Vivienne Nicoll Evening Times 20/8/13

Last year, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport decided to start renewing the fleet of buses it leases to contractors providing local bus services.

Members of SPT decided that, where practical, they should be handed over to community transport groups.

The buses will replace ageing vehicles or allow operators to provide additional services.

A total of 14 buses will be handed over to organisations in Glasgow, North and South Lanarkshire, East and West Dunbartonshire, East, North and South Ayrshire, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire.

Southwest Community Transport in Nitshill, which was a finalist in last year’s Evening Times’ Community Champions, is one of the organisations that will benefit from the decision.

It provides transport for a wide variety of groups, including sheltered housing organisations and youth clubs.

A spokeswoman said: “This is wonderful news, It will be very useful and a welcome addition to the buses we have.”

A report to SPT members said: “The vehicles will offer the community transport sector the opportunity to obtain low-floor accessible vehicles that are currently unaffordable to the majority of the sector.”

At present, most community buses have a step or a rear tail-lift to allow access for wheelchair users.

About £5000 will be available for each vehicle to ensure it is property serviced and maintained. Organisations will also be able to access a £25,000 fund for professional engineering support.

The report states: “To ensure the safeguarding of SPT’s investment in these vehicles and provide assistance to the operators to maintain vehicles that are more technically complex than most are presently accustomed to, it will be necessary to provide some funding to secure professional mechanical services and training.”

SPT chairman Jim Coleman said: “I am delighted SPT buses will be given a new lease of life in many communities but the donation will have a much bigger impact than that.

“These buses will be handed over only to those who can properly maintain them to a safe standard and SPT has promised to make sure they are equipped to do so.”

Third Force News 10/09/13

THE Scottish independence debate is uninspiring, alienating, off-putting and boring according to Scottish charities.

New research from the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) has revealed strong feelings in the third sector against the current debate.

The majority of organisations are also not planning to take a position on the outcome of the referendum, despite recent reassurances from Scotland’s charity regulator that they can.

Of people working for charities who responded to the latest survey into attitudes towards the referendum, only 3% said that the arguments being put forward by the yes and no camps were clear.

Charities criticised the debate for focusing on the wrong issues and being too partisan. They called for the debate to move away from simple yes/no clashes and instead focus on the issues that matter to their members and clients.

The top issue that charities want to see discussed more is poverty, followed by welfare, social care and community empowerment.

However, Martin Sime, chief executive of SCVO, urged charities to ensure that the voices of their members and service users are heard in the debate about independence.

“It’s not surprising that people working for Scottish charities are uninspired by the debate so far. Neither side has created a vision of the future of Scotland that engages the ordinary people that charities work with every day.

“The third sector has many voices which use their influence to shape society and tackle the issues that really matter to people – welfare, social care and jobs.

“Now is the time to be heard about the kind of Scotland we want to see and to redouble efforts to get the views of those we work with into the centre of the debate”

Fears of alienating funders, members and service users as well as staff capacity and lack of information were the main reasons that charities gave for not getting more involved in the debate so far.

However, earlier this summer, Scotland’s charity regulator produced guidance on the referendum that made it clear that charities could get involved in the debate and even support a particular yes or no outcome if it was in keeping with their charitable objectives.

The Network of International Development Organisations in Scotland (Nidos) is also encouraging its members to get involved in the debate. It held an event in May where nearly 200 people from different sectors debated the values and principles that should drive Scotland’s international relations in the future.

“We want Scotland’s relations with the world and action to tackle global poverty to be included in the referendum debate,” said Gillian Wilson, chief executive of Nidos. “We think this is an important consideration in how we shape the future of Scotland, whatever constitutional outcome is voted for.”

Both Better Together, which is campaigning for a no vote, and yes Scotland also urged charities to help mould the referendum campaign.

A Better Together spokesperson said: “Given the importance of the decision we are being asked to make it’s vital that charities get involved in the debate. It can’t be left to politicians to argue among themselves. No matter their view, different voices across society shouldn’t be afraid to speak out.

“We need the facts about the impact of separation on Scotland’s charities and the important work they do. Whether that’s on welfare, the economy or our public services, people need honest answers not more assertion.”

A spokesman for Yes Scotland said: “The voluntary sector will continue to play an important role in an independent Scotland and we are keen to engage with it as the campaign progresses.”

At the Big Lottery Fund Scotland we are committed to supporting communities across the country develop themselves by helping make the most of their assets. From the first Scottish Land Fund through to our Growing Community Assets (GCA) investment area we have witnessed the difference our backing can have enabling ALL communities throughout Scotland – both rural and urban – to purchase and develop all sorts of local assets that matter to them.

One concern over the last ten years has been the lack of evidence about whether or not the community ownership of assets works; about what impact it can have, what its benefits are, and what challenges are involved.

So today as we publish the independent evaluation of the first round of GCA carried out by SQW we hope this substantial research now offers evidence and knowledge around community assets for all to learn from.

Big Lottery Fund Scotland Director, Jackie Killeen says: “What is clear from the evaluation is that community ownership of assets is undeniably an extremely powerful way of communities coming together to work for their future development and prosperity and in some cases, their future existence.

“It can be a long, hard, frustrating, taxing and time-consuming process, but ultimately, thankfully, also a rewarding and satisfying one.

Through the first round of GCA, which ran from 2006 to 2010 we made 127 awards worth just over £48 million across Scotland. The report is clear about their significant impact:

• An estimated 36,000 people across Scotland are using GCA1 supported community-owned services and facilities.

• There are over 700 people involved in project management across 81 operational projects. These are supported by 1,700 regular volunteers.

• 337 full-time jobs and 301 part-time jobs have been created or safeguarded, while 143 businesses have been accommodated and 15 new businesses have started as a result or as part of GCA1 projects.

• Projects funded through GCA provide essential, community led services. The research shows that among those individuals using community facilities, 66% would not have been able to access the same service locally, and among those that did have this option, 80% considered their GCA1 facility to be “much better”.

• GCA projects play a part in raising the aspiration of communities. The evaluation found that 53% of respondents that had visited or been involved with a project felt that the GCA1 project had increased the “ambition and confidence” of the community to take on other activities.

This is a final year evaluation but it doesn’t mark the end of our support. The second round of GCA is open to applications and to date, 15 projects have been awarded funding of around £10 million.

Find out more about GCA evaluation Growing Community Assets 2006-2009 Evaluation

Civil Society 7th September 2013

Debra Allcock Tyler has called on Australian charities to stand up for themselves and not cower to demands to be more businesslike, arguing that in the UK government policy has “buggered up” the relationships between charities and government. Speaking to the Australian National Conference on Volunteering, in Adelaide, the Directory of Social Change chief executive said she was impressed with the local sector and issued a clarion call for it not to be silenced by fear of losing government funding from criticising government policy. 

She said she was hurt by government and private sector characterisation of charities as being run by well-meaning amateurs. “The condescension from the private and public sector in Britain really, really pisses me off,” Allcock Tyler told the Australian crowd.  “Many of our leaders think that business has the answer to everything. The UK government wants charities to be more businesslike. Slavish servitude to short-term corporate greed launched the British economy into crisis. They have the nerve to tell us we’re not sustainable!”

She said government policy was “buggering it up left right and centre” with regard to the relationship between charities and government. As debates rage on in the UK about charity campaigning, Allcock Tyler called on Australian charities to be ever more strident in their views. 

“We must never compromise our ethics and our beliefs,” she said. “We must speak up, serve others, and speak for them regardless of the cost to ourselves. Money is the mechanism, not the motive, and it’s what distinguishes us from the private sector.” 

She further went on to recount a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg where charities and the minister discussed using volunteering as a pathway to youth employment.  “Volunteering isn’t free!” she said. “We’re not there to serve volunteers. We don’t want some young person turning up for a couple of weeks, spend all our time and energy on them, and then they bugger off once they’ve got something on their CV.”

To read the article by Prof Jim Hunter, laying out the case for land reform, published in September’s edition of Scottish Field Click here 

To read the response to Jim Hunter’s article, written by Douglas MacAdam , CEO Scottish Land and Estates and published on SLE website Click here  

Sunday Mail 22/9/13

A 100-YEAR-OLD woman fears being turfed out of her home after one of the UK’s richest men put his Scottish estate on the market for £29million, we reveal today.

Nellie Easson received a telegram from the Queen when she hit her century on August 23.

But just 20 days later, she was one of dozens of tenants on the Kinpurnie Estate in Angus to get a letter telling them their homes were on the market – and that there were no “guarantees” that they could remain in their properties.

Multimillionaire Nigel Cayzer’s decision to break up the 5400-acre estate into up to 23 separate lots and sell it for the first time in more than a century has rocked the community.

We reveal the plight of Nellie and her neighbours today as pressure mounts for far-reaching land reform in Scotland, where fewer than 500 lairds own half the countryside.

The sale of the estate, which includes a castle, six lochs and the £6million nine-bed Thriepley House, comes 18 months after the death at 80 of former laird Sir James Cayzer.

Tenants – some of whom also work on the estate – in the village of Newtyle, near Dundee, now fear losing their livelihoods as well as the homes they have rented for decades.

They believe maverick, Rolls-Royce-loving Sir James would be appalled by the sale, which is being managed by agents CKD Galbraith and Savills.

In 2003, he spoke of his disgust at a cousin’s treatment of tenants on 16,000-acre Gannochy estate in Angus, 

who faced eviction and redundancy, branding his actions “deplorable”.

Great-great-grandmother Nellie, who pays £135 in rent a month, has lived in her one-bed cottage in the village next to the estate since 1935.

When she moved in as a 22-year-old newlywed with husband John, King George V was still on the throne.

Nellie, who raised her three children in the house and now has six grandchildren, 14 great-grandkids and one great-great-granddaughter, said: “I don’t want to leave. I’d have to go into a care home.

“This is my home, my first house after I got married. Everybody knows me here and I want to end my days here.”

Nellie’s youngest son Jock has vowed to ensure his mother stays in the cottage.

He said: “We still don’t know what’s happening but, if it comes to it, we’ll fight this all the way.”

Earlier this year, Jock was one of several locals who were offered the chance to buy the estate property they rented to help settle the death duties tax bill after the passing of Sir James.

But Jock said: “The estate offered me the chance to buy my mum’s cottage for £90,000, which was a complete joke. It’s worth nothing like that. They gave me a fortnight to take up the offer.”

Sir James’s nephew Nigel, who changed his name to Cayzer from Galliers-Pratt in 1982 in order to inherit, has said the sale is a great wrench and he hopes to sell it as one unit.

But the sale particulars show the estate can also be sold as 23 lots – and reveals that all the residential properties are predominantly let on short assured tenancies, some with just a few months to run.

Kate Scott, 58, has lived in an estate house in the village since 1992 and pays £350 a month in rent on such a tenancy agreement.

The mum-of-two said: “Sir James would be turning in his grave that his estate is being sold. We feel so isolated.

“We’ve been here more than 20 years and have spent thousands improving the place. But we have always been on a fixed-term, six-month lease and just don’t know where we stand.

“Our neighbours on each side are two generations of the same family and they are in the same position. We moved here from Dundee because we wanted a better life and, if we lose this house, we will have nowhere to go.

“There is virtually no social housing available in the village and, at our age, my husband Peter and I aren’t in a position to take on a mortgage.

“The letter we’ve received is totally ambiguous. I asked the surveyor from CKD Galbraith if my house is being sold – as there are 50 houses which aren’t actively being marketed – but I still haven’t had a straight answer.”

Kate tried to set up a meeting between Cayzer and the worried village tenants to discuss their concerns but was told that he had refused to agree to one.

She added: “The way he has done this has taken no account of tenants’ feelings. Many of them are too scared to even speak out because some of them still work for the estate and face losing their home and their livelihoods as well.”

Estate agent CKD Galbraith’s Wattie Barbour, who signed off the letter to tenants, said: “I understand that it’s a time of change and great uncertainty and worry.

“The position is that the majority of the houses on the estate are not actively for sale at the moment.”

But he admitted that the rented houses were negotiable and could be bought as part of an overall package.

He added: “The thinking behind that is, if that happened, then anybody buying a large portfolio of houses would want to keep them occupied and, therefore, the existing position of tenants living in their houses would be 

maintained.”

Another tenant, village shop worker Shelley Bird, 41, also has fears. She said: “I’m gutted.This is a lovely village.

“I’ve been in this house for eight years, although I moved to Newtyle when I was 11. I wouldn’t just lose a house, I work here too.”

Tenants have now arranged a meeting, which will be attended by Graeme Dey, the Nationalist MSP for Angus South.

He said: “There’s understandable concern from those who are potentially affected by this and also a fair degree of confusion. People are worried about what the future might hold.”

FROM AROU

 Mail Opinion: Who owns Scotland? It’s not us.. and we need action on land reform now

PENSIONERS such as Nellie Easson, 100, shouldn’t have to worry about losing their home just because a wealthy landlord decides to sell his estate, says MAIL OPINION.

22 Sep 2013 10:45

The Aberdeenshire Litter Initiative (Ali) was established in June 2007. This scheme encourages individuals, groups and business within Aberdeenshire to ‘adopt a street’ or area of public open space and to keep it clear of litter. To aid in this, we supply volunteers with safety guidance, a litter picking stick and a Hi Viz vest. 

In the 2011 Scottish Waste and Resources (SWRC) awards, our own George Niblock was nominated and Won the award for ‘Outstanding Contribution – The Peoples Choice’ in recognition of his efforts during 2011 in waste management including work with ALi, which in his own words “makes me the biggest ‘waster’ in Scotland for the year!”

NEWSFLASH

Aberdeenshire Environmental Forum are delighted to announce that Provost Jill Webster of Aberdeenshire Council has signed up as the 500th member of the award winning Aberdeenshire Litter Initiative – ALi This coincides with the fifth anniversary of the project which was launched in June 2007 by Provost Howatson of Aberdeenshire who was the very first volunteer litter picker signed up.

George Niblock, Project Coordinator said: “We are particularly pleased to welcome Provost Webster as our 500th volunteer member of the ALi as it serves to highlight the strong and continuing relationship that the project has with Aberdeenshire Council.”

The ALi Project is understood to be the largest volunteer Litter picking scheme in the United Kingdom. It is based on the ‘Adopt-a-Street’ concept common in North America. ALi operates in a more informal way where it acts to encourage and support individual volunteers and groups within the community, to adopt an area of their own choosing to keep it clear of litter at a frequency that suits them. It does not seek to replace the street cleansing work of the Council but to enhance it.

Nominated to the Scottish Green List 2010, a finalist in the Community Projects section at the Scottish Waste Industry Awards 2011, ALi has been successful in winning the Gold Award for Environmental Best Practice in the Scottish Green Apple Awards 2012.

AEF’s ALi scheme was commended as a finalist in the 2010 Scottish Waste and Resources awards for the community sector.

We were also nominated for the 2011 Scottish Green List, and were mentioned by Richard Lochhead, Cabinet secretary for the Environment, as a good example of a Community based environmental initiative.

The ALi initiative has the support of Aberdeenshire Council, Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB), and a number of local organizations and business. It is seeking funding from any source – public, private or business – with an initial target of kitting out at least 1000 volunteers. We believe that there are already thousands of public spirited people who pick up litter in an unsung way.

ALi is now going strong in a number of Communities across Aberdeenshire with a smattering across the rural areas. We are active in attempting to identify other groups and individuals to encourage, support and enable then to ‘do their bit’ for the local environment. We are working closely with the Community Planning staff of the Council to reach out to other groups and organizations.

A message to the annual conference of DTA Scotland

All over the world, there are villages, municipalities, and communities coming together in order to design a genuinely sustainable future. 

The Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) works with networks of communities in transition all over the world. In Senegal the government is running a program to enable 14,000 traditional villages to become ecovillages. GEN have also just signed a MOU with the government of Chiang Mai, one of the northern provinces of Thailand, about the transitioning of municipalities there. The Norwegian government is starting a similar process. All of these government-supported programs have grown out of grass roots initiatives.

The examples of Scottish communities and islands empowering themselves through, for example, land buyouts and renewable energy projects is inspirational and GEN would love to showcase the stories of Scottish communities on a global level, to inspire others who are dreaming of taking a similar route.

In the future, this might lead to mutual visits and exchanges with leaders and youth leaders from other such initiatives worldwide.  If you would like to discuss further, please get in touch with me.

Best wishes

Kosha Joubert

President of GEN-International and Managing Director of GEN-Europe

koshajoubert@gen-europe.org

http://www.gen-europe.org/ 

www.ecovillage.org

The UK’s Most Comprehensive Community Energy Knowledge Exchange Database – click here

Building the Scene Connect Database

Since January 2012 we have been working hard to collect data, with your help, on well over 700 community projects across the UK. Through telephone, internet and face-to-face interviews we have spoken to a member of each community in our database. This work has resulted in the most complete dataset on community renewables ever created, and we thank you for selflessly taking part in this project. 

This effort has formed the core of our project Scene Connect, which is a project map and knowledge exchange platform with lots of project guidance and advice. What is different about Scene Connect is that is user driven, meaning that our administrators and hundreds of willing community energy practitioners will keep the website updated over time. We have already started gathering similar data for community projects in The Netherlands, Australia, Germany, Canada and South Africa, which will bring interesting perspectives and findings to the project.

What we found while doing this work was that community energy practitioners know how important it is to learn from others, but often beneficial level of inter-communication are difficult to achieve. Scene Connect aims to offer a space for individuals and groups to see what others have done, and to let the world know how you are getting on, all through a simple web platform. With your help we hope that Scene Connect will help to ease the issues of lack of access to information and understanding of best practices, resulting in informed choices for by community groups.

The website has been live for the past few months, undergoing testing, but is now ready for public use. Scene Connect is the first of its kind, allowing registered communities access to data on other projects, including aspects such as the legal status, organisational characteristics, business models, technologies, and council policies, project stage and funding sources. The availability of this information will fill some of the communication and information gaps that currently constrain the community renewables sector. 

We want Scene Connect to be useful to community groups as soon as possible. Therefore we have set up user accounts for all of you who have filled in the survey and indicated that you think this is a useful project. Your login details will be sent to you in a separate email and you will be able to log in to the website here. Once logged in to the website, you will be able to update your own project (as our information may be outdated), and have access to details on hundreds of other community projects. We believe that there is a lot to be learned from one another and hope that Scene Connect provides a platform that leads to less reinvention of the wheel and lots of healthy collaboration.

Resilient Scotland’s main investment programme – Making Enterprise Happen

Making Enterprise Happen will initially offer flexible grant and loan investment packages of up to £500K for sustainable community regeneration. At least half of each investment will be a repayable loan with a negotiable repayment period. We want to help organisations make the most of market opportunities, using their local know how to solve local issues in a sustainable way.

We recognise that our client group may be those that are furthest from the market so we want to create a space to develop innovative finance models that will suit their needs, offering finance and support where others have failed to show faith, or where restrictive practice has been a barrier.

We will nurture resilience by investing in and building the capacity of enterprising community organisations in some of Scotland’s poorest and most disadvantaged communities to develop sustainable enterprises, services and facilities. We will seek out investment opportunities from communities that will make a key difference to peoples lives, help them to reduce their reliance on grant income and help them to become more enterprising and sustainable.

We want to enable enterprising organisations to achieve Resilient’s outcomes, contributing to more sustainable communities across our eligible areas

 Outcomes

• Community organisations improve their social, economic and environmental future and become more sustainable

• Communities are more resilient and empowered to promote their own regeneration

• There is increased awareness and understanding of effective approaches to sustainable community regeneration

To learn more about Resilient Scotland click here

Article from the Black Bitch – Linlithgow’s community magazine

To see e-flier for event click here

Big Vote website (launching Monday 16th September) www.thebigvote.org

Speaking recently at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on the independence debate, broadcaster Andrew Marr expressed concern at what he feels has been the very aggressive tone in which some of it is being conducted.  “Whatever happens next year, everyone is going to have to live together afterwards”.   

These sentiments chime very closely with the thinking behind a new national initiative called The Big Vote  – coordinated by the Scottish Community Alliance – which is going to kick off in Linlithgow on September 17th in the Burgh Halls. The big idea behind The Big Vote is to shift the focus of debate away from the politicians, out of the TV studios and put it into the hands of local people. The event later this month, organised by the Scottish Community Alliance assisted by members of various local organisations, will be the first of many such events around the country.  Although local representatives of both Better Together and YES campaigns have been invited to attend, the event is really an opportunity for the local community to begin to talk about some of the big questions they have about Scotland’s future. 

As well as having representatives of the two main campaigns on hand to input their suggestions for a successful future, the meeting will hear the thoughts of one or two specially invited speakers whose job will be to provoke discussion and new thinking amongst the audience. Invitations have been issued to a range of high profile speakers who will attend the different events across the country including journalists and broadcasters Lesley Riddoch, Iain McWhirter and Joyce MacMillan, Robin McAlpine (Jimmy Reid Foundation) , Andy Wightman (land reform campaigner), Malcolm Fraser (architect) Dave Moxham (STUC) and Peter Kelly (Poverty Alliance). 

A crucial ingredient of the Big Vote events is the idea that everyone’s views should be respected and listened to – this is absolutely not an opportunity to shout people down. As Andrew Marr pointed out, “Nobody deserves to be criticised or denounced for holding a particular view”.  

Linlithgow’s Big Vote event is being held on Tuesday, 17th September at 7.30pm – 9.00pm in Linlithgow Burgh Halls.

This is an important event on the road to the Referendum, the first of a series in Scotland and should not be missed if you’d like to be better informed.

To register your attendance email “book me my place at The Big Vote in Linlithgow” to: big.vote@scottishcommunityalliance.net and confirm numbers in your party.