Tag: NEN

Final NENgage session this Thursday

The Joy of Stats!
In the final of our series of NENgage sessions we’ll be delving into the world of online data -looking at free tools and resources that community groups and local citizens can use to gather and present data in interesting ways. We’ll be showing you;
  1. How to create a simple online poll in WordPress or using Easy Poll.
  2. How to do a more detailed survey of opinions and feedback using Survey Monkey
  3. How to make an FOI request using the What Do They Know website
  4. How to present data online using free tools like Infogram or Many Eyes.
We’ll also have some great speakers, including journalistMichael MacLeod (former Guardian journalist, STV online reporter) and James Baster, a digital programmer with an interest in innovative community projects. James will be telling us about an exciting new open data project involving the city’s greenspaces.
We’ll also have a brainstorming sessionwhere you’ll have the chance to tell us about the kind of work you do, and we’ll come up with ideas for ways that you could use these tools to good effect for your projects.
As always, tickets are free, but you’ll need to reserve a place on our Eventbrite page. The session will start at 5:45 and runs until 7:30, with drinks in the Antiquary Bar afterwards.
Hope to see you there!

NEN AGM Minutes

NORTH EDINBURGH NEWS Ltd

NORTH EDINBURGH NEWS MEDIA & COMMUNICATION TRUST

Annual General Meeting

27th September 2012 07:00pm in Drylaw Parish Church.

MINUTES

Present: 

As per Attendance Sheet.

In Attendance:

Dave Pickering (Editor)

The meeting was chaired by Martin Hinds who opened the meeting and welcomed everyone.

Apologies: 

Councillor  Cammy  Day,  Stuart McIvor.

Previous Minutes:  

Approved by Eddie Thorn & seconded by Willie Black.

Chairperson’s  Report: 

Martin Hinds opened by saying that since the last AGM, 18 months ago, in which there was fear it might have been the last and along with the sale of the office at Crewe Road North, the future looked very bleak.  Following on from a successful Community Conference in Telford College, however, which generated a lot of support, it was agreed that a community paper with a successful history of 30 years should just not be allowed to die. The board with that support and with the residue of funds left over,  decided that the paper should not be allowed to disappear and plans were put in place to keep the NEN going, mainly in the early days via the Blog, and slowly build up to the re-launch in February.  This was mainly down to the hard work of Dave Pickering (Editor) and Alan Lennon (Lennon Design) who redesigned the paper, and the board of directors both old and new, Martin expressed his thanks to all for their hard work to get where we are today. Martin also thanked Scotmid & PCA for their sponsorship each of an edition. He added that the Board had been in getting a community grant from the Inverleith Partnership, which would allow the NEN to start a series of Social Media Workshops (NENgage) and hopefully the end product will produce a community reporter(s) for the paper.

Martin closed on a note of caution with regards to the finance side in which he explained that unless there is a significant uptake in advertising income the paper had only enough funds left to produce 2 more editions (October & December).  With this in mind he, along with 3 fellow members of the board, met with local councillors from both Forth & Inverleith wards to look at ways of increasing funds. The outcome is an application for a grant, which will be made to both Forth & Inverleith Partnerships for sponsorship, which would enable the paper to continue into next year.  By this time it was hoped that some form of partnership working could be agreed with the Council.

There followed a fairly long debate on the future plus various suggestions were made. Board noted them and they will be fully discussed at future board meetings.

Editor’s Report:

Dave Pickering opened by remarking that a lot had happened since the last AGM and a lot has changed.  In fact he had not envisaged another NEN AGM, but because of the hard work of the board members, who refused to let the paper die, we are here tonight!. It is all down to them, volunteers who have given up their own time and because of that the community owes them a debt of gratitude that the NEN is still here, clinging on but surviving.

Follow the success of re-launching the paper the other major success story is that of the blog with 90 blog followers, 410 twitters & 52 facebook ‘friends’ . On average the blog is visited 300 times per day and because of that we are looking at ways to try and get paid advertising on to the blog.

Dave ended with his thanks to the board and to the community for sticking with us so far and looked forward to continued support in the future.

Appointment of Auditor:

The meeting agreed to the re-appointment of Alison Glass as Auditor.

Finance Report:

Eddie Thorn  Company Secretary/Treasurer produced and explained the Accounts for Year ending 31st March 2012  for  both the NEN Ltd & NEN Media & Communication Trust.

There were no questions with regard to the accounts.

Councillor Hinds gave thanks to Eddie for a clear and precise set of accounts.

Nominations/Election of the Board:

Martin Hinds reported that Thomas Brown had resigned from the board.

Martin Hinds moved- That the existing board with exception of Thomas be re–elected.  This was unanimously agreed.  There were no other nominations.

AOCB:

One Question on NENgage : If was still possible to attend the Workshops. Dave explained that it was still possible. The next one is on Thursday October 4 th  in Stockbridge Library.

Date of Next Meeting:

In 12 months’ time in a place and time to be confirmed.

 

Alex Dale,

1st October 2012

NENgaging tonight?

Just a reminder that NENgage – the NEN’s programme of fun, informal Social Media workshops – continues in Stockbridge Library tonight at 5.45pm.

This is our second workshop, but you don’t have to have attended the first one as each session is independent of the others. There are a very limited number of places left for tonight’s session – An Introduction to Blogging – but you need to register if you plan to attend! Please go to:

http://nengage2.eventbrite.co.uk/

Tom, Lucy and I look forward to meeting you all tonight, and thanks again to Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership for supporting this initiative.

NEN Board Meeting

The Board of NEN meets on a regular basis, the most recent meeting being on 7 August.  We thought readers might be interested in a brief summary of discussions and decisions.  This is what we discussed and agreed:

  • There has been some correspondence with the printer regarding the timing of payment.  We agreed to look at alternatives.
  • We discussed the financial position and agreed that it was vital to step up efforts to increase income.  There was a report on a few outstanding debts, but we are hopeful of a positive outcome regarding payment.  We agreed to send the accounts for the year ending 31 March 2012 to the auditor in time for reporting back at the AGM.
  • We noted that Pilton Central Association had agreed to sponsor the August edition of the paper, for which we are extremely grateful.  We hope a few more bodies will come forward to offer the same support!
  • We agreed that we will publish bi-monthly while new pursuing new sources of income.
  • We agreed to deliver more papers door to door this month, particularly in the Stockbridge area.  Other areas in Inverleith will be targeted in the future.  Community drops will continue.
  • There was an update on the social media course, which is being funded by the Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership.  This is about to get off the ground at Stockbridge Library (see elsewhere on this blog for further information).  This will give training to interested local people, who wish to get to grips with Twitter, facebook, blogging etc. in order to provide us with news items in the future.
  • AGM – we agreed to hold this on 27 September at 7pm in Drylaw Church.  All interested people are welcome.  There will be an update on where the NEN is just now and where we hope to be in the future.
  • The next Board meeting is 24th September.

NEN Board

Share your story – join NEN’s social media workshops

Would you like to use social media like Facebook, Twitter and blogging but don’t know where to start? Or maybe you know a little but would like to know more? Wahtever your level of knowledge, help is at hand – starting later this month, NEN is running a series of five informal social media workshops at Stockbridge Library. The sessions are informal, fun and they’re FREE!

Funded by Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership’s Community Grants Fund and hosted by the NEN, new media experts Tom Allan and Emily Dodd will lead the workshops and help you find your way through the multimedia maze at your own pace.

It’s an exciting new initiative for NEN, offering local people the opportunity to learn new ways to communicate and how to share their stories with the wider community.

The first workshop, ‘Share Your Story – an introduction to Blogging’, takes place on Thursday 30 August from 5.45 – 7.30pm and subsequent sessions will focus on topics like safety and security, video blogging, the joy of stats and how to build an online community.

Interested? To find out more or to sign up visit http://nengage1.eventbrite.co.uk/

All sessions are free, but register early to avoid disappointment!

 

 

Stage classic set for local arts centre

North Edinburgh Arts Centre is the place to be next Saturday (21 April) when it stages the only Edinburgh performances of the classic ‘Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’.

This hilarious, fast-paced adaptation of Robert Tressell’s classic book shares with its audience a year in the life of a group of painters and decorators as they renovate ‘The Cave’, a three-storey town house, for Mayor Sweater. It traces their hardships and struggles for survival in a complacent and stagnating Edwardian England. These workers are the ‘philanthropists’ who throw themselves into back-breaking work for poverty wages in order to generate profit for their masters.

This enduring and absorbing classic story is brought to life by Neil Gore and Rodney Matthew, two hugely talented and experienced performers, using comedy routines and entertaining songs of the Music Hall, with a few surprises along the way!

Robert Tressell’s book has become a classic of working-class literature since its first publication in 1914.  The themes and style of the piece are eternally relevant and provoking as it puts life and politics into sharp focus in an entertaining and accessible way.

Stephen Lowe’s version of the story was first seen in 1978, when Joint Stock Theatre Company toured the country playing to packed houses. The play was revived at the Half Moon Theatre, London in 1983 and again for a touring production by the Birmingham Rep in 1991.

Townsend Productions’ ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’ excellent cast features Rodney Matthew who joins the production straight off the back of ‘Jerusalem’ in the West End.  He has worked at many of the leading repertory theatres, including West Yorkshire Playhouse  where he worked for a year and at Dundee Rep where he spent a memorable five years performing in classical, musical and new work around Scotland. Matthew is joined on stage in the two-hander by the talented Neil Gore (Song of Singapore, Chichester Festival Theatre and the West End). The production is directed by Louise Townsend, with the creative team including designs by Fine Time Fontayne and lighting by Jo Dawson.

The play has had the Backing of the unions RMT, Unite, Unite, Scotland, TUC, SETUC, GMB, PCS, Wales TUC, NUT, Accord, UCATT NASWT and the FBU.

Tickets for The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (performances at 2pm and 7pm) are priced at £10.00 Conc. £5.00 and can be purchased at North Edinburgh Arts Box Office: 0131 315 2151.

STOP PRESS

Tickets for the evening performance are already sold out and tickets for the matinée are going fast. However you can win tickets for the play – North Edinburgh Arts has two tickets to give away for the matinée and NEN has to more for the evening performance. Check out April’s NEN to find out how to win tickets to a must-see show!

Community celebrates NEN relaunch

Community activists, business leaders, local workers and politicians joined members of the NEN board to celebrate the relaunch of the community newspaper on 16 February.

The paper ceased publishing last March following funding cuts, but since then the NEN’s voluntary management board has been working to get the paper out once again.  The relaunched NEN has now been delivered across the area and the NEN board held a celebration event in The Doo’cot to mark the occasion.

NEN chairman Martin Hinds told guests:  “Almost a year ago the last edition of the NEN was published, after 30 years of almost continuous publication – an extremely sad day for us all.  We all recognise the value of our community newspaper – I don’t think we can underestimate the importance of the NEN; it binds the community together and gives it identity.  It therefore gives us great pleasure to relaunch the newspaper this month”

He went on to thank those who helped to make the relaunch possible – past and existing Board members, community groups, contributors and politicians – but pointed out that there are challenges ahead.

“We have been able to produce the NEN with money left over from the sale of the NEN office and staff redundancy costs have been paid.  Longer term, the model that we have hit on will depend on contributions from the community – we have applied to the Neighbourhood Partnerships to allow us to recruit volunteer community journalists.  We also need to increase our income to make us sustainable on a long-term basis.  This is going to be a challenge for us but I think we’re up for it. Onwards and upwards – and welcome back, NEN!”

The next issue of the NEN is due out next month – and remember, the deadline is this Friday!

Martin Hinds, NEN Chair