Edinburgh College up for green awards

Edinburgh College has been named as a finalist in three categories in the prestigious Green Gown Awards, which celebrate sustainability initiatives in the education sector.

Now in their 11th year, the Green Gown Awards recognise the exceptional sustainability initiatives being undertaken by universities, colleges and the learning and skills sectors across the UK.

The local college is shortlisted for the following awards:

Facilities and Services Award – for the college’s eCar project. Edinburgh College has been operating a fleet of electric cars since its inception in late 2012 to provide staff with a sustainable, low-carbon, low-cost transport option for travel between its four campuses and other corporate travel. Significant impacts have been made in reducing the number of trips normally carried out in staff members’ own cars, saving 86,227 miles and £38,825 on equivalent travel expenses.
They are also fully integrated with the curriculum, offering students on our Engineering, Automotive and Electrical courses hands-on experience, and three electric vehicle scholarships have been created – in partnership with local care dealer Alex F. Noble – as the project continues to expand.
Student Engagement Award – in recognition of the work done to develop the college’s two community gardens as an important college and community resource. The community gardens at Milton Road and Sighthill campuses have more than 200 participants from a diverse range of groups including students – including many with additional support needs – staff and local community members and groups. For many of these users the gardens represent much more than a space to grow food. They are a space to learn about healthy living, gain new skills, build self-confidence and self-esteem, increase employability, adopt sustainable behaviours and make friends.

Carbon Reduction Award – in recognition of the college’s Sustainability team’s work to develop a Carbon Management Plan, with a footprint and a projects register; a waste strategy; a community growing strategy; a green travel plan; and more. The comprehensive Carbon Management Plan has at its heart a target of 18% minimum reduction by 2020. The college’s energy-saving measures include a solar meadow at Midlothian Campus, photovoltaic solar panels on the roof of the Granton Campus and an eco-friendly hair and beauty academy.

The college is up against other colleges and universities from across the UK, and is the only college to be recognised in the Student Engagement and Facilities and Services categories.

Martin Webb, Edinburgh College sustainability officer, said: “We are thrilled to be acknowledged for the progress made to embed sustainability within the college infrastructure and curriculum. We are early on our journey towards achieving the aims of our wider sustainability strategy, but our small enthusiastic team are committed to improving co-ordination, facilitation and promotion of Edinburgh College’s sustainability efforts.”

With sustainable development moving up the global agenda, the awards are now established as the most prestigious recognition of sustainability excellence within the tertiary education sector, as well as the environmental sector.

The Awards ceremony will be held in Bristol, European Green Capital for 2015, on 27 November.

Picture (top): Sustainability officer Martin Webb and Community Garden coordinator Severine Monvoisin in the Sighthill Community Garden.

Events, dear boy, events: College in the running for national award

College events shortlisted for prestigious Scottish Event Awards

An Edinburgh College school-engagement event and two student-led projects have grabbed places on the hotly contested shortlist for prizes at the Scottish Event Awards.

The college has been nominated for the Best Educational Event for an event held to engage local schools, particularly head teachers, and increase opportunities for young people. And two teams of talented Events Management students picked up nominations for the Best Student Event Award.

The Scottish Event Awards honour the best events of various types across a range of sectors. They are run by magazine and marketing website The Drum.

The college’s Schools Event welcomed head teachers and other representatives from 34 local schools, who heard about some of the college’s key projects, its curriculum offering and how it is creating new vocational learning and progression opportunities, and spoke to key staff from each of the college’s curriculum centres. It was warmly received by attendees, and will form the basis for future partnership working between the college and local schools.

Two groups of BA (Hons) Events Management students made the shortlist for events held as part of their course.

One team, Icon Events, organised a fashion show featuring people with dementia as models to raise funds for Alzheimer Scotland. Service users, carers, staff and volunteers at the charity’s Fife Dementia Resource Centre in Kirkcaldy strutted the catwalk as models at the event, which raised more than £700 for the charity.

Another team, Festival Events, organised a sell-out mini fringe festival at the Voodoo Rooms, featuring a variety of musical acts and a magician. The team raised £2,200 for Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland.

Teams of students from Events Management courses organised 38 events this year, raising more than £20,000 for a range of charities.

This year’s nominations follow the college’s win in the Best Educational Event category last year for the Graphic Design Industry Night, a one-night event that showcased graduates’ award winning design work, and celebrated Edinburgh College’s close ties with industry.

This event allowed young designers to get face to face time with potential future employers. Due to the success of the first event last year, this has been made an annual event, and this year’s was held at the Fruitmarket Gallery as part of Let’s Glow.

The awards take place at the Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow on Wednesday 7 October.

Seeing Rad: students get competitive for charity

Nursing students raise funds for dementia charity

Edinburgh College’s Access to Nursing students have raised a grand total of £1,512.56 for Alzheimer Scotland to support people in Midlothian living with dementia.

The students have undertaken a challenge set by the charity to see who could raise the most cash, in tandem with the opening of their new Bungalow day centre in Bonnyrigg (pictured below). Up against students from local universities, ten students (and one student’s daughter) and two lecturers raised £1,300 in one day by running in the recent paint-splattered Colour Me Rad 5k race.

They added to the sum by collecting cash across the college’s campuses. If the students’ total is more than their university rivals, Alzheimer Scotland will give them a chance to learn more about the charity’s work at The Bungalow. The students have already completed a module on dementia as part of their course so understand the importance of the charity’s work.

The team’s leader, student Petra Muir, said: “It felt great to actively try to make a positive contribution to Alzheimer Scotland. The money we have raised will go towards helping people with dementia and their families, and we are hopeful that we have raised awareness of the charity and the help and support they can provide.”

Abby Parkhouse, Alzheimer Scotland’s Community Fundraiser said: “It’s a fantastic amount of money raised in such a short space of time and will make a huge different to our Bungalow fundraising campaign. It’s going to be a very close competition.”

Students scoop awards for creative excellence

Four Edinburgh College design students have won commendations in the Young Creative Network (YCN) Student Awards, which celebrate creative excellence.

The students, who are all on the first year of the HND Visual Communication: Graphic Design, competed against students from around Europe and from second-year HND and degree courses.

The YCN Student Awards shine a light on emerging creative excellence from leading universities, colleges and art and design schools in Europe and North America. Students are given live creative briefs from a range of partnering organisations.

Liam Henderson and Aiste Piechaviciute won for their entry for the brief set by drinks brand J2O. They were asked to redesign J2O to become more appealing to adults, while bringing through the brand’s personality and communicating the key message that the juice is a blend of two fruit juices.

Liam and Aiste approached the brief by producing designs inspired by J2O’s play on the chemical formula H2O, under the title ‘the element of…’. So, orange and passionfruit juice became OgPa, and apple and mango ApMg, with the tag line ‘life is an experiment, so live it’.

Annabel Gibb and Kirsten Bell also received commendations for the submission for a brief from Topdeck travel. They were tasked with presenting the travel company’s trips to a UK audience, to make 18-30s consider trips they may not usually consider.

Annabel and Kirsten were inspired by the company’s tag line #livelikealocal, and produced designs for posters that juxtaposed photos of the usual tourist haunts, such as the Eiffel Tower and the Parthenon, with the side streets and cafes that mean more to locals. They also came up with a design concept for a Topdeck app, paired with crosses to be placed on the pavements outside local people’s favourite places as a play on ‘x marks the spot’.Helena Good, design lecturer at the college, said: “I am delighted with our students’ success in the YCN Awards. This is a real achievement, given that they were competing directly with final-year degree students. The professional quality of the work they have produced is testament to their skills and I look forward to watching them continue to develop through the second year of the course.”

The students’ work will feature in the YCN Student Annual, with 15,000 copies distributed across education and creative industries organisations internationally. They will be presented with their awards at a ceremony in London this September.

Home to roost!

Engineering apprentices bring mechanical gannet to life

Engineering apprentices from Edinburgh College dealt with an unusual animal rescue operation – they used their skills to bring a feathery robot back to life!

Daniel Dewar and Sean Devine worked with their lecturer Terry Healey to perform extensive repairs on the Scottish Seabird Centre’s mechanical gannet, which is on display at the Centre in North Berwick.

The Seabird Centre asked the students to repair its broken bird so it could head back into action and continue raising money for the charity and educating visitors.

The fabrication and welding apprentices used their skills to shape replacement parts and weld and braze them into place on the intricate bird structure.

Now fixed and back home at the Seabird Centre’s Discovery Centre, the gannet springs to life when a donation is made, making the distinctive gannet call, rotating to show the inner workings of its skeletal structure and revealing a metal fish struggling in its beak. It is ideally located close to the Centre’s interactive Bass Rock cameras, where visitors can zoom in on the real life gannets on the Bass Rock, the world’s largest Northern gannet colony.

Daniel and Sean are on the second year of a four-year modern apprenticeship in fabrication and welding. They visit the college’s Midlothian Campus in Dalkeith two days a week to receive training they can apply to their job roles at Scotia Security.

Daniel said: “This has been a great chance to put the skills we have learned through our course into practice. This was the first time we’ve done a job for somebody that will be seen outside the college, and you take a lot of pride in your work.”

Ross Milligan, the college’s curriculum manager for Engineering, said: “This was an exciting and unusual opportunity for our students to work with the Seabird Centre. The students and Terry have worked hard to refurbish, repair and get the mechanism working again, and now it is as good as it was when it first built. Our fabrication and welding students usually work on water tanks, spiral staircases, gates and railings, but projects like these give them a taste of the more unusual ways they could use these skills in the future.”

Tom Brock OBE, Chief Executive of the Scottish Seabird Centre, said: “It is brilliant to have our kinetic gannet sculpture back in operation. It has always been a very popular attraction. The Bass Rock has had a phenomenal year, being named the world’s largest Northern gannet colony and also BBC Countryfile Magazine’s Nature Reserve of the Year. To have our mechanical gannet back in the Centre is the ideal way to celebrate.

“We would like to say a huge thank you to Terry, Daniel and Sean for all their hard work. We are very grateful to Edinburgh College, and will look forward to collaborating with them on future projects.”

The gannet was originally designed by Jim Bond, an artist who specialises in kinetic sculpture, and was described by Terry as like something from TV’s Scrapheap Challenge, as the artist had welded die nuts into the skeletal structure, used a spoon in the working mechanism and used bolts to create the feet.

The bird has been entertaining visitors to the Scottish Seabird Centre since it opened in 2000 and is now back in its rightful home.

Granton Campus: proud to be green

Friday 3 July is Solar Independence Day

Edinburgh College will open the doors of Granton Campus on Friday to showcase its green credentials as part of Solar Independence Day celebrations.

Visitors can see the campus’ rooftop solar panel installation and find out how solar photovoltaics could work for them. While the open day is aimed at owners and managers of commercial premises, members of the public are welcome to come along and talk to clean energy experts from iPower Energy.

Social enterprise iPower Energy has organised the event in collaboration with the college’s Institute of Construction & Building Crafts as part of a national two day solar energy celebration led by the Solar Trade Association.

There will also be an optional tour on the college’s electric minibus to view the onsite electric vehicle charging point and visit the Forthside Training Centre, where construction students are taught the practical skills for their chosen trade.

The event will take place on Friday 3 July at Edinburgh College Granton Campus, 350 West Granton Road, Edinburgh, EH5 1QE, from 9.30am – 3.30pm. To book a visit, please contact Alistair Roberts, iPower Energy community renewables manager at alistair.roberts@ipoweruk.com

The solar panels at Granton Campus are just one aspect of Edinburgh College’s green credentials across its four campuses. Solar panels also feature at Midlothian Campus in a 5 acre solar meadow site with 2,560 solar panels, that generate the equivalent energy to take the campus off grid. The college runs and researches a fleet of electric vehicles, including cars, the minibus and an eco-travel buggy, which effectively save 6.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. The recently opened Elemis & Wella Hair and Beauty Academy at Granton Campus features a fuel cell and LED lights, which cut down the salon’s environmental impact while also reducing the running costs.

Alistair Roberts, Community Renewables Manager at iPower said “We are delighted to be collaborating with Edinburgh College and the STA to showcase solar PV on a commercial rooftop. There is so much potential in Scotland for rooftop solar to get energy bills down and cut carbon emissions, and a range of funding options available. It always helps to be able to see an operational installation.”

Paul Barwell, CEO of the Solar Trade Association, said: “These Solar Independence Day open days are a great way to showcase how versatile this technology is. We’ve got everything from a housing estate in Northumberland to a stately home in Aberdeenshire, a community solar farm in Hampshire to a waste facility in Berkshire, all generating clean, green, home-grown energy.”

Care students cash in for cancer charity

Cold juice sells like hot cakes!

Edinburgh College lecturer Alan Laing set his Access to Care students a fundraising challenge: take this £20 and make a profit for charity. The seven students proved to be well up to the task and earlier this week presented Cancer Research UK with a cheque for £270!

Incredibly, the students raised the money in just four hours! Showing true entrepreneurial spirit, the students bought cakes, snacks and soft drinks at discount prices and sold them on to fellow students at a healthy profit. Lord Sugar himself would surely have been impressed!

The soft drinks in particular were an inspired idea – the day of the sale proved to be one of the hottest of the year so far and the juice ‘flew off the shelves’.

Enterprising students Sophie, Kerry-Anne, Jackie and Niamh are pictured with College Principal Annette Bruton, course lecturer Alan Laing and Cancer Research shop volunteer Elaine Lennon,who accepted the cheque on behalf of the charity.

Fellow fundrasing students Connor, Fraser and Lorraine couldn’t attend the cheque presentation – maybe away pitching an idea or making a few quid on a market stall somewhere!

Charity begins at Edinburgh College!

Events Management students raise thousands for charity

Edinburgh College’s Events Management students have raised more than £20,000 for charity this year by holding events around the city and surrounding areas as part of their coursework.

The students worked in 38 teams to arrange an event each in aid of a range of charities. Events included everything from a mini festival and club nights to speed dating and fashion shows.

Events Management lecturers celebrated their success this week by awarding a trophy to the most successful event team.

The winning team, called Festival Events and based at Sighthill Campus, organised a sell-out mini fringe festival at the Voodoo Rooms, where a variety of acts including a magician, DJ, reggae act and flamenco folk band, entertained the audience. To promote the event, the students worked together with dancers from the University of Edinburgh Modern Dance Society to organise a flash mob outside the Usher Hall. They also worked with students from the college’s audio visual courses, who documented the event by recording it for a video that helped them pass their course.

The team raised £1,100 for Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland, which was match funded by BP to make £2,200, after students contacted the firm.

Other teams organised events including children’s fun afternoons, club nights, fashion shows and an afternoon tea. A runner-up prize was awarded to a Milton Road Campus team, 505 Events, which organised a sports event around the Scotland vs. England Rugby match in aid of the charity Simpson’s Memory Box Appeal (SiMBA). Another Milton Road team received a highly commended award for its work, which included organising a speed dating event in aid of the British Heart Foundation.

Lecturer Iris Aitchison said: “We are immensely proud of all the fantastic work that our students have put into organising all their events, and we were blown away by the amount raised for charities. This is the first time we have awarded a prize for best event, as we felt that these achievements deserved to be recognised.”

In total, 21 charities benefited from the students’ efforts, including Scottish Autism, the Eilidh Brown Memorial Fund and the SickKids Foundation.

Pictured: Students from the winning teams with Events Management lecturers. L-R Caroline Patterson, Katrina Pugh, Javier de la Cruz (from the winning Festival Events team), Alana Laidlaw (from the runner up team, 505 Events), Iris Aitchison, Sarah Thomson.

The college offers events courses at NC, HNC, HND and BA (Hons) level in association with Queen Margaret University.

Edinburgh College Open Days this week

Open Day at Granton Campus on Wednesday

Anyone wanting to boost their qualifications, improve their job prospects, get on the career ladder or learn new skills should come along to Edinburgh College’s Course Open Days this week.

The Open Days on Wednesday (17 June) at Granton Campus and Thursday 18 June at Milton Road Campus – from 2-6pm on each day – are an opportunity to take the first steps into further education or learn new career-advancing skills. Expert staff will be on hand to discuss course information, progression routes and funding options.

The Open Days are a chance to learn more about and apply for the college’s new range of part-time, evening and leisure courses, including professional development programmes. These are open for applications now and include Accounting and Finance, Art and Design, Business and Enterprise, Construction, Health and Social Care, Hair and Beauty, Engineering, I.T., Performing Arts, and Sport and Travel.

The Open Days are also an opportunity to find out about full-time courses beginning in August with remaining places, which will open again on the college website this week.

At the Open Days, the college’s advisors will have all the information prospective students need, including funding options. Students on part-time courses may have several funding options available depending on their circumstances, including Individual Learning Accounts. Advisors can help students with funding applications.

Edinburgh College principal Annette Bruton said: “We have top-quality courses across our whole curriculum to suit a range of study needs, and we’d love anyone interested in finding out more to come down to our open days. Whether you want to develop your education or career, or you want to become skilled in a different field, there’s part-time, full-time and evening options to fit into your lifestyle.

“You’ll be taught by dedicated lecturers with real industry experience so you’ll be well prepared for the next steps of your career. Even if you’re not sure what the best option for you is, our advisors will be able to help and guide you to make the best decision possible.”

For more information about available courses, to make an application and to register your interest in a course, go to www.edinburghcollege.ac.uk

Tag: Edinburgh College