On the 12th December the Granton Baptist Church hosted PEP’s 2017 Christmas Celebrations; the hall was packed with 125 people who came along to enjoy the festive evening.
30 dancers from the ‘Edinburgh Dance Academy’’ arrived and kicked off the evening with 8 routines. As always their dancing was amazing and they wowed the audience with their talent and inspired routines and costumes (including witches and wild animals!).
The Craft group celebrated the run up to Christmas with a one off crafting session.
It gave the group a chance to get some of their Christmas cards made adding that personal touch. Some of the group also created some fabulous Christmas hanging decorations from some real extra-large pine cones! There was glitter everywhere!
A huge well done to the Weekend Resource and gardening volunteers for all their effort in PEP’s front garden.
The group have been working hard since August to redesign and brighten up the entrance to the PEP Centre. They have been getting rid of some of the old plants, moving some to new homes and planting new ones, including spring bulbs, feature trees and bedding plants.
Congratulations to our volunteer Drivers and Passenger Assistants who have been presented with the Crystal Star award at this years ‘Get Up and Go’ magazine launch by Edinburgh Council. The presentation took place at Leith Theatre on Wednesday 4th October and was very well attended by lots of older people from across the whole of Edinburgh.
Whilst fixing up a garden border, George and his team became the saviours of a wee hedgehog. Hedgehogs don’t have good eyesight, so when an old fence was removed the posthole became a trap. The hog had been on his usual wanders through the gardens of West Pilton Street when he inadvertently fell down the hole; a hole that to him had suddenly appeared overnight.
Each year we like to thank our dedicated volunteers by holding an event to say ‘thank you’; this September we booked the Re-union canal barge to go on a two hour trip from Fountainbridge to the Longstone viaduct and back.
The sun shone as we all boarded the barge, the ‘Lochrin Belle’ at 6pm and after the obligatory safety talk from the skipper telling us “if we fall overboard to just stand up as the water is not deep at all” we set off.
On the 14th of September PEP and LOOPS NW hosted an event for the ‘Soil Association Scotland’. This charity created ‘The Food for Life Better Care’ programme to improve the health and wellbeing of older people and bring communities together to reduce loneliness.
The Neighbourhood Group started their Summer Programme on a very wet day with a tour and lunch at Greyfriar’s Kirk.
The next visit involved a small creature handling session and a tour around Deep Sea World in North Queensferry. It was great watching the seals; the group particularly like Morag the stubborn seal who refused to do any of the activities asked of her… she just wanted to be fed.
