Tag: Victoria Primary School

Heart of Newhaven: Now what?

NOW WHAT?

Both words are important in answering that question.

This 20 day Update is always about where we are now. It is not about where we hope to be one day when the keys are delivered and, like any prospective purchaser, we move in to see what state the previous owner has left us to clear up before we can move our own things in.

Don’t worry: that is not being neglected, but it would be boring to describe all the steps that are being taken to get us to that point. You can safely leave the tedious things to the SCIO board, who will make sure all the necessary tasks are done in the right way.
There are much more exciting things to share now, not least because we know that moving-in day could be around a year away.

So what? What about now? What can you be expected to do other than to wait patiently? Is there a child in your house – or can you imagine a child after being cooped up with nothing to do – saying, “I’m bored! I don’t know what to do.” Well be bored no longer: There is something to do. It really will make a difference to the future and it will make it better.

There are two things that fit together:
What troubles you as you cope with Covid 19?
What ideas do you have that are worth sharing in order to help others cope?

As simple as that. Here is how we propose to match the need with the thought. It’s about sharing, which is the hallmark of community.

This Community, as you know by now, has a HEART. ❤️

Not merely a lot of boxes called houses or flats, in which we all keep ourselves to ourselves and suffer in silence.

We are about to launch an interactive programme of questions and suggestions, ideas and activities, encouraging you to become involved NOW with other people like you, helping each other create a better normal around our three themes you may know by heart:

Well-Being
Learning & Enterprise
Culture & Heritage

Health Business Leisure Sport Puzzles Gardening Entertainment Advice

You can add to the list which is as long as you want to make it, because above all it is about YOU – which is US, ALL TOGETHER, helping each other.

Invite your friends to join in as well. Look out for details about to appear on our website and social media channels.

And don’t forget:   if you have not already responded to the invitation to become a member of our Charity Heart of Newhaven Community SCIO making all this possible, do that NOW too, using the link here and following instructions.

Also keep checking the website and socials!
In another 20 days we’ll tell you more precisely what we are going to do next.
 
Rodney Matthews
Chair and Vision Facilitator
The Heart of Newhaven Community

Be sure to sign up to our newsletters at www.heartofnewhaven.co.uk

There’s so many ways you can get involved with the project and we’d love to have as many of you on board as possible!

Heart of Newhaven: We’ve Done It!

We have an announcement to make! WE’VE DONE IT!



Important Announcement

The City of Edinburgh Council has officially approved the Application by The Heart of Newhaven Community for the acquisition of Victoria Primary School by Community Asset Transfer.

The necessary contract is about to be drawn up for the whole site to be owned by our registered charity on behalf of the Newhaven Community.

I hope we’ve got to you first with this wonderful news, but the speed of the modern media bandwagon is such that you may well have heard this somewhere else already! However the news is still wonderful.

The contract with CEC will happen no later than 31st March 2021, and will include a clause providing lease-back to the Council until the new school being built in Western Harbour is ready for occupation.

When we take possession of this “Asset”, the Anchor Building will primarily house assessed and much needed nursery care and the whole site developed according to the imaginative plans of The Heart of Newhaven Community that have now been approved. 

These include the layout of the Victorian Building to house a comprehensive heritage suite in which we hope Newhaven Heritage and other organisations devoted to interpreting local history will have a share and include a Victorian Schoolroom and Wee Museum. 

At the beginning of last year we launched The Heart of Newhaven Community when it was clear that a wish to turn the school into an enhanced museum did not qualify to meet Council requirements for such a transfer.

The Council looked for an organisation that would represent the interests of what is technically called “the area of benefit”, which embraces the increasing population of Newhaven far greater than the traditional village: we know how big because we have delivered over 7,000 postcards to every household and business. 

The Council is required to address many social needs, from the youngest to the oldest and including the marginalised. From the outset we consulted widely and produced a Business Plan with local partners, organisations and charities, to help meet the Council’s obligatory targets. 

In the last Update I indicated that the Councillors representing the Wards in our catchment area unanimously approved our plans and recommended to the Policy and Sustainability Committee that our Application be approved. That was done at a meeting held on 20thAugust. 

Well done and thank you to everyone for helping get this Application across the line.

The next stage, for which we are prepared, is to apply to the Scottish Land Fund for a major grant to help our capital commitment.

SLF has already awarded funding that enabled us to employ a professional Business Consultant, SKS Scotland, to draw up a Business Plan that would be sustainable even in the event of the kind of challenge we are now meeting because of Covid 19.

We have now demonstrated that our figures are still viable over the next five years. But the SLF also need to know that what we are proposing is supported not merely by key interest groups but by the whole community across the entire “area of benefit”.

That is why it is important to increase the number of people prepared to sign up to say, “Yes please, this is what we need for the future”. 

The key is the development of a vibrant Community Hub, or as we put it, the beating Heart of Newhaven Community.

Please keep building up numbers by spreading the word of success, developing plans for a Better Normal with an emphasis on care within the community leading to the well-being of all, and especially those most in need.

And continue to volunteer your own services – some particular expertise or flair, a bit of time, an idea you think will help, either now or at some stage in the future as plans develop.

This is your Community. You are included. 

The first task is accomplished and the next beginning. The show is on the road.It will be as good as you make it.

RODNEY MATTHEWS

Chair and Vision Facilitator, 

The Heart of Newhaven Community

Success for Heart of Newhaven initiative

Well done! We are pleased to announce that our plans for the acquisition of Victoria Primary School are on target, thanks to your help.

Critical Meeting

Last week, we appeared before local Councillors on what is called a Community Asset Transfer Stage Two Panel. It was confirmed there that ours is the only application they are considering.

We mounted a sophisticated presentation using a wide range of colourful photographs and graphs, with critical links to an impressive number of local groups from professional firms to key charities, all involved in our three interconnected intergenerational themes that some of you now know off by heart:

Culture & Heritage
Learning & Enterprise
Well-being in the Community

We passed the test!

We demonstrated both the viability of our long term Business Plan and that what we propose is in the interests of the whole community, by honestly answering questions put to us by the various councillors.

Crucially important was to demonstrate how Well-being has, during “lock-down”, embraced the other two themes.

Learning & Enterprise is attracting novel ideas of helping each other face an uncertain future that with imagination has great opportunities for innovation, including awareness of environmental challenges.

Culture & Heritage has a key part too. The iconic Victorian Building will not be mothballed or converted into flats after 176 years of history but will tell the story of Newhaven over the past 500 years while looking confidently forward, using imaginative interactive techniques.

The modern Anchor Building will primarily meet the urgent need for nursery care. We expect that other compatible enterprises might well be accommodated in a flexible use of the space. The surrounding attractive garden and playground areas will help showcase this as the beating Heart of Newhaven Community.

The Panel was impressed and we have been encouraged to move forward with our plans.

And you have helped: either because you were already part of the Heart of Newhaven Community ❤️ or because through our recent postcard delivery you have just joined us, boosting support.

Keep the numbers growing. Representation of the whole community across what is technically called “the area of benefit” is essential to meet the City of Edinburgh Council targets for the ways in which they are required to provide for important needs from the youngest to the oldest in an area of growing population.

If you live in this area – as nearly all of you do – you should have received an attractive postcard designed to encourage more people to join us.   

We have delivered nearly 7,000, which gives some idea of the population. We’ve still not quite finished (in case you haven’t got yours yet) but the results, together with our modern media contacts, are very encouraging.

It is now even more important to make sure your friends have signed up too.   

Ask them. 
Nudge them.
Tell them how good it will be for them too.
Why not display the postcard in a window for the world to see?

Imagine Newhaven’s beating heart on display together with the rainbows of hope! What a combination! 🌈 🌎 ❤️ 

Rodney Matthews

Chair, Heart of Newhaven Community 
chair@heartofnewhaven.co.uk

Shifting Ground: Have your say on Heart of Newhaven’s Victoria Primary School plans

2020 becomes 2021. It was announced a couple of weeks ago that a delay in planning approval for the building of the new school means all timetables are put back – we hope by no more than 20 weeks – from August 2020 to January 2021. How does that affect our 2020 vision?

We circulated this definitive information immediately to those who are already members of The Heart of Newhaven so that instead of picking up a rumour they knew all the details of the revised timetable. Now for the implications:

As far as our funding applications are concerned we have to re-schedule timetables; but The Heart of Newhaven dedicated Steering Group is equal to the consequential issues, with the necessary short-term focus to adjust complicated negotiations, confident of timely delivery in due course. That is its job and its members remain dedicated to what is expected of them.

But the time slippage has produced an unexpected opportunity.

We now have 20 more weeks or so to demonstrate the vibrancy of the Newhaven Community. This must not be time wasted just waiting.

At the last update here I’d just got home from an exciting Stakeholder Event organised on our behalf by Planning Aid Scotland, an organisation working with communities to articulate their vision and develop community-led plans. Presented elsewhere on this website PAS identified from participants new ideas and priorities for a multi-generational centre, especially what is needed in terms of community facilities.
What is a Multi-generational centre?
It is important to get used to this way of thinking – opportunities for people of all ages from the youngest to the oldest to sense that they belong to a big but closely knit family where we learn from each other.

Gone are the days when children were expected to be seen but not heard. Who of the older generation has not learned something about technology from those to whom the very latest innovation is literally child’s play?

That is why it is so exciting that our physical focus is upon acquiring Victoria Primary School so it can continue as a hub of learning and discovery, support and encouragement, not just a nostalgic look back to whatever might be considered was its heyday. Its heyday is always now and its future will be just as important as its past. Our present close-up focus task to ensure that happens means publicising as widely as possible all that is going on now demonstrating our sense of community.

Your chance to have your say, please take our survey and tell us what you think of the emerging ideas

Please fill in our survey – will be open for a fortnight only!  
<https://heartofnewhaven.co.uk/community-consultation-survey…>

Thank you for your support and please share as widely as possible!

Rodney Matthews (Vision Facilitator)

The Heart of Newhaven: be part of it!

Monday 28th January at 7pm

Victoria Primary School

Rodney Matthews, Vision Facilitator of the new group, has more details: 

“I am pleased to send you more information about the important event at Victoria Primary School on 28th January when we will formally Launch the Vision for The Heart of Newhaven, which includes our bid to acquire Victoria Primary School for the Newhaven Community in due course.

“Our new website is now active which you can access at heartofnewhaven.co.uk   There you will find much more information.

“I will be delighted to welcome you at this historic occasion which builds on the ideas of the public meeting on 4th October.”

Rodney Matthews, 
The Heart of Newhaven Vision Facilitator

Do you care about Trinity’s heritage?

Victoria Primary School is to be replaced by a new school on Western
Harbour in 2020. The existing building will then be for sale. This means
there is an exciting opportunity for the community to acquire the
building, but this can ONLY happen IF we can show that there is:

(i) strong support from the community
(ii) a robust plan to meet the criteria for community asset transfer and
that of the potential funders (e.g.Community Land Fund)

So come along and tell us:

  • what you think about the idea of community ownership.
  • what the area needs, that the building could provide.
  • how you might be able to help.

If you believe it can usefully serve the community then here’s the
chance to help make that happen. Because, quite simply, it will not
happen UNLESS there is demonstrable community support.

So please come along to Victoria Primary School at 7pm on Thursday 4th October to discuss:

‘SHOULD a NEW COMMUNITY GROUP BE SET UP to ACQUIRE and DEVELOP VICTORIA  PRIMARY SCHOOL for the COMMUNITY?’

Bill Rodger, Trinity Community Council

Lottery cash boost for young people across Scotland

Young people across Scotland will be inspired to make a positive change in their lives, thanks to £474,900 of National Lottery funding awarded to 55 youth-focused projects today (THURS 6 SEPT), in celebration of Scotland’s Year of Young People.  Continue reading Lottery cash boost for young people across Scotland