This year we have busy programme of activities over the festive season. Everyone is invited to come and share the celebration with us…
Saturday 10th December at 6.30pm
The Muirhouse Christmas Show—fun and entertainment from our choir, our youngsters, and a good few grown ups who still know how to have a laugh.
Saturday 17th December 10am-12noon
Nativity Cocoa Morning – A coffee morning with a difference – as well as the usual tea, coffee and eats there will be winter warming hot chocolate AND a host of nativity sets on display.
Sunday 18th December at 11am
4th Sunday in Advent – Family Service with our Children’s Nativity Play
Sunday 18th December at 3pm
Blue Christmas Service—a quieter reflective service for those who struggle with all the merriment of Christmas because life for them is hard, lonely or sad.
Christmas Eve Watchnight Service at 8.00pm
Christingle Service—a magical service for all ages as we prepare to celebrate Christmas
Granton Information Centre has received the prestigious Scottish National Standards certificate for the quality of their information and advice provision at a reception at the City Chambers.
GIC is the first Edinburgh organisation – and one of only a few advice agencies in Scotland – to achieve the award at this level, and their certificate was presented by Sheriff Principal Edward T Bowen QC.
The certificate presentation was the centrepiece of an event organised to celebrate the success of EHAP (Edinburgh Housing Advice Partnership), a consortium set up to provide housing advice services across the city in a contract with the city council. The consortium partners – Granton Information Centre, Community Health and Information (CHAI), Move On and FourSquare – offer a comprehensive range of housing advice services to the people of Edinburgh. EHAP provides a prison outreach project, a schools peer education service for S4 and S5 school leavers, housing advice in local neighbourhood settings and also provides representation at court – both for pre-prepared cases and also through an ‘emergency first aid’ service for people who turn up at court without representation. The EHAP event offered an opportunity to reflect on what has been achieved so far and to look ahead to future challenges.
Frances Durie and the staff team of Granton Information Centre receive their award. (Pic: Dave Pickering)
Welcoming delegates, Councillor Paul Edie (Chair of the Health, Social Care and Housing Committee) said: “Homelessness is something I’m very passionate about and I’m very proud of this council’s record. In Scotland, we have an obligation to eradicating unintentional homelessness by 2012 – not something that applies south of the border – and I think that’s a sign of what a progressive country Scotland is and how our social conscience reflects on public policy”.
He went on: “This council has a very radical strategy to tackle homelessness, developed in partnership with our colleagues in the voluntary sector and rolled out over the last couple of years. Critical to that strategy has been the provision of good quality ‘right first time’ housing advice to our service users. I’m really proud that last year homelessness dropped by 13% in Edinburgh, and EHAP are very important players in that strategy. No less than 99% of people who have used EHAP have not subsequently gone on to present themselves as homeless – that’s a jaw-dropping statistic; in any walk of life if you get that level of satisfaction rating you’d be entirely happy. I’d like to thank our EHAP partners for the great work they are doing to stop people losing their homes – a terrible thing to happen to anyone – and I wish you every success in the year ahead”.
One of Sherriff Principal Bowen’s responsibilities is to ensure ‘the efficient dispersal of Sherriff Court business’ and he explained that, while criminal cases take up the bulk of time at the court, civil business – including housing cases dealing with evictions and repossessions – take up a considerable amount of court time. He said that many of these cases could and should be resolved before they ever reached court, but added that there was also a need for suitable advice provision when cases did come to court.
“A recent review found that there is a need for proper advice – there remains a significant unmet need – and the EHAP service is critical to providing assistance prior to cases coming before the court system; providing there is a proper input by way of advice at an early stage, housing disputes can be resolved. The court needs to have confidence that suitable advice is available, so the service that EHAP provides is critical to the function of Edinburgh Sherriff Court. That’s demonstrated by the figures EHAP has provided for 2010 -11. We are indebted to all those involved in providing the EHAP service, which is widely acknowledged to be highly effective, and it gives me great pleasure to recognise that expertise by the presentation of these certificates today”.
Frances Durie, vice-chairperson of Granton Information Centre, received the award on the project’s behalf. She said: “This is a really tremendous achievement and a great honour for Granton Information Centre. Our staff have worked very hard over a long period to achieve the levels of professionalism that they have, and it’s good that this effort has been rewarded. We’ve always known that people coming to Granton Information Centre will get the highest standard of independent advice available anywhere, but it’s nice to receive wider recognition for the quality of our advice work”.
Granton Information Centre (GIC) provides free, impartial and confidential advice and assistance on a range of issues including welfare benefits, housing advice, tax credits and debt. If you would benefit from any advice you can visit them at their surgeries as per the details below.
Drop in sessions (Granton Information Centre):
Monday & Wednesday: All HOUSING issues: 9.30 – 12.30
Craigroyston Community High School is now the proud owner of a swim team, the Craigroyston Dolphins! This is supported by Active Schools. The team is open to P7 to S6 pupils, who can swim 2 lengths’ of the pool without float aids. Team members get trained on their swimming technique and then can compete at Edinburgh events if they choose to.
The Dolphins swim team showing of their new kit courtesy of Scottish Gas (pic: Ricky Karoyan)
Our team has just competed at the Edinburgh and Midlothian Schools Championship which took place On Sunday 20th November at Ainslie Park Leisure Centre.
Active Schools Coordinator Ricky Karoyan said, “I was very impressed by the participants positive attitude and performance. They ALL beat their personal best times too which is a fantastic achievement.”
“The team was commented upon by other club coaches about how smart they looked in their team kit and how well they behaved and supported each other. Clubs also commented on how nice it was to have another public school entered in the competition (in a very private school dominated event). Craigroyston Dolphins were faced with tough competition from teams who are more established and experienced, but it didn’t stop them enjoying the day and proving their worth.”
The new Dolphins swim team are now ready for action. (pic: Ricky Karoyan)
Karoyan added “One of our team members finished 13th overall in her age group, was 5th in the 100 freestyle and 6thin the 200 butterfly. Our swim team is kindly being sponsored by Scottish Gas who has provided each Craigroyston Dolphin a kit bag, team T-shirt, goggles and other exciting things to use during competitions.”
The training sessions take place every Thursday (term time) 3.30 – 4.30pm at the High School. To find out more or to get involved call Ricky on 07825386846
Life at PYCP has been as busy as ever and Senior Project Worker Laura McLaren told us “We had a packed 5 week summer programme for children and young people aged 5-18. We chose a different theme each week; “discovery week”, “residential week”, “art attack”, “move it week” and “fun week”. This included building based activities such as mask making, drumming, zumba, circus skills and an “It’s a Knockout” competition.”
Young people enjoy taking a rest whilst on a trip. (pic: PYCP)
The local project also organised a range of trips, to places such as Almond Valley, the cinema at Ocean Terminal and “World of Soccer”, as well as residentials to the Innerwick Centre at Dunbar and Loch Tay. PYCP also worked with a range of other agencies such as Pilton Equalities Project, where they helped with gardening and provided a series of events as part of the Play Practitioners Forum, where children from other agencies came to participate in arts and crafts and basketball. Theyalso had several teams in the over 12’s area wide treasure hunt, “The Quest”.
Children enjoy taking part in Circus Skills. (Pic: PYCP)
Laura continued “Our open access programme continues to engage high numbers of young people, with 22 different clubs and groups a week. We have had some exciting new developments in our term time programme, with a new project called “Positive Pathways” that aims to support young people into volunteering opportunities, particularly within PYCP. We also have a new group work programme funded by the Cattanach Trust, where pupils from Forthview Primary School are referred for additional support. We have also built upon our sexual health and relationship programme of support and are now offering tailored sessions to local agencies. This initiative began with a very successful project with young mums at Stepping Stones.”
Face painting is also very popular at PYCP (pic: PYCP)
“As well as raising funds for specific projects, we continue to organise one off sponsored and community events. In July, Mark Hunter who is one of our Youth and Children’s Workers, along with his Friends Dave Girvan and Mark Roper, completed a gruelling 142 mile sponsored cycle from Aberdeen to Edinburgh. A total of £1200.00 was raised, with all proceeds going to activities for service users of PYCP. We also raised £200.00 collecting before and after the match at a Hibs game in September.”
The next fundraising event is a Christmas Fair, on Friday 9th December from 12-2.00pm, where there will be a craft stall, a home baking stall, a raffle and a café. We are also holding a competition for children and young people at PYCP to design a Christmas card and the winning entries will be printed and on sale at the Fair. We hope to see you there”
For more information on the vast services available at PYCP give them a call on 332 9815.
Organisers are keeping their (green) fingers crossed that a bulb planting event will go ahead in Easter Drylaw Gardens on Tuesday. The ‘big dig’ was scheduled to take place last week but was postponed due to the horrible weather.
The bulb planting will take place from 1 – 3pm; all welcome, but wrap up warm!
Drylaw Telford Community Council is to raise concerns over the quality of recently-introduced lamp standards across the area. Members at the community council’s latest meeting in Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre on Wednesday said that the new streetlights are not powerful enough and do not light pavements adequately, and the group plans to raise safety concerns at forthcoming Neighbourhood Partnership meetings.
The city council embarked on a rolling programme of replacing street lights earlier this year, but community council members believe the new lights are not as effective as the older lamp standards they are replacing.
Community councillor Jackie Brown also manages Drylaw’s Rainbow Daycare Centre for older people, and she says members are feeling less safe at night as a result of the lighting replacement programme.
“The new lights are lower and less powerful so don’t shed nearly as much light. Older members of the community are feeling vulnerable. Some of them are carrying torches so that they can see where to put the key in the door lock when they get home, while some others are avoiding going out altogether when it gets dark. It’s not only older people who are affected by the new lights, though – lots of people are not happy with the new lights”.
The city council is introducing the new units to reduce cost, energy use and light pollution. In October the council’s Planning Committee approved a draft version of the Edinburgh Lighting Strategy for consultation and the closing date for comments is 31 December. Drylaw Telford Community Council will formally respond to the consultation and also plan to raise concerns at December meetings of Forth Neighbourhood Partnership and the local Clean, Green and Safe action group.
What do you think of the new street lights? Let us know!
Pilton Community Health Project will be launching an exciting new food forum on Tuesday morning – see attached poster for details on how you can get involved
