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Hope Award
Hi everyone, my name is Robyn Kane and I’m the current Chairperson of the Moredun Multis and Maisonettes Residents Association. During the week of 20th June 2022, I was awarded the Hope Award from the lovely Community Champions in Morrisons, Moredun.
As the Hope Award is a community-based vote, I am deeply grateful to have been recognised for my work! Receiving any award is an honour but this particular one means a great deal to me as it was voted on by the local Moredun community. I have lived and volunteered in the Moredun area for a large part of my life. Therefore to be recognised by the local people for all my work is just heart-warming and I’m absolutely flattered to receive this award.
I do hope that I can keep up the momentum that has been building to ensure Moredun is a better place for the community to live in. This is also very personal for me as growing up in the area I watched my grandma and other residents fight to improve the lives and facilities for local people. I want to continue this in her memory and for the people of Moredun as well. There is a lot of very exciting work taking place in Moredun and I’m really excited to be part of it.
Robyn receiving her award from Morrisons
ETF E-Newsletter June 2022
ETF E-Newsletter October 2021
Self-Reflection
It has been a great pleasure working as a placement student at Tollcross Community Action Network (TCAN). TCAN is a community organisation working in partnership with Tollcross Foodbank in Edinburgh. TCAN provides a wide range of services mainly centred around signposting to other organisations but also including a clothes bank, books and toys. I am very proud to have been part of TCAN.
During the pandemic, we have had to significantly change the way we run day to day. In the last couple of weeks, we have been able to relax our rules slightly but prior to that only one service user could come inside at a time. The hub used to be an area where service users could come and sit down, have a coffee and a chat and get advice in a less formal setting. It has been difficult for us to adjust to the new normal as the original setup was what made the hub so special – it was a little community where anyone could pop in for something specific or for no reason at all!
Lockdown has been a huge struggle for a lot of people whether that is for financial hardship, mental health, loneliness etc reasons. At TCAN we have really tried to help people address these issues and in the future hope to set up a telefriending service where our volunteers will be paired with service users and keep in touch regularly. This is one of the many ways we have had to adapt during the pandemic.
I recently had a very productive discussion with Betty Stone, Convenor of ETF. I think that ETF has been doing an amazing job challenging the Scottish Government and campaigning to improve rights for people living in social housing. Collaborating with ETF has been great because we are both community-based organisations and although we provide different information and services, a lot of our work is relevant to the same audience. We are excited to see where we will go in the future!
If you wish to find out more about the work of TCAN, you can either email [email protected] or phone 07871 258655.
Noel Joseph, Postgraduate Diploma Student in Adult Education and Community Development context Student, University of Glasgow
City of Edinburgh Council South East Community Grant Fund
The 2020/21 South East Community Grants Fund is open for applications until Monday 15th February 2021. The Community Grants Fund (CGF) is a small grants scheme provided by the City of Edinburgh Council. Small grants of up to £5,000 are available to constituted groups for local community activity. If you have any questions, would like to discuss you application or require some support please contact the relevant Lifelong Learning and Development Officer:
Southside Newington: Scott Wilkins [email protected] or Lucy Reddish [email protected]
Morningside: David Hewitt [email protected] or Hannah Bradley [email protected]
City Centre: Morag Grant [email protected] or Jade Mooney [email protected]
Liberton Gilmerton: Charise Barclay [email protected] or Tom Scott [email protected]
Edinburgh Tenants Federation Goes Virtual for Annual General Meeting
Edinburgh Tenants Federation’s (ETF’s) first online Annual General Meeting (AGM) held on Friday 27th November 2020 has been deemed a success. Attendees were able to hear first-hand about all the innovative work that ETF has carried out throughout the year and we welcomed both familiar and new faces to the meeting. Some of the highlights included:
• The City of Edinburgh Council’s (CEC’s) Chief Executive Andrew Kerr gave an update on the work the Council has carried out throughout the year. This was followed by a question and answer session;
• Three new members were elected to serve on the Federation’s Executive Committee (EC);
• Proposed amendments to ETF’s constitution were unanimously voted through;
• A presentation of ETF’s Annual Report using virtual effects;
• Finishing up with a light-hearted quiz, which everyone enjoyed.
ETF’s Convenor Betty Stone commented, “I would like to thank everyone who attended our first hugely successful online AGM. I give my thanks to Andrew Kerr for attending and updating us on what CEC has been doing during this terrible time. I want to thank our EC and all the staff for their great work throughout the year. We seem to be doing more work than ever so a huge thank you to everyone who has helped make this a successful year despite the difficult circumstances.”
You can find out more about the work of ETF by clicking here.
