Dear All
Looking for something fun to do with the kids out this weekend? There’s a Family Ceilidh tomorrow (Saturday) at 2pm-4pm Portobello Old Parish Church, Bellfield Street. All children are more than welcome! Details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/475608802564132/ More about this kind of event here: http://www.ceilidhkids.com/
You can find at the foot of this post a couple of posters of things happening locally – one about play ranger activities for kids in the February break and another about what fit-looking people might be seen doing at 9.30am Saturday mornings on Porty Beach – and how you might join them.
Portobello resident Sarah Fairbrother has entered a short film competition to ‘capture the excitement, effort or beauty of life outdoors’. It’s called Wild Winter Swim and is 4 minutes long. Link here: https://www.facebook.com/sarah.fairbrother.94/posts/10153818677106119
Portobello made the national press in a somewhat silly piece (IMHO) about goings on at Portobello beach that most of us think as ‘Just Normal Porty’. See here: Art attack? Mysterious goings-on on Porty beach | News | The National
Hunter’s Hall Park Cycling Hub is progressing to the planning stage soon. The Proposal of Application Notice (reference: 15/05530/PAN) outlined a public exhibition about the proposals is to be held on 25 and 26 January 2016 (4.30pm – to 8pm) at the East Neighbourhood Office, 101 Niddrie Mains Road. Go take a look and have your say!
It was a huge success last year, so Stravaigin is having their Family Burns Night again this year on 23 January 7.00pm. – 10pm at Sandy’s aka Castleview Community Centre 76 Craigmillar Castle Avenue. It promises to be a night of good food, music and dance.
Tickets £2 per person from Sandy’s to contact us call – Graham on 0131 661 4064 or Gordon on 07718668555. More here: http://chronicleonline.net/2016/01/15/family-burns-night-supper-at-sandys-all-welcome/
Turn2us is a national charity that helps people in financial hardship gain access to welfare benefits, charitable grants and support services. Get the latest news on: https://www.turn2us.org.uk/ and – for Edinburgh, in particular – https://www.turn2us.org.uk/About-Us/What-we-do/Who-we-help/The-Edinburgh-Trust
Portobello Heritage Trust are offering an illustrated talk entitled From Steam to Diesel at 7.30pm on Thursday, 25th February in Portobello Baptist Church Hall, Portobello High Street. Authors Archie Foley and Peter E Ross will talk about their book which presents a unique photographic record of equipment, buildings and people on the railway during the decade up to 1968, when diesel power replaced steam.
Taken by an as yet unidentified BR driver, the images focus on not just steam locos and diesels but also the drivers, shunters, platelayers, signalmen and cleaners who kept the system running. Copies of the book will be on sale on the night. More about Portobello Heritage Trust: www.portobelloheritagetrust.co.uk From Steam to Diesel Buy is available for sale at Portobello Library, Rosefield Avenue and at Joppa Newsagents, Joppa Rd. pic.twitter.com/xVAZer9964
The Council has agreed to introduce 20mph speed limits in residential streets throughout the city.
Reducing traffic speeds has been proven to lower the risk and severity of accidents, which in turn it is hoped would encourage more walking and cycling, reducing congestion and pollution and improving the local environment. http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/news/article/1740/map_of_new_20mph_speed_limit_streets_unveiled Councillors also agreed a detailed implementation plan for the phased roll-out of 20mph, which addresses project delivery, awareness-raising, enforcement and monitoring of the proposed changes.
If anybody has any doubts about this being absolutely the right thing to do, read this: The day I hit a child at 20mph – and realised the speed limit must be cut | Home News | News | The Independent
Bridgend Farmhouse is having a Community Consultation Day on 31 January from 11am -3pm to be held at the Bridgend farmhouse, Old Dalkeith Road. The Consultation will cover a Bothy building project (from design to the build) – which will be undertaken by interested parties within the local community.
The work is planned to take place between May and July this year. The Bridgend weekly Sunday drop-ins start back in February. All are welcome. Find out more here: http://www.bridgendfarmhouse.org.uk/
We are currently experiencing very irritating delays in refuse collections partly due to the huge increase in recycling take-up and some teething problems in introducing the new system to some 230,000 properties. It’s not bedded in yet – but will get there. I had a list of ten local streets this week that were experiencing problems with no-pick-up for weeks or delays.
The Council waste service told Councillors they regret not to have been unable to catch up with the scheduled collections by Monday 11 January as we all had hoped. They are working very hard to resolve this and hope to return to the scheduled collection as soon as possible.
The service is limited by the resources they had available due to driver working time regulations. I’ll get another update next week. Do let me know of any problems and I’ll do my best to get them fixed, but do also report through the Council website. See link below
Anyone remember this? It’s the County Cinema, Craigmillar: https://mobile.twitter.com/74frankfurt/status/686268988859498496/photo/1
Babies can now take part in an ‘Every Child a Library Member’ scheme, which aims to help improve literacy rates amongst children. Every new parent in Edinburgh is being given the chance to sign their baby up for library membership at the same time as they register their birth. http://yourlibrary.edinburgh.gov.uk/recommendations?platform=hootsuite
It’s nice to see nationwide Scotland catching up with local grass roots library practice. Books for Babies and Rhymetime have long been in place for many of the youngsters that stay in Portobello/Craigmillar. Recently Peggy Hughes went on Twitter to say that she is (rightly!) proud to be on the board of Craigmillar Literacy Trust and here’s what they do: http://www.craigmillarliteracytrust.org.uk/
You might have noticed that the Portobello High Street memorial benches from outside the Town Hall and the Bank of Scotland benches were taken to the Council’s Inverleith workshops for refurbishment back before Christmas. We hope to have them back on site by the beginning of February. One day it’s be warm enough to sit on them again and watch the world go by!
Lots of great news from Portobello High School via this link, not least the move to the new school and the celebration of the old one. See here: http://portobellohighschool.org.uk/clubs-activities/reportobello
Our Portobello/Craigmillar You Decide! small grants process is happening again this year. Do put Saturday 14 May in your diary, 1pm-3pm for the You Decide! big event. More details to follow.
Mean time, do prepare to come up with ideas for making your neighbourhood community better and – crucially – prepare to come along on the day to network, find out what is happening to help decide on the best ideas to take forward that need just that little bit of cash help to get going or to complement what is already being done. More on what this kind of process is all about here: http://www.communityscot.org.uk/features/participatory-budgeting/
Mean time, have a great weekend!
Best wishes
Maureen
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and may not reflect the views of Chronicle Online
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