
– That bottle of wine gathering dust
– That gin still untouched
– The gift set you’ll never use, or the candle that’s not quite your scent
– The extra goodie bag items from your child’s party
– Even those kids toys still in their packaging!
Yes, we want it all, and you’ll feel great having decluttered and done a good deed! Every donation helps us raise vital funds at our upcoming events.
Please drop off unopened gift sets, bottles and kids games at our reception during opening hours, or contact the Fundraising Team on fund@stcolumbashospice.org.uk or 0131 551 1381 for further details
All are invited to our Time to Remember Summer event in Fidra (No.17 Boswall Road) on Friday 19 June, at 2pm. This is an opportunity to gather together to remember loved ones who have died.
It’s an inclusive event, appropriate for all ages, and for people of all faiths and none. If you have children, feel free to bring them too. The event will include: quiet music, readings and reflections, the chance to think about the people we love and to write their name(s), and a gift to take home.
The Iona cafe will be open afterwards offering free hot drinks for anyone who wishes to stay and chat.
Join us for our next Poetry Across the Seasons event on Wednesday 20th May, from 2-3pm.
This workshop is part of Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief Demystifying Death Week and Creativity and Wellbeing Week. This is an opportunity to explore themes of mortality, grief and life through poetry. This session offers a supportive space for reflection, expression and creative wellbeing.
You are invited to join us in writing, sharing your own poems or simply listening to others. No experience is needed; all are welcome to participate in this guided experience.
This is a free but ticketed event, facilitated by our dramatherapist, Sally McRae. Light refreshments will be provided.
This is part of our Poetry Across the Seasons series which will be running throughout 2026 in Edinburgh and North Berwick. Each gathering will explore a different theme – from reflection and remembrance to celebration, change, and creativity
Did you know that May is National Walking Month? While you’re walking or wheeling this month, why not consider contributing details of one of your favourite walks to our Walking Stories project?
Our Community Artist is currently curating a guide of walks across Edinburgh and East Lothian, so if you have a walk that’s helped you, we’d love to hear about it.
Edinburgh Dance Academy, recently voted highest ranked dance school in the UK and Ireland are ENROLLING NOW!!!
All of our taster lessons are free to make sure that we are the right fit for any dancer, and this month we are offering …
TWO WEEKS FREE AT ALL EDA STUDIOS
We offer classes in: Pre School Dance, Teenie Toes (parent and child), RAD Ballet, Tap, Jazz, Competition Teams, Contemporary, Commercial, Acro, Turns, Limbering, Body Conditioning, Mini Musical Theatre, Progressing Ballet Technique, & our Everybody Dance Now (ASN class)!
We would love to have you join our amazing dance family!
For more information please get in touch.
Email hello@eda.scot to book your free taster lesson now!
Have you experienced loss in the past two years? Join us for gentle, creative walks, designed especially for those navigating grief.
Together, we’ll explore the local landscape through art-making, reflection and connection.
Facilitated by Caledonia Funeral Aid’s Emma Ritchie and St Columba’s Hospice’s community artist Isla Macleod, you will be warmly welcomed to share space with others who understand and find comfort in nature and community.
NEN PUBLISHED OUR FIRST BLOG POST ON THIS DAY IN 2011
The very first NEN blog post was published on this day in 2011. The post read:
Hello, and welcome to the brand new NEN blog.
For those of you not already familiar with the newspaper, we are a local community paper serving the North Edinburgh community. We’ve been here for over thirty years.
This blog, along with our new Facebook page and Twitter stream, represents our first foray into the world of social media. We really want to encourage more participation, more questions and ideas from the North Edinburgh community – both online and offline – and hope that these new tools will help us to do that.
We already have a good website, where you can always find the latest edition of the printed newspaper. The blog won’t be replacing that, but will instead be there to show people the latest news about the area, and also to help us cover the current funding crisis we are facing as an organisation.
Above all, we want to include your input on the blog – be it ideas for stories, comments, pictures and events. So get in touch!
The NEN’s website was sadly deleted when funding ceased but our social media presence continues on both Twitter and Facebook and the blog is still going strong with 10 – 12 posts daily.
2025 was the NEN blog’s busiest ever year with 36,000 visitors. As I write this we’ve published more than 38,000 posts – all of these remain accessible online – and we’re currently on a run of publishing on 2749 consecutive days.
When the NEN office in Crewe Road North closed much of the NEN archive material was lost, but thankfully some of our picture library was salvaged and can now be found at granton:hub (Madelvic House), where the volunteer archive team has also collated all remaining hard copies of the North Edinburgh News newspaper.
Hopefully, between the physical archive and the NEN blog, you can find all you need to know about our community’s rich history – and we’re adding to that history every day!
We’d like to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who supported our 2025 Light Up a Life appeal. Thanks to the generous support of our community, the appeal raised over £110,000.
This incredible sum is already making a difference to people across Edinburgh and East Lothian, and will help us to expand our work to reach even more people in 2026. Thank you for your support!
TWO WEEKS FREE AT ALL EDA STUDIOS 
