We are sorry to say, we will cancel any face-to-face groups until further notice after the latest Scottish Guidelines ask us to avoid unnecessary contact with other people, especially in crowded places.
While many of our groups are held outdoors, we don’t want to create a situation where we need to tell everyone to isolate for 10 days, due to being a close contact of a person from a group who has tested positive, and thus leave them having to isolate over Christmas.
We want to do everything to avoid that and allow people to see their family and loved ones this Christmas.
Chat Cafe – moved to online
Raising Children With Confidence – online
Baby Massage – online
Garden Cooking Club – postoponed until further notice in January
Community Lunch – postponed until further notice in January
Play Together Outdoor Adventures – postponed
Women’s Winter Wellbeing – continues online
Bookbug – postponed until further notice in January
Blair Drummond Safari Park is gearing up for a spectacular Christmas season with the launch of their festive extravaganza on Friday 19th November.
Running until 23rd December, the family-friendly central Scotland destination is going ‘all out’ to make sure this year’s Christmas event delivers an unforgettable festive experience filled with animal magic, a German-style Christmas market, Scotland’s biggest Christmas tree, a twinkly fairy garden, Festive fairground rides… and, of course, dinosaur illuminations.
Food and drink will feature in abundance with firepits for roasting marshmallows, wood-fired pizza ovens and, for the adults, a gin bar from local Stirling Gin.
And of course, no festive attraction would be complete without the main attraction, Santa Claus! The main man will be travelling through the Safari Park in his sleigh to add to the excitement.
Blair Drummond Safari Park’s animals will also be part of the festive day-out with majestic lions, leggy giraffes, zippy zebras, and mischievous lemurs among the many two and four-legged friends adding to a truly special Christmas experience.
Head of Marketing, Liz Gunn of Blair Drummond Safari Park said:“This year we set out to create something truly special and we cannot wait to throw open our gates and watch the excitement unfold as little ones marvel at our festive dinosaurs, toast marshmallows on the fire pits, squeal with delight at the Christmas lights and watch with wonder as Santa glides past Scotland’s biggest Christmas tree on his sleigh.
“It is our favourite time of the year, and this year is even more special.”
A 10 metre tall puppet, STORM, will make an appearance in Glasgow and many projects are already well underway in the run up to the climate conference, including the launch of Climate Beacon hubs in seven locations across Scotland.
STORM is a huge sea-goddess puppet made entirely out of recycled materials with oyster shells for eyes and kelp for hair and is created by Vision Mechanics. She is due to walk in Govan on 10 November.
Led by Creative Carbon Scotland, the Climate Beacons project is a collaboration between climate change, environmental, arts, heritage and cultural organisations to stimulate long-term public engagement in climate change. The hubs throughout Scotland, including Argyll, Caithness and East Sutherland, Fife and Inverclyde, will provide information about climate change in each local area.
The hubs will be run as sustainably as possible with many of the projects and activities using recycled materials.
For instance the Message in a Bottle project in the Outer Hebrides will send messages to people at COP26 in plastic bottles washed up on the beach and the Midlothian hub at the National Mining Museum Scotland will feature outdoor clay sculpture that will eventually degrade back into the earth.
Creative Carbon Scotland’s film, Climate Action Needs Culture, made in collaboration with national cultural and heritage organisations, will be shown to a variety of cultural leaders and policymakers on November 5 as a virtual event.
Scotland’s five national performing arts companies, each receiving regular support from the Scottish Government, are among the many cultural organisations across Scotland organising events around COP26.
On 31 October, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra will premiere Symbiosis, a new commission for strings in a 20 minute video. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra will give a pop-up performance at ScotRail’s Haymarket Station on 1 November to welcome delegates to COP26 while the RSNO Junior Chorus will perform a selection of specially commissioned Green Songs in the official COP26 Green Zone the following day.
Scottish Opera have launched an intergalactic view of climate change in The Last Aliens, an opera for primary children. Schools can access the production online now with live tours planned next year.
Schools and communities across Scotland and India have created 100 shoes for a digital shoe shop as part of Millipede, the National Theatre of Scotland’s collaboration with ThinkArts, a Kolkata-based children’s organisation. Launching on 1 November, the interactive art installation will explore personal responses to climate change and carbon footprints through a range of creative activities.
Culture Minister Jenny Gilruth said: “With the world’s spotlight on Scotland, COP26 in Glasgow is a once in a lifetime event and our cultural organisations have risen to the occasion by programming an impressive line-up of live and online activities to engage audiences at home and abroad.
“The Scottish Government is proud to support the cultural and heritage sectors as they have a major role to play in encouraging debate around environmental issues.
“Climate change affects us all and it’s heartening to see so many communities taking part in these projects to create a lasting legacy for future generations.”
A dedicated website, Culture at COP, for all cultural activities around COP26 has been set up by Museums and Galleries Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland and the Climate Heritage Network.
