Spartans Alternative School are organising a charity event we for the local community:
On Friday 2nd October 2026, we are hosting a charity football match at Spartans, with students taking on staff, and we would love to see families, young people and community groups from across North Edinburgh come along and support us.
YOUNG PEOPLE’S CHARITY FOOTBALL MATCH
Friday 2nd October 2026 Gates open: 1:00pm Kick-off: 1:30pm Entry: £5 per person
The event is raising money for Therapet, a charity that is particularly important to us.
We have four therapy dogs who regularly support young people at the Alternative School, and we get so much from the time we spend with them.
They provide companionship, support and positive experiences for many of us, so this year we wanted to give something back to a service that has given so much to us.
The afternoon will be family-friendly, with lots happening alongside the football:
Bake sale Raffle Tombola Ice cream Therapy dogs Half-time performer – to be announced Students vs Staff football match …and much more!
All money raised will go to Therapet.
What makes this event particularly special is that it has beenplanned, organised and will be delivered by us — the young people.
For the past six years, as part of our Art sessions and social enterprise work, we have organised a wide range of events, including art exhibitions at the Out of the Blue Drill Hall, art pop-up shops, DJ events and previous charity football matches.
Through these events, we have raised approximately £8,000 for a variety of charities and community causes.
With support from our Art Teacher, we take responsibility for the different parts of our projects — from coming up with ideas and planning, to promotion, fundraising, activities and helping to run the events themselves.
This year, we really want to open the event up to our local community and invite the people ofNorth Edinburgh to come along, have some fun and get behind the young people.
For us, this isn’t just about football or fundraising. It’s about young people coming together, developing skills, creating something positive and finding ways to give something back to the community that we are part of.
You can follow our social enterprise journey and see some of the work we have been doing through ourArt Offenders Instagram page:
This year Edinburgh International Book Festival is hosting several Communities Programme events as part of the August Book Festival, as well as organising several off site visits and screenings.
Read on to find out more about how you can get involved …
With Edinburgh International Book Festival starting in just a month, we are looking forward to returning to Edinburgh College of Art for a summer packed with events, performances, interviews and workshops.
We will be welcoming authors from all over the world to the Festival, with over 600 events planned, many of which are hybrid and can be watched online for free. There is going to be something for everyone!
Our full programme is now available to browse online, but in this post, we wanted to focus on how the Communities Programme is shaping up over the month of August. As always, we are planning to do a series of events inspired by the themes of our Citizen project, which explore community, place, identity, belonging and what citizenship can look like in today’s world.
Through our Story Nation programme, we are taking the joy of the Book Festival to those who otherwise cannot access it, through a weekend of events at the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People as well as author visits to six Scottish Prisons, a local high school and the Streetreads Library, a dedicated place for readers who are experiencing homelessness.
The Birks Cinema in Aberfeldy will be screening five of our events for free to their local audiences, as a way of counteracting digital exclusion in rural areas.
We are also delighted to present our Scotland’s Stories Now project each and every day at the Festival, and we are so grateful to EventScotland for funding this project as part of their Year of Stories 2022.
We are really looking forward to welcoming many of our Communities Programme participants from across Scotland to celebrate their creativity with us the Book Festival.
Monday 15 August, 7.30 -8.30pm
Stories and Scran
We are delighted to announce the return of Stories and Scran for its third year. The Scran Academy will be catering a meal for our community participants before they take to the stage for a special showcase of the creative and thought-provoking writing they have created over the past year.
Event attendees will also get to sample some delicious sweet treats while they enjoy a diverse showcase of readings, poetry and song from communities in North Edinburgh and Musselburgh.
While sitting on a train, bus or tube, have you ever wondered about all of the complicated stories of your fellow passengers’ lives unfolding around you?
One Day Ticket takes this idea and elaborates it, creating a series of narrative snapshots as seen from a train carriage with an unknown destination. This collaborative work for the stage is written by Citizen participants with our Communities Writer in Residence, Eleanor Thom.
The cast of this collection of poignant and humorous human stories will perform with scripts in hand.
Everyone has a story to tell; through stories we can make sense of our world. Earlier this year writers Andrew O’Hagan, Eleanor Thom, Ryan Van Winkle, Mae Diansangu, Roseanne Watt, Bea Webster and Siân Bevan collaborated with community groups across the country to collect Scotland’s Stories Now.
At the Festival, we are sharing the tales, poems, conversations and words from the people who took part, as well as several of the stories submitted to our Open Call, inspired by the prompt ‘On This Day’.
Following two years of disruption in schools, we’re bringing together education pioneers to imagine the creative, bespoke settings needed to support young people.
Our panellists include founder of The Black Curriculum campaign, Lavinya Stennett; Emma Easton, school manager at The Spartans Alternative School, Ian Midwinter, CEO of Scran Academy, and Alexander Boys, a former member of The Citizen Collective, our writing group for 16-18 year olds.
What would the planet look like if you designed it? This is the question Ryan Van Winkle, our Schools Writer in Residence, has been exploring with local pupils at St. Thomas of Aquin’s RC High School as part of Citizen.
Drop in anytime between 11am at 5pm to explore the world they created in a multi-media installation, or come and join our free 30-minute tours at 11am, 2pm or 4pm. Featuring work from Natalie Doyle, Faith Eliott, Lotte Fisher, Caitlin Hynes, Seamus Killick, Emily Randall and Natasha Russell.
This year, we asked people across Scotland – of any age, background or ability – to submit their own stories responding to the prompt ‘On This Day’.
What resulted was a fascinating portrait of Scotland in the here and now. Throughout the Festival, different contributors from around the country will be sharing their snapshots of life through the power of words. Join us to hear their illuminating stories in a free daily session at 5pm in our Storytime Yurt.
We hope you enjoy the Book Festival this year and look forward to welcoming you at Edinburgh College of Art, 74 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh, EH3 9DF, or chatting to you online in the event chat and Q&A sections, if you are planning to join us virtually.
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Citizen is our long-term creative programme working in partnership with organisations across Edinburgh and Musselburgh, offering local people a platform to explore identity, connection and place. It is supported by the players of People’s Postcode Lottery and the PLACE Programme administered by Creative Scotland.
Our Story Nation project aims to bring the spirit of the Book Festival to audiences who, for various reasons, cannot access our physical events. It aims to combat isolation and create rich opportunities for engagement with the written word among vulnerable or unheard communities, enthusing and empowering readers across Scotland.
Scotland’s Stories Now is supported by EventScotland, as part of the Year of Stories 2022.
YOUNG PEOPLE’S CHARITY FOOTBALL MATCH
Bake sale
Raffle
Tombola
Ice cream
Therapy dogs
Half-time performer – to be announced
