Local charity Circle has received a £950 donation to develop the outdoor area at their West Pilton base, where high school volunteers team up with primary school children to provide mentoring and support. The donation, awarded by the Morrisons Foundation, will be used to renovate the garden area and purchase equipment, picnic benches and raised beds. Continue reading Circle receives cash boost from Morrisons Foundation
Circle’s Haven Project High-Vis Dads Arts Workshop took on the challenge laid down by the Year of the Dad slogan: ‘celebrating the difference a great dad can make’. Dads’ support worker PETE CLOKE explains all …
Family life can face many challenges for families in the Forth Ward, where Circle works through its Haven Project. Through the Arts Workshop, we gave Haven families the chance to consider all the amazing potential being realised in their father’s role.
The fathers’ and children’s energy took on the vision of the lead artist, Angela Austin, and truly took on a life of its own. This 8’ x 6’ behemoth was full of colour and energy in a way that only a child could have envisioned.
Fathers and their children worked creative magic each afternoon from the 11th to the 15th of July. The project now has the dual role of advertising and celebrating fatherhood with all the other fathers in their local area.
This will be achieved when the final sculpture is exhibited from
September 19th – October 7th at North Edinburgh Arts
along with the photography of Fiona Burness, who visited the project during its construction.
We have been able to celebrate with families the joy of being a father and now we want to encourage all the other dads out there!
Pete Cloke
On all week – starts Monday!
Wednesdays 10 – 11.30am
The Haven Project, Craigroyston Primary School
CIRCLE Family Support Worker Bob Bell has released a Christmas single, ‘Receive Your King’, and sales of the record will raise money for the West Pilton-based charity. Continue reading Get Circle’s Christmas single
‘It was his first assignment as a Secret Agent …’
Over recent years, children from Circle’s Haven Project have spent a week during the summer holidays visiting a location then coming up with ideas and storylines to produce their very own storybook with writer Mike Nicholson. Continue reading The Alien Assignment: Haven kids produce another classic!
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What?
Our website will change from www.circlescotland.org to www.circle.scot and emails will change to firstname.lastname@circle.scot
Why?
We know that there is sometimes confusion with regard to the name of our organisation, due to our website and email addresses. The name of our organisation is Circle (not Circle Scotland). By changing our website and email addresses to circle.scot, our branding will be more consistent and recognisable.
When?
The change will be made on Thursday 2 April. There may be some disruption to the website and emails over that weekend. Following that, there will be a changeover period whereby the current website address will be redirected to the new one. Similarly, emails will be redirected from the old email addresses for a period of time, after which the old email addresses will become obsolete.
Circle joins the UK’s #GivingTuesday movement to boost giving
Circle has joined #GivingTuesday, a global day of giving, which encourages people and businesses to give their time, money or voice to charity for one day.
#GivingTuesday – 2 December – will provide a charitable antidote to the pre-Christmas consumer boom, falling directly after Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It will ask people to follow two of the big pre-Christmas shopping days with a day of doing good, asking them to do one simple charitable act on the day and it is hoped that #GivingTuesday in the UK will replicate the successes of the US, where they have seen a huge spike in donations on the day.
With this being the first year of Giving Tuesday in the UK, we decided to launch a Christmas Campaign alongside Giving Tuesday and are asking for donations to allow us to host Christmas parties for marginalised children and families across Scotland.
We are running a social media campaign to raise awareness of our cause and have an exciting video clip highlighting our campaign, featuring our patron, David Tennant.
“#Giving Tuesday highlights the importance of giving back and allows people to reflect upon the consumerism that can often overshadow community spirit at Christmas. This year we are hoping to raise money to allow Circle to organise Christmas celebrations for the children and families supported across Scotland. We’re delighted to be involved with Giving Tuesday and hope that the movement continues to grow next year,” said Circle CEO Liz Dahl.
#GivingTuesday is led in the UK by the Charities Aid Foundation, with support from Blackbaud. Leaders from businesses, charities and the media have joined them to explore how they can boost donations to charity and volunteering and create a giving movement in the UK.
Corporate and charitable organisations are constantly signing up to be partners and participate in the initiative this year. The campaign was launched in the US in 2012 by 92nd Street Y, in partnership with the United Nations Foundation and has since become a global movement, with Canada, Mexico, Israel, Australia, Singapore and Latin America all getting on board in 2013. Last year the campaign had 10,000 partners worldwide.
John Low, Chief Executive of the Charities Aid Foundation, said: “We’re really excited to be bringing #GivingTuesday to the UK and it is fantastic that so many brilliant businesses and charities are getting involved.
“We’re bringing #GivingTuesday to the UK to provide a contrast to the peak shopping days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, to remind us that the spirit of the festive season should be about community and not just consumerism. We hope that we can capture the imagination of the British public and permanently establish a day in the calendar to celebrate giving and the fantastic work charities are doing all over the country.”
Henry Timms, 92Y’s Executive Director, said: “It’s been a privilege to work with remarkable leaders all over the world building a movement around #GivingTuesday. This initiative has been crowdsourced by some of the smartest and most connected minds among the next generation of philanthropists and entrepreneurs.”
Those interested in joining Circle’s #GivingTuesday initiative can view our promotional video: http://bit.ly/CircleGivingTuesday and can share/retweet our campaign materials over the coming days and encourage people to donate.
Facebook /CircleScotland
Twitter @CircleScotland
www.circlescotland.org
For more details about the #GivingTuesday movement, visit #GivingTuesday
website: www.givingtuesday.org.uk, Facebook page
or follow @givingtuesdayuk and #GivingTuesday hashtag on Twitter.
CIRCLE launching new kinship choir for carers
West Pilton-based family support charity Circle has won Big Lottery funding to establish a choir for kinship carers in the city. Kinship carers are relatives or friends who have stepped forward to care for children in their families whose parents are not able to care for them.
The choir will be led by musical director Kirsty Baird of the successful Edinburgh based Sing in the City group of choirs. Kirsty and her Sing in the City team are experts in their field and know how to put even the most nervous first time singers at ease. Kirsty believes everyone has a song in them and is confident of always getting the best sound out of all voices.
Circle’s Chief Executive Liz Dahl welcomes the launch of the choir. She said: “We know from our work with families that the commitment and sacrifice of kinship carers is giving thousands of children in Scotland the security of belonging to a family, when their own parents can’t care for them. We are really pleased that the Big Lottery has helped fund the choir and look forward to welcoming any and all kinship carers along.”
The aim of the choir is to promote wellbeing, relieve stress, provide a fun activity, and hopefully create a performing choir which can raise the profile of kinship care and provide entertainment for everyone involved.
The choir will bring together local kinship carers in a relaxed, fun environment where they can sing to their hearts content without having their children tell them to pipe down! The choir runs on a Tuesday morning, so suits carers with children in nursery or at school. Circle welcomes all kinship carers and is happy for carers to bring along a chum at first if they don’t want to come on their own.
Kirsty Baird, Sing in the City’s Director, is enthusiastic about the new venture. She said: “Sing in the City choirs are successful because they are fun, and they provide people from all walks of life in Edinburgh with the opportunity to sing together, to make new friends, and to have a special time just for them away from work and family cares at least once a week. We are really excited to be involved in this new choir for a very special group of carers”.
Fun, free and open to all carers, the first meeting is on Tuesday 9 September at 10am.
West Pilton-based charity Circle has been awarded £10000 from the Communities and Families fund, an initiative supported by the Scottish Government and Big Lottery Fund. The grant will support activities at Circle’s Haven Project based at Craigroyston Primary School.
Announcing the awards earlier this week, Maureen McGinn, Chair of the Big Lottery Fund Scotland Committee, said: “I’m delighted to announce today’s grants for projects that encourage healthy lifestyles, outdoor activities, and support with parenting skills. The aim of the Communities and Families Fund is to help give children the best start in life and we’re keen to hear from groups across the country that could benefit from this funding. Details of our simple application process can be found on our website or by calling 0300 123 7110.”
The £10,000 grant to The Family Service Unit Scotland (Circle) will help families in the Craigroyston area to improve their health and wellbeing by learning key parenting skills. As well as providing a series of outdoor trips and family events, the project will also encourage fathers to be more actively involved in their child’s development.
Anna Flaherty, Manager of Circle, said: “Circle Haven is a community based project providing support to children and families living in the area to improve the general wellbeing of the whole family. The project comes into daily contact with families experiencing hardship, as well as ill health, unemployment, family break up, drug and alcohol addiction.
“The funding will enable us to provide quality experiences that families otherwise would not have. We do this by delivering group work programmes for parents and children that ultimately encourages educational experiences for parents, children and babies, increases social networks, offers peer support and improves the participants’ general health and wellbeing.”
Aileen Campbell, Minister for Children and Families, said: “I am delighted to see the wide range of projects the Communities and Families Fund supports and the latest projects to receive funding. I want Scotland to be the best place to grow up and our joint venture with the Big Lottery Fund aims to help families and communities flourish by supporting local projects that can make a big impact on improving the lives of children and families.”
The Communities and Families Fund has a budget of £4.5 million from The Scottish Government and £1.5 million from the Big Lottery Fund. Groups can apply for funding from £250 to £10,000.
To find out more about the scheme and how to apply, visit:
www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/prog_communities_and_families_fund
or telephone 0300 123 7110.
