Question: What was the best thing about the scheme?
Answer: “The scheme opens politics to ordinary people who would never otherwise come close to it. ” Opening Doors feedback form, 2007.
That was just one response. Altogether, feedback was so positive we are planning to run a second phase of the Opening Doors shadow scheme starting in May this year and we would love to hear what you want to learn about politics. Continue reading “Opening Doors Again”
Time to dig out our wellies and head for the opening of the new Perseverence Community Garden at 11am on Wednesday 5 March. Leith Open Space is looking forward to sharing a plot with Greener Leith and we will be marking the spot by planting one of the fruit trees Alastair Tibbitt has ordered for the occasion. With any luck they will come with good weather.
Behind the walls, Perseverence Community Garden waits for planting
Good news about the future Leith Museum. With over 3000 signatures on the petition collected by the Campaign for Leith Museum, the Scottish Parliament Public Petitions Committee agreed to take positive steps forward when they met on 19 February. In plain English, they want to know what support the campaign can expect from the City of Edinburgh Council , Scottish Parliament and Scottish Enterprise. Answers expected by 25 April. Click here for the longer version…
Another great opportunity for anyone interested in gardens, crafts and the environment. All rolled up in one. Friends of Dalmeny Street Park are looking for volunteers to help make three raised-bed planters to grow plants for the local community. Continue reading “Knock on wood”
Fay Young from Leith Open Space Group went looking for a new community garden in deepest Leith: this is what she found…
It took me a while to find the right place tucked away between high rise flats. By the time I got there the rest of the team were inside having coffee and my blurry mobile picture shows a community garden without people. Even so, the sun was slanting between high walls and if you squint you can imagine what it might be like once fruit trees are showering the ground with blossom.
Continue reading “Leith: twinned with Havana?”
Here’s an exciting start to 2008 with plans for a community garden in Leith (see Green Fingers for details of the Greener Leith meeting on Monday January 28 ). Plus news of other intercultural activities involving both Polish communities (see Home from Home and Breaking Bread) and Chinese communities (see China Now). Leith Open Space will be reporting progress on all this and more during the coming year so keep in touch with our blog. And don’t hesitate to add your own news and views.
Kimho Ip is used to making music in unlikely places (that’s him on the right directing the FEAST in Castle Street last August). Now he’s preparing a different kind of musical feast in the Botanics this summer as one of Edinburgh’s main events for the intercultural programme of China Now in Scotland. Continue reading “China Now in Edinburgh”
A good place to meet , this is a community orchard in Prague in late summer
How about this? A place where people of all cultures meet to grow fruit, flowers and vegetables and make new friends as they grow plants. Community gardens offer wonderful opportunities for bringing people together and it can happen in Leith. After a lot of hard work behind scenes, Greener Leith hopes to turn words into actions on Monday January 28 when a community garden is one of the main items on the agenda for their first meeting of the year. Please come along and join Leith Open Space in supporting this great project. Continue reading “Community green fingers”
“Everyone is welcome to attend and many local people do come along.”
In translation it means a ‘meeting place’, but Swietlica means much more than that for members of Edinburgh’s Polish community. And weekly social activities are not restricted to Polish people. Monday gatherings at Fort Community Wing are welcoming events for all local people, as volunteer organisers explain in a short article Kasia Raszewska has sent to Leith Open Space blog. Continue reading “A Polish home from home”
Edinburgh protesters kneel in silent ‘submission’ at the Mound(thanks to Leith and North website for use of the picture)
There was a Guantanamo dog dressed in an orange coat, and a choir singing as we walked along Princes Street. But the most striking moment was when over 150 people wearing orange boiler suits knelt in silent protest while a young ‘guard’ in combat gear shouted at us: “I don’t want to see your eyes, look down, look down.” Continue reading “Kneeling in protest against Guantanamo”
