Who says the beach is just for summertime?

Zoo Arts Extra @ North Edinburgh Arts

Saturday 27 February

Go green with Muirhouse Library gardeners

Turn over a new leaf!

Coming to a playground near you … the Play Rangers!

Play Ranger Festival will brighten up the school holidays

Charities providing a free play ranger service to help kids in disadvantaged communities benefit from outdoor play are launching Edinburgh’s first ever play festival.
Continue reading Coming to a playground near you … the Play Rangers!

Make music with with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra

Free Family Workshops in North Edinburgh Arts today

Join Scottish Chamber Orchestra players and have fun enjoying live music together in these free, interactive workshops!

The workshops are suitable for two age ranges:

2pm workshop (suitable for 4 to 6 years)

3.15pm workshop (suitable for 7 to 10 years)

BOOK YOUR FREE SPACE HERE

Kraftworks in Muirhouse

Don’t be alarmed, it’s not the return of the electro-prog rockers – it’s arts and crafts in Muirhouse with a re-use and recycle theme!

Get festive with the Centipede Project today

Winter Wreath Walk

Today 1 – 3pm

Can we have a Christmas tree? Yes we CAN!

Community celebrates despite deluge

It lashed down with rain all afternoon and into the evening – a real Muirhouse monsoon! – but local people came out in their droves to see the Christmas tree lights being switched on in Muirhouse Shopping Centre last night.

Craigroyston High School’s Josh Hardwick did the honours and kicked off an evening of music, food and fun that seemed to get everyone in the festive mood!

So many people to thank:

Craigroyston Community High School for sharing their wonderful musical talents – the band and the choir were superb.
Local schools Oaklands, Rowanfield, Pirniehall, St David’s, Forthview and Craigroyston for creating the beautiful snowflakes that now adorn the centre
Fleurtations for delivering, erecting and decoration the tree
Urban Union for supplying the Christmas tree
The City of Edinburgh Council for their support and advice throughout
Weber Shandwick for getting things done
North Edinburgh Arts staff for their wonderful support: particularly John for his technical wizardry, Michelle and her team for the fabulous food (and wonderful winter punch!) and for sharing her artistic skills to make the shopping centre look great
Local police for supervising the event
The Tomorrow’s People team for all their hard work in decorating the Centre and making the event such a success.
Santa for … well, just being Santa!
And finally, the children and families of North Edinburgh who came out on such a horrible night to support the event. Comments have been overwhelmingly positive – maybe we’ll try another event in the New Year?

Thanks, everyone!

Andy & Dave, Community Action North (CAN)

Our day in pictures (below)

There are more on Facebook too …

Tree-mendous: Christmas arrives in Muirhouse!

Tonight’s the night at Muirhouse Shopping Centre

Dull old Muirhouse Shopping Centre will be transformed into a local winter wonderland tonight when Community Action North (CAN) kicks the Christmas season off in style!

Why are we doing this? During the first phase of the Community Action North project we spoke to dozens of local groups and hundreds of local people – and one of their biggest complaints was about the state of the shopping centre. Everyone agrees it’s not the most welcoming environment, so we decided to do something about it – even if only temporarily. And when Urban Union kindly offered to donate a real Christmas tree we thought: if places like Corstorphine, Morningside and Stockbridge can have public Christmas trees, why not Muirhouse too?

It’s taken a while to organise and has presented a number of challenges – I’m sure Santa’s Christmas present run is easier to plan – but we’re almost there and tonight we hope local people will join us to celebrate our community at a very special time of year.

We’ve been working away to make the Centre look a little bit brighter – children from the local primary schools created some brilliant snowflake stencils and these are now being painted on the walls by a team from Tomorrow’s People, supported by Austeja from North Edinburgh Arts.

Our Christmas tree, a mighty twenty-two foot Norwegian Spruce, was delivered and erected yesterday and will be decorated today. We’ll also be adding some more lights around the Centre to give it that festive feel. There’s still a lot to be done, but we’ll get there!

So what could possibly go wrong? Well, quite a lot – as many local people have been quick to point out! However we’ve looked at all the possibilities, we’ve weighed up all the risks and we’re giving it a go. Christmas is a time of hope, of new beginnings and more than anything it’s about children – and we believe our local children deserve to have their own tree, here in their community.

Among tonight’s highlights:

Christmas Tree lighting ceremony
Music from Craigroyston Community High School
Free festive food and drink at North Edinburgh Arts
Sweets for the children
A visit from Santa
An opportunity to hear about CAN – what CAN can do for you, for groups and for our community

The festive fun kicks off at 5pm. Santa Claus is coming to Pennywell tonight – we hope you will too!

Andy and Dave, Community Action North CAN