East Lothian

Dunbar Community Kitchen Ltd is progressing plans to open a training kitchen and cafe in the new Bleachingfield Centre.

The steering group would really appreciate your input to this brief survey to assess the demand for different services: Dunbar Community Kitchen Survey

If you think you might use this cafe, book catering for an event, have an interest in training or employment opportunities, in supplying produce or whatever, please do complete the survey. Many thanks.

Sustaining Dunbar’s aim is to bring people together to build a future for our locality which is not reliant on fossil fuels. Our work is focussed on local projects which further this aim, from helping people to save money on their fuel bills, to creating opportunities for local employment and leisure activities which reduce the need to travel further afield.

Sustaining Dunbar is a Development Trust and a Charity:

• As a Development Trust Sustaining Dunbar works to support local projects to help them get up and running.
• As a charity, Sustaining Dunbar is regulated by Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR).

Sustaining Dunbar has a membership open to anyone living in the Dunbar and East Linton Ward and it is free. However, households and local groups do not need to be members in order to get our practical support.

Sustaining Dunbar has various active projects on the go locally some of which have funding from the Scottish Government and some of which are not funded e.g. our trading subsidiaries.

Funded Projects: Based upon our previous work we have recently been awarded three years funding from the Scottish Government to pay for part-time members of staff to deliver one main project called - The Household Canny Challenge which gives practical support to households and schools throughout the Dunbar and East Linton Ward to reduce their use of fossil fuels. We have 4 practical support teams: Energy Advice Team, Connecting Dunbar Team (local sustainable transport), Incredibly Edible Dunbar and District Team (local food growing) and Worms Work (food waste composting) all working with households and schools to reduce carbon emissions, and to measure and record how we have done this, so that what we learn can be shared around the country.

We are grateful to the large number of volunteers (not least our hard-working board members) who help us keep the show on the road.

Dunbar Shore and Harbour Neighbourhood Group are working together with the owners of the land along the Church Street Vennel and the local community to clear up the rubbish, overgrown tress and plants and to make use of this space as a garden.

The owners have been very positive about the idea of turning this site over to a Community Garden and are currently looking at the cost of repairing the wall and replacing the missing gate.

We are now looking for people who may be interested in using and caring for the garden once it is cleared.

Please let us know if you, or anyone you know are interested by calling Sue on 01368 866 920 or by email sue@sustainingdunbar.org.

If you are interested in knowing more about the Dunbar Shore and Harbour Neighbourhood Group please have a look at the website: http://ourlocality.org/dunbarshoreandharbour

Thank you for your interest.

Spring is here and what better time to take a walk in the woods? Sustaining Dunbar and Dunbar Community Woodland Group have produced this free map of Lochend Woods to help you explore.

Available from John Muir Birthplace, Dunbar Town House, and Sustaining Dunbar offices. Or download and print your own.

“For every 10 minute increase in your walk to work there is a 12% reduction in your likelihood of getting high blood pressure.”

Dr Mike Evans says his message — to complete a half-hour of exercise every day — is like a magic pill to cure aches and pains.

“I’ve got a pill that’s going to help with your arthritis, help with your depression, help with your anxiety, help with your obesity, help prevent cancer,” he said. Watch this video to find out more.

If you spend time in Edinburgh or another city, this great urban walking route planner: walkit.com can help you find the best ways to get about on foot. Usefully, it also tells you how long it will take you to walk there.

You probably don’t know that May is National Walking Month, but why not be part of it, and take some extra time this month to enjoy the spring-time outdoors? Living Streets has launched its Great British Walking Challenge, where you can record how many miles you’ve walked/muffins you’ve earned.

We are looking to find a Local Food Project Worker to support households, schools and groups in the Dunbar District. The deadline for submitting a letter of interest and CV regarding this contract is by 5pm Friday 11 May to the attention of Sustaining Dunbar Local Food Project, 16 West Port, Dunbar EH42 1BU.  For more information please call 01368 866 920 or email sue@sustainingdunbar.org

Sustaining Dunbar has secured funding to employ a consultant to deliver support to local food growing projects in conjunction with our ‘Household Canny Challenge’.

You will support participating households and schools to increase local food growing. You will also support Incredible Edible Dunbar in developing community gardens and orchards and other projects. You will work closely with our Compost Support Worker to encourage food waste reduction and increase nutrient recycling through worm composting.

 You will be specifically responsible for:

• Aligning your community engagement strategies with the Household Canny Challenge Project.
• Working with local primary schools to develop new growing projects.
• Supporting our team’s work with local primary schools to inspire and enable families to reduce food waste and grow more food.
• Working with participating households and groups to support new food growing in gardens and public spaces and to establish skills sharing and learning circles.
• Working with and supporting ‘Incredible Edible Dunbar’ to develop the Belhaven Hospital garden project, community orchards, ‘edible routes to schools’, local food labelling scheme and practical food skills courses.
• Working with the Project Coordinator to liaise with East Lothian Council and support their development of a Local Food Policy, in particular to:
• Develop local food procurement for school kitchens
• Reduce food waste in schools
• Enable use of public space for food growing
• Monitoring and evaluation of Household Canny Challenge Project and carbon savings.

You will also be expected to attend and participate in whole staff-team meetings/activities as required, to promote the wider aims of Sustaining Dunbar, to contribute to newsletters and project websites and to carry out other reasonable duties as required.

We are initially able to offer up to 46 days of consultant’s time to be spread over one year at £125 per day.

Consultants will be self-employed and able to start as soon as possible.

Person Specification:

Skills:

• Interpersonal skills – the ability to engage productively with groups and individual members of the public
• The ability to translate our targets into achievable community goals
• The ability to break our goals into smaller community action points
• Skill sharing – the ability to effectively share the practical skills and experiences you have gained
• Communication – the ability to communicate simple and effectively both verbally and in writing

Experience

• Experience of training and skill sharing in a paid or voluntary capacity for at least 2 years
• You will have worked in a food growing environment for at least 2 years
• Experience of project development from idea through to delivery
• Experience of working with schools

Qualifications

No particular qualifications are required but a horticultural qualification would be helpful

Please submit a letter of interest regarding this job along with your CV by 5pm Friday 11 May to Sustaining Dunbar 16 West Port, Dunbar EH421BU. For more information please call 01368 866 920 or email sue@sustainingdunbar.org

Just a reminder that our Energy Audit service is ongoing, offering free, practical advice on how to save energy around the home and reduce bills.

For more information pop into the BeGreen shop on the West Port or contact us on 01368 863 720.

Please take some time to read our report of the work we have been doing for the Scottish Climate Challenge Fund from April 2011 to March 2012.

First Steps to Resilience

This month on Wednesday 25th April in Royal Mackintosh, Dunbar,  from 8-10pm. A chance to share information and ideas and find out more about Sustaining Dunbar, our current projects and future plans. All welcome!

More about Green Drinks.

The Scotrail ‘Kids Go Free’ offer is now available from the Dunbar ticket office. This means that up to 2 children can travel free on off-peak trains with an adult buying a RETURN ticket to anywhere in Scotland. (For Dunbar, this means you can use it any time at the weekends, and during the week can go into Edinburgh on the 09:56 and return on or before the 1633 or after 18:30)

Well used public transport networks based on traditional diesel buses will use less fuel per passenger than a private vehicle. This is obvious. But did you know that they are generally safer? And use less road space? But what if the network is not so well used, they all come at once or the services patchy? Sound familiar?

With the recent announcement that Firstbus is to withdraw from and reduce services in East Lothian comes an opportunity to reconstruct a service more focused on the needs of the communities they serve. In the weeks and months ahead Rural East Lothian Bus Users (aka Relbus) will be campaigning for Better Rural Buses. Join the campaign for Better Rural Buses, it is free.

When speaking to local politicians remind them that we need better and more reliable services, not just the same old same old. We want quieter and greener buses, cleaner ones and perhaps smaller ones, better suited to small rural towns and villages. Even if you don’t use the bus or use it irregularly, lend us your support and Like Better Rural Buses on Facebook.

 A new film from Transition Network, ‘In-Transition 2.0′ “is an inspirational immersion in the Transition movement, gathering stories from around the world of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. You’ll hear about communities printing their own money, growing food everywhere, localising their economies and setting up community power stations. It’s an idea that has gone viral, a social experiment that is about responding to uncertain times with solutions and optimism. In a world that is awash with gloom, here is a story of hope, ingenuity and the power of growing vegetables in unexpected places.”

The film will be shown following our AGM which will be at 8pm on Friday 13th April in Our Lady of the Waves Church Hall, Dunbar.

From 7pm there will be a ‘potluck’ meal for those that would like to bring some food and drink to share. All welcome!

Kilvert Croft will chair a discussion on

The Conservation Question?

on Tuesday 24th April in the Gibb Room at Dunbar Library at 7.30pm.

Everyone is welcome to this free event but you need to book your space by emailing dunbar.library@eastlothian.gov.uk

As an informal opportunity to share information and ideas and find out more about Sustaining Dunbar, our current projects and future plans, we have a regular, once a month ‘green drinks’ type meeting in a local hostelry. This is your chance to meet like minded folk and generally put the world to rights over a pint or two.

Everyone, whether already actively involved or just vaguely interested, is welcome to come along on the last Wednesday of the month.

This month, Wednesday March 28th,  we will be upstairs in the Royal Mackintosh from 8pm’ish. Hope to see you there!

Sustaining Dunbar is delighted to be one of the 43 community projects to have been awarded funding from the Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund announced today, 13th March.  The Climate Challenge Fund was established by the Scottish Government to help achieve the 42% reduction in carbon emissions required by 2020 under the Scottish Climate Change Act. This latest contract is a very positive endorsement by the Scottish Government of our work to date.

Building on work started in the past year, this award contracts Sustaining Dunbar to deliver a range of projects over the next three years to support households to reduce their carbon footprint and energy bills. These projects will include support for local food growing and composting, the continuation of the home energy audit service run in conjunction with BeGreen and support for projects that make it easier and safer to walk and cycle.

We will also continue to work closely with groups such as Rural East Lothian Bus Users to make it easier to use public transport and with East Lothian Council to create opportunities for practical skills training and to support the development of new community enterprises and local employment. We believe that by working together with East Lothian Council we can help deliver their Community Planning and Single Outcome Agreement objectives at the same time as furthering our own aim of helping to build a thriving local economy which is less dependent on fossil fuels. 

Free one-to-one or group lessons on how to ride a bike.

There’s no problem with being a novice, we can show you how to get your balance and learn to control your bike – beginners’ sessions will be in a traffic free space.

‘Improvers’ can get out on the roads to learn how to use gears efficiently, and cycle safely in traffic. We focus on what you want to learn.

Email mark@sustainingdunbar.org or phone 866920 to book your first lesson or to find out more. You can also find course information here.

Sustaining Dunbar has won a tendering process to work in partnership with East Lothian Council to develop a new community enterprise to take on the running of the cafe and training kitchen which forms part of the new Dunbar Community Centre at Bleachingfield. This enterprise will provide:

• cafe facilities for those using and working in the centre with an emphasis on good quality, local, seasonal produce
• training and employment opportunities for school leavers, long term unemployed and people with extra support needs
• a processing facility for locally grown produce to sell on to local retail outlets and food businesses
• help with fundraising events, training and development for groupsbased at the Centre and others, including running:
• Food Hygiene certificate courses
• Skill sharing workshops
• ‘Cook-ins’ bringing together groups of individuals to cook jams, preserves and other seasonal tasks communally
• Cookery classes
• Group cooking and meal sharing, including for elderly and single people
• Evening meal events in conjunction with other activities taking place in the Centre

It will also secure use of the kitchen for community use, making this certificated kitchen available to groups and individuals to use to produce food (for example shared meals, preserves, food for resale at fetes and farmers market type events).

Any surplus profits from this venture will be reinvested to support the development of other local food projects.

It is envisaged that a number of permanent jobs will be created with a rolling programme of trainees who will be provided with accredited training and support to move into permanent employment. We also hope to create volunteering opportunities that will provide experience and training.

A steering group to manage this new enterprise is currently being set up. We are keen to involve stakeholders, including groups who will be using the new Centre, and anyone else with an interest in local food and practical skills training. Please get in touch if you would like to be involved.

Next course: Friday 16 March. Email morag@sustainingdunbar.org for details or to book your place.

Tutors from Sustaining Dunbar will teach you how to keep your bike on the road. You can learn the basics such as the best seat/handlebar height for comfortable riding, how to deal with annoying squeaks, mend a puncture and adjust brakes and gears. As with the cycle training, the lessons will be adapted to suit your needs. Just let us know.

More information here.