A full month’s work in the diary

Of course Zahira suspected that already which is why she asked if she could shadow an MSP when she applied to take part in Opening Doors to Democracy, the informal shadow scheme run by Leith Open Space.  But this morning’s surgery (on Friday 5th April) has been particularly busy for Sarah Boyack (among the case studies: worries about tenement repairs, backgreen security and a man in his 50s made redundant two years ago wondering how he will ever get another job). The afternoon’s roving surgery in Saughton Hall would enable local residents the same opportunity to discuss their concerns.

Added to that, Sarah Boyack is not long back from a Commonwealth Parliamentary trip to Malawi including visits to projects encouraging women’s involvement in political life.  The MSP for Lothian is convenor of the International Development Committee and her parliamentary portfolio includes membership of a wide range of intercultural committees as well as her long running environmental responsibilities.

All of which offers a tantalising choice of activities for Zahira who applied to join  Opening Doors shadow scheme because, she says she wants to acquire new skills to apply in her community work. Zahira works part-time as a Black and Ethnic Minority (BME) Advice Worker with carers in Edinburgh who have learning disabilities or support needs. She is also a volunteer Champion for Scottish Women’s aid providing information and promoting support services for issues relating to domestic abuse.

As she explained in her application form: “I would like to make a positive difference in the local community and perhaps this can go further afield.  I hope to also use this opportunity in understanding how and why decisions are made.”

Agreeing the programme

So it’s not long before both Zahira and Sarah come up with ideas for a custom-made shadowing programme. The new Procurement Reform Bill ,  about to make its way through the Scottish Parliament, offers an ideal opportunity for Zahira to observe how laws are made.  And this one, regulating how public bodies purchase goods and services, has enormous significance at a time when all local authorities are making extremely difficult choices about how to allocate their spending.

We’re delighted to welcome Zahira as our 13^th participant in Opening Doors which began (we find it hard to believe) almost seven years ago in October 2006. She began by shadowing Leith Walk Councillor Nick Gardner’s work in the city council. Now  looking forward to hearing how she gets on in Holyrood.

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A bright spot on a bleak day:  I Love Leith hoardings.

Leith Open Space was delighted to add support to the very detailed 42 page proposal produced by Greener Leith in consultation with three local community councils and other Leith-based community organisations – along with the Cockburn Association and four ‘active travel’ associations (that’s walking and cycling to you and me).

Al Tibbit, of Greener Leith, calls it ‘an unprecedented joint submission’ to the council’s Leith Improvement Programme.  Cycle lanes, 20mph speed limit, safer junctions, clearing up the clutter and returning the missing sculptures – these are among the demands to improve the public realm. In short, as Charlotte Encombe puts it: “We’re urging the council to raise their aspirations.”

We particularly like the emphasise on making Leith Walk a safe and welcoming public space for people to enjoy.  And we haven’t given up our own wee fantasy of a covered food market celebrating the incredible cultural diversity of Edinburgh’s most interesting street. That was among the topics discussed at the Open Space ‘Vision for Leith Walk’ event we organised with Greener Leith last year – and we are glad to see the market is among the top wishes of local people in Greener Leith’s report of extensive consultations with local people since then.  A market certainly gets lots of ‘likes’ every time we mention it on Facebook.

Edinburgh now has its first ‘co-operative council’ promising to listen to the views of the people. Today’s victory for the Splashback campaign is another encouraging sign that they mean it – but cash is scarce and the council will need plenty of persuasion to spend more on Leith Walk.  That’s where we can all keep playing a part.

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Many of my female friends show no interest in politics and this is something that baffles me.

Ruth Bittern may be disappointed that many of the young women she knows seem uninterested in politics but there is no mistaking her own enthusiasm.  Ruth applied to our Opening Doors Shadow Scheme because she wants to put political knowledge to good use in the community.  In fact she had just given up a successful job in the financial sector because she wanted to work somewhere more rewarding and satisfying.

“Possibly the third sector”, she wrote in her application form, “I believe that political knowledge would greatly benefit any organisation that I may work for in the future”.

Ruth and Malcolm Chisholm at the Scottish Parliament

That was back in August. Now Ruth has helped to put together what could seem a demanding programme, fitting her shadowing appointments at City Chambers and Scottish Parliament between a growing list of voluntary placements (she is training with Citizens Advice Bureau as well as working as a volunteer with Health in Mind, ELREC and Home Start) – but her emails are full of enthusiasm about what she is learning.

I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed my first visit to the City Chambers. The Lord Provost gave me a tour round the building which was fascinating and Nick introduced me to everybody

Ruth began by shadowing Nick Gardener, a founder member of Leith Open Space who was elected Labour Councillor for Leith Walk in the May 2012 local government elections.  The Opening Doors programme also includes an opportunity to learn how the Scottish Parliament works and on 7th November Ruth met Malcolm Chisholm Labour MSP for Edinburgh North and Leith.

As it happens that was a particularly good day for a student of politics –  Barack Obama had just been elected for four more years as US President and in Holyrood women were very much part of the political action.  Malcolm had arranged for us to hear Nicola Sturgeon, Deputy First Minister, answer questions on the draft budget and later that afternoon Ruth was to attend a meeting of the Cross Party Group on Violence Against Women, with Malcolm as co-convener.

So far, we’re pleased to report, everything Ruth has seen has only increased her interest in politics, “I am keen to see and learn more”, she writes.  And we are very much looking forward to Ruth’s journal of what she learns from shadowing Nick and Malcolm  in council and parliament – and following their work out in the real world of North Edinburgh and Leith.

Writing on the wall

Travelling the Distance is a tribute to women’s contribution to democracy by the artist Shauna McMullan who collected the handwritten sentences of 100 Scottish women, and reproduced their words in porcelain to be displayed on the wall in the Scottish Parliament

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nature and nurture: food and fun

We are looking for women local to the Leith area who are interested in finding out about how small changes to lifestyle can have positive effects on health and wellbeing.

Talk of the Walk is a new women’s group starting in November, running weekly on Wednesdays 10.00 – 12.00, until March and is seeking participants!

The exciting programme includes: local walks (a nature walk up the Water of Leith, a taster session of ‘mindful’ walking, a memory walk), community gardening and tree-planting,  visiting the Botanic Gardens and planting our own windowsill herbs, discussion on shopping and cooking healthily on a budget (with activities to put ideas into practise), exploring the myriad of food shops on offer locally and practical cookery sessions.
We aim to work with community groups and facilities in the area in order to build links and make a healthier lifestyle feel fun and socially connecting.

Please find a poster for the group attached and display it wherever you think local women might see it.
As always, feel free to be in touch with any questions.

Best wishes,

Emma Pattinson
Edinburgh Community Food

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Almost exactly seven years ago, I was one of a small group of community activists taking a first nervous step into an empty open space. On a cold, dark November night we set up our stall – old trestle tables and a flip chart – in an unlit, unused retail unit at the top of the Ocean Terminal shopping mall overlooking Leith harbour. We were getting ready for our first Open Space event and we really did not know what we were letting ourselves in for. We had absolutely no idea who would turn up next day.

We had sent over 100 letters inviting people from ethnic minority communities in Leith to come together. Alarmed by a spate of racist attacks following the London bombs of July 2007, we asked: Can We Talk and Listen to One Another? Following the Open Space format we also asked them to bring their burning questions around multiculturalism.

Were we naïve? A small bunch of activists from the Leith Walk branch of the Labour Party, we were setting out to do something Labour party activists don’t usually do: give the platform to the people.

We had chosen Open Space because it is an example of grassroots democracy at work. No keynote speeches, no agenda. To my astonishment the Labour branch had unanimously agreed to support and fund a non-party political platform. Local MP and MSP (both Labour) wholeheartedly accepted the invitation to take part on the understanding that they would not be allowed to make speeches. Maggie Havergal, a professional Open Space facilitator, offered to give her time free of charge.

Some voluntary organisations were less enthusiastic. They did not want to be associated with a political party and they warned that we would have difficulty getting people to turn up. Women would probably not want to come.

But on the day people did turn up – we counted more than 70 – and more than half of them were women. In the opening circle we sat down with well established residents as well as refugees and asylum seekers and tireless community workers: a small group of Scots among Africans, Indians, Asians, East Europeans, Latin Americans…who knew Edinburgh was so very multicultural?

In the closing circle everyone asked if we could do it again….

And so one thing led to another. With no money but lots of enthusiasm we set up Leith Open Space as a small, informal community group. From our second event in the spring grew a shadow scheme to enable people from minority communities to take part in the democratic process – Opening Doors modelled on Operation Black Vote is now in its fifth year. Third and fourth events invited community discussion on Who Cares for the Carers and What’s it Like to be Young in Leith? In May 2012 we joined up with Greener Leith to seek a Vision for Leith Walk.

Meanwhile a very dynamic splinter group had formed as Leith Open Space helped to form the extraordinarily successful World Kitchen in Leith – now three years old – based on a belief that food is perhaps the best way of bringing people together: eating together transcends language barriers!

Looking back – sunlit fields racing passed the train window – it has been a wonderful life-changing experience for me. But I know we could and should be doing so much more. For all its strengths the open space process cannot deliver change unless there are people in the closing circle prepared to turn words into actions. Although I am always comforted by the Open Space mantra (the people who come are the right people), I know there must me many more ‘right people’ who would come if only we could reach them. After the Vision for Leith event our ever-generous facilitator Maggie Havergal suggested we should start a series of mini-events in pubs down Leith Walk. Maybe we will…keep watching this space.

Just for the record: this first appeared on fayyoung.org – mainly because I couldn’t access Leith Open Space blog on the train!

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The Fife Diet’s smoothie bike  travelled from the Big Tent festival in Fife during the summer to  Blasda Edinburgh the great green harvest festival of local foods – home-grown and home-made – in Out of the Blue Drill Hall last week.

On each occasion World Kitchen in Leith has also been there – feeding performers and volunteers at the Big Tent and mixing up a medley of multicultural potato dishes at Blasda.

Next week you will see more pedal powered smoothie action at the brand new Newhaven Fest, another inspiring local community celebration of good food and music.  But this time the World Kitchen will be elsewhere – back in Out of the Blue cooking up a multicultural brunch for Nourishing a Global Community with film, music, food and discussion organised by Take One Action. Their simple but powerful slogan: eat your way to a better world.

Both of these events deserve lots of support. Unfortunately the World Kitchen in Leith team  can’t be in two places at once but it should be possible for foodie enthusiasts to get from one to another.  On a bike maybe…

Nourishing a Global Community is in Out of the Blue from 12.00 to 4.30pm

Newhaven Fest is at Newhaven Harbour from 12.00 to 5pm

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Councillor Nick

But after all Leith is a state of mind isn’t it? And there’s Mary and Ally and Gordon and Matt and Nick and Phil and Johnny and Tania…and many more of us who qualified for the blue stickers handed out to the minority of true blue Leithers crammed into café seating at the front of the big blue BBC tent in Potterow.

Of course it’s curmudgeonly to  moan. It was a good night with something of a works outing atmosphere: Leithers on a night out on the town – and not a drop of rain.  Music and booze flowed in the beer garden. But there was an oddly restrained vibe inside the tent. No heckling no matter how hard the comedian tried.

Or as our friend Gordon Peters put it, “The audience was more like Edinburgh than Leith.  Imagine what it might have been like in the Dockers Club!”

Unmistakeably Mary

Even so, apologising for dragging Leith into Edinburgh, Mark Steel did his best to conjure up the spirit of the capital city’s edgy neighbour.  He and his researcher had done a good job, touring Leith, and visiting the libraries to dig up legends and true stories (trams and Trainspotting, Hibs and heartbroken fans,  Proclaimers, Port O Leith, and the pub with the puma). Plus a special shout for Leith Walk’s unbeatable, unchained local shops. “What stroke of genius inspired Borland’s mix of darts and televisions?”

Good stories, then, and star performances from VIP guests like Mary Moriarty (did you hear that one about the guy who stripped off in her Port O Leith? When she asked him to at least put his knickers on he obliged by putting them on his head). And yon young Rebel Ink who recalled the early days when they infused the rebellious writers’ publication with LSD and placed it in Menzies magazine rack (“Menzies sells LSD”).

Steel himself made nice irreverent fun of Britannia. And Prince Philip’s bladder.  “That’s never going to get in”. he told the audience.

We’ll see tonight when the edited recording of Mark Steels in Town is aired on BBC Radio 4 at 6.30pm.

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Left, right and centre.  Here’s a chance to engage with radical views and big questions. What does the future hold for Scotland.  In an age of austerity can councils deliver quality services?  Would independence produce a more democratic local authority? 

Does anyone care enough to seek for the answers?  One way to find out is to come to the People’s Charter public debate at Out of the Blue Drill Hall on Saturday when Leith’s very own Councillor Gordon Munro joins Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothians and Councillor Kenneth Selbie in grappling with some of the challenges facing left-of-centre politicians.

By the way, Gordon reminds us that tickets for Ragged Trousered Philanthropists at Assembly George Square are half price tomorrow.  “The show ends at 1.30pm giving you time to get to Leith with a 7, 14, or 49 bus taking you there from Clerk Street”, says Gordon.

And of course some of us are heading back up to Fringe Central for the recording of Mark Steel’s comedy show, an Edinburgh Fringe special  on Leith.  Or a ‘lesser known part of Edinburgh” as the BBC website describes it. Though to be fair they also describe our part of time as a unique corner of Scotland’s capital. The show will be broadcast on August 21st.

Mark Steel asks some pretty good questions himself and does not shy away from provocative answers. Look for the Leithers in the audience!

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Meena in the middle with volunteers Edith (right) and Karen (left)

Certainly not. That aroma you can smell is tandoori chicken in the oven with cumin roast potatoes. The World Kitchen in Leith is preparing for the first big meal of the Big Tent Festival weekend and there is a whole lot of cooking going on in the smartly converted old stable block of the Falkland Estate.

Sunday’s menu

There’s chick pea curry on the stove, plates of pasta and bowls of salads laid out on the table, boxes of rolls piled up at the side waiting to be filled with shredded pork for the meat eaters.  And that’s just for lunch. The fridge is full of burgers – veggie and pork – for tonight’s barbecue. Hidden beneath the table there are boxes of fruit, vegetables, rice, lentils and spices of all kinds. Enough to start a street market.

At 12 noon the first diners arrive and after that there are few opportunities to check the time. World Kitchen has been booked to feed a total of 600 over the festival weekend. Two lunches, two barbecue suppers – sustenance for the amazing crew of volunteers who help to make sure the Big Tent festival is a safe, clean and welcoming experience. That’s everyone: car park attendants, rubbish recyclers, security staff, police officers, office folk and meeters and greeters of all kinds. We’re feeding some of the stars too but for the most part they eat in the quieter wood lined quarters of the old stable stalls. Infectious music echoes round the park reminding us there is a festival going on out there.

Hungry lunchtime diners

There are a few scary moments. Health and Safety do not go mad but the man in a white coat keeps a watchful eye over us on the first day – next day he appears in a black T shirt which seems a good sign (it is.)  Overall, the weekend is an wonderful, exhiliarating teamwork experience. Not least because of the enthusiastic, tireless volunteers, Edith, Margaret and Karen who join the World Kitchen team to prepare and serve the meals – and  help to clear and wash up afterwards.

Unforgettable moments: early starts and late nights for the campers, camaraderie in the kitchen, queuing up for a beer at the Black Isle Brewery tent, dancing to the Proclaimers and Salsa Celtica.  And at the end of it all an  email from Big Tent director Ian Harrower:

“A big thank you from all of us at Big Tent to all of you at World Kitchen – The feedback is that the food was brilliant and that came from Police through security and crew, performers and all the way to our volunteers.”

Thank you Big Tent.

Alice and (almost out of sight) Mark

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Mark books sunshine for the Big Tent

As it happens the sun was shining beautifully the evening we went to meet Ian Harrower, director of the Big Tent, to have a look backstage at the kitchen in the converted stable block on the Falkland Estate in Fife.

Ian Harrower

The  setting is idyllic as you can see from the picture showing Mark admiring the scenery. But he was sold on the idea before he even saw the site. “We’ve got to do this,” was his immediate reaction when Ian Harrower, director of the Big Tent, contacted World Kitchen in Leith after our fundraising event in Out of the Blue for Jock Tamson’s Bairns.

We all agreed. Whatever the weather (and we would be mad not to pack the wellies!), the World Kitchen in Leith team are looking forward to our first experience of rock festival catering.  Not just any rock festival though.  The Big Tent (if you don’t already know about it) is Scotland’s answer to Glastonbury…with better toilets.

World Kitchen in Leith is not cooking for the crowd of 15,000 who are expected to arrive on the edge of the conservation village of Falkland on the weekend of 21 and 22 July.  We’re catering for the performers (Proclaimers, Salsa Celtica, Karine Polwart and many, many more) plus the great army of volunteers who help to keep the programme of events running smoothly from the opening Ceilidh on Friday night to the closing session on Sunday. In between there’s a wonderfully quirky mix of music, talks, food and crafts – all, or mostly, with an environmental focus, celebrating the message of stewardship and sustainability.

Altogether we expect to be feeding around 250 people each day with a characteristically multicultural mix of hot, cold, veggie and meat dishes – and most of the essential ingredients will be supplied by local, organic producers.

As you can imagine, we’re pretty excited about our first big step into outdoor catering since Leith Open Space joined forces with World Kitchen in Leith – we survived the torrential rains on our debut at Leith Gala Day 2009.  But a little sunshine at Falkland would be very welcome.

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