Dalai Lama at the Usher Hall

I was lucky enough to get along to the Usher Hall yesterday, for the Dalai Lama visit and Edinburgh Lecture ... very inspiring event :-)

Back in 1988, my better-half and I spent several weeks in Tibet and I've always had a keen interest in the country ever since ... visiting the Potala Palace, and the impact it had on your senses, seems as clear to me today as it was all those 24-year ago.

Its nothing but a huge tragedy, and sadness, to think that the Dalai Lama himself hasn't been there for over 53-years :-((

Tynecastle High School Centenary Summer Fair

It's Juniors' school - Tynecastle High School - Centenary Summer Fair tomorrow; 10-2pm, Saturday 23rd June.

All the details can be found at: http://www.tynecastle.edin.sch.uk/

... and I'll re-produce the main points below:



Tynecastle High School Centenary Summer Fair
Saturday 23 June from 10am to 2pm

Activities for all the family
- SRU Inflatables
- Beat the Goalie
- Sporting Celebrities (e.g. The Chunk)
- Face Painting
- Free Dance Taster Sessions
- Free MArtial Arts Taster Sessions
(to name but a few)

Raffle
e.g. 1 x "Glenmorangie Lasanta"
£50 M&S vouchers

Silent Auction
e.g. 2 nights B&B stay in Caledonia, Level (worth over £250)
Year's membership at Curves

Stalls
Jewellery, NSPA, Handmade cards
Sweeties, Aloe Vera, Perfume
Candles, Books

Beauty Treatments
Nail bar, pedicures, children's hairdressing

Tea, Coffee & Home Baking

FREE ENTRY!

---

I'll be there :-)

Busy day ahead

Very busy day ahead:

• get junior off to school
• make sure I'm in Harrison Park (on Bike preferably) for 8am latest
• take part in Breakfast Bike Ride to City Chambers
• make sure I'm in City Chambers quadrangle for 8.45am latest
• introduce Councillor Lesley Hinds, as new Convenor of Transport, to massed-cyclists
• listen intently to Lesley's speech ;-)
• 9am (or just after!) team-meeting
• 10am, set of to the Welcoming Project (Tollcross) for informal visit
• 11.30am, on from Tollcross to Chamber of Commerce lunchtime event in City Centre
• around 1.30pm get back to City Chambers promptly!
• 2pm, 3pm and 4pm - three, back-to-back meetings in the office
• 6pm, Local Surgery at Fountainbridge Library
• 6.45pm, local Ward planning-related site-visit

No rest for the wicked :-(

Sunshine on Glasgow

Well, after that truly wet weekend, needless to say the sun shone all day yesterday and the Glasgow visit was bathed in glorious light: metaphorically-speaking, of course ...

... the non-metaphorical report on the trip can be found here!

Local surgery this evening - only a few more weeks of the school-based evenings; but Wednesday night continues all summer, except for a brief 2-week break in just over a months time ;-)

Mid-summer BBQ and allotment update

Managed to get along to Edinburgh North & Leith's mid-summer BBQ this afternoon ...

... needless to say, the sunshine was not on Leith at the time, but it didn't matter as everyone was in great spirits - that part of the town having recently returned an outrageous number of Edinburgh Labour Councillors to the City Chambers ;-)

And, despite the weather, travelled onwards to the allotment for a brief visit to check on everything ... and pleased to report, all looking pretty well (as you can see): potatoes really coming on, onions, leeks, brussels et.al. all progressing (at last!) and the pond doing famously!

Over to Glasgow tomorrow (Monday) - surely it can't be any wetter there ;-)

Hutchison & Tollcross Community Councils this week

Managed to get along to 2 Community Council Meetings this week: Hutchison on Monday night and Tollcross last night (Wednesday) ...

... really going to try and keep those local links going - good to keep my feet on the ground ;-)

Sadly, can't make next Tuesday's Merchiston Community Council meeting as it clashes with the main 'in-public' meeting of the Edinburgh South West Neighbourhood Partnership. Need to go to that - first one post-election, and the Chair for 2012/13 will be elected!

P.S. & should mention that I managed to make Craiglockhart Community Council on 29th May ... the joys of multi-members Wards know no bounds :-)

National Community Planning Group

Attended COSLA/Scottish Government event this afternoon, with my Council Leader's hat on ...

... main focus was on the next stages (and developments) in the Community Planning agenda; listened carefully all afternoon, with an 'Edinburgh Partnership' meeting coming up (when I'll be in the Chair for the first time!) on the 21st June.

New, National Community Planning Group was formally announced by the Minister/s present - News Release can be seen here - all good stuff, and much of the agenda being debated throughout the afternoon is already being actively pursued within many Council areas, in close collaboration with local Partners.

Crunch will come in trying to make this agenda happen in (geographical) areas that don't want to progress it ... frankly, I'm less certain than Minister/s present today that it can all be driven (successfully) on a purely good-will basis.

Hope I'm wrong, and they're right.

Breakfast Bike Ride + Bike Breakfast

Just a short plug for the Spokes annual Bike Breakfast, which is coming up next Wednesday - details here ...

... with, this year, various satellite 'Breakfast Rides' happening from different Wards in the city, details for Ward 9 can be found here.

Wonder if any other Ward can get all their Councillors to cycle/attend the event; not that it's a competition, of course ;-)

Looking forward to the morning.

Royal Edinburgh Community Garden drop-in

Couple of hours rest and then on to the Royal Edinburgh Community Garden for 2pm:

... they were having a drop-in/work day; and my better-half is also doing some 'forest school' work there over the summer, so the whole family came along and we did a bit of a recce of the site first - including a walk through their very old orchard:

Then it was down to some good-old weeding, of the very impressive strawberry beds:

Made it back home to the flat for 4pm, armed with a large pile of 'Community Garden' spinach! Its cooking now and I'm hoping it'll help re-energise me for the start of another busy-week tomorrow :-)

Friends Of Craiglockhart Woods clean-up event

Collected lots of rubbish at the local Friends Of Craiglockhart Woods clean-up event this morning:

... met a few suspect characters as well ;-)

Bit of a rest now before this afternoon's community garden visit!

Gorgie Dalry Gala Day

Next stop was the Gorgie Dalry Gala Day - here's the new Lord Provost (and Local Ward Councillor, of course) giving the opening address!

 

 

And then on to help 'staff' the local Labour Branch Stall, which did a roaring-trade in second-hand books and DVD's ...

 

 

 ... still plenty left for the rest of this summer's events, mind you :-(

Craiglockhart Primary School Summer Fair

Apologies for the slight lack of posting recently - no excuse, other than being somewhat busy in the last few weeks!

Anyhow, daily timetable slightly settled-down now and hoping to get back into a regular pattern of blogging - at least at weekends.

And, don't forget I'm also on Facebook and Twitter (links in the right-hand side-bar) where you can also follow what I'm up to ;-)

So --- first stop this morning was the local 'Craiglockhart Primary School Summer Fair' - seemed very well attended, despite the odd rainspot ... it wouldn't be a Summer Fair without them :-)

Here I am, making sure I keep well away from the School Fair bouncy-castle!

A very proud day ...

A very proud day for Edinburgh Labour yesterday ...

... after 5-gruelling years in Opposition, my good friend and colleague Donald Wilson was formally appointed as Lord Provost of Edinburgh; and I was formally appointed as Leader of the City of Edinburgh Council :-)

Whilst we enjoyed every minute of yesterday, we all know the really hard work starts now; and every one of the 20 Edinburgh Labour Councillors will work tirelessly over the coming 5-years towards delivering on the promises we made to the people of the Capital.

- and huge thanks again for all the messages of support and encouragement over the last 2-weeks ... we've been quite overwhelmed by them!

Labour appointments confirmed

The Labour Group has this evening confirmed its list of appointments to the joint Labour/SNP Coalition Administration ... I'll simply list them below:

Leader – Andrew Burns

Provost – Donald Wilson

Convener of Education – Paul Godzik

Convener of Health, Social Care & Housing – Ricky Henderson

Convener of Transport & Environment – Lesley Hinds

Convener of Planning – Ian Perry

Convener of Licensing Board – Eric Milligan

Convener of Audit – Maureen Child

Vice-Convener of Regulatory (& Baillie) – Angela Blacklock

Vice-Convener of Culture & Leisure – Norma Austin Hart

Vice-Convener of Economic Development – Gordon Munro

Vice-Convener of Health, Social Care & Housing – Cammy Day

Vice-Convener of Finance – Bill Cook

Provost and Leader are formally confirmed at this Thursday's Full Council Meeting; the rest of the appointments at next week's Council Meeting on the 24th.

I'm looking forward to working with all Conveners/Vice-Conveners; both those listed above and all those from the SNP Group.

A New Contract with the Capital

Apologies for the uncharacteristic 'blogging-silence' since the local elections last Thursday ... hope you can understand that I've been ever-so-slightly busy throughout the intervening days ;-)

But, as I'm sure all my regular readers know, we had a fantastic result returning the largest number of Councillors (for one Group) ever elected under STV in Edinburgh: twenty!

I'll just say that again, twenty :-))

Following the results on Friday afternoon, I made truly extensive efforts - as we promised we would in our manifesto - to form an administration from the best available talents; and we spoke to all 4 other Political Groups at great length over the weekend.


But by Monday evening, it was clear that it wouldn't be possible to create a coalition of all the talents - so Edinburgh Labour formed a coalition with the local SNP and signed a 'Heads of Terms' that evening.

And this afternoon, Edinburgh Labour and the local SNP have formally signed "A New Contract with the Capital".

The most important word in the whole document is the with in the title --- we intend to be both open and transparent; to listen to the residents of Edinburgh; and then to decide and deliver.

Our central priority will be to build a more co-operative and prosperous Edinburgh that benefits every individual and community.

The agreement includes more than 50 pledges that the administration will be judged on, with a review going to Council each year detailing what progress has been made on meeting those aims.
The agreement sets out six key priorities:

• ensuring every child in Edinburgh has the best start in life
• reducing poverty, inequality and deprivation
• providing for Edinburgh 's prosperity
• strengthening and supporting our communities and keeping them safe
• ensuring Edinburgh, and its residents, are well cared-for; and
• maintaining and improving the quality of life in Edinburgh.

This "new contract with the capital" does mark a fresh start ...

... and from today, right through to the first-Thursday in May 2017, we'll be working tirelessly to repay the trust that was put in us by the electorate last week --- and to deliver on the 50 pledges in this document.

Personally, I can't wait to get started.

Vote BURNS 1

Polling Day is here. Just a final reminder ;-)

Eve-of-Poll is here

Eve-of-Poll is here.

Think I'll lay off the politics on the blog today ... been plenty of that recently!

... and just take the opportunity, at the end of this 5-year Council Term, to say a HUGE THANKS to our Group Support Staff and Group Business Manager at the Council; they are the people who really do the hard-work on a day-in, day-out basis. Thanks to you all :-)

And best-of-luck to the Elections Team at the Council for a successful 'democratic event' tomorrow! ... I know just how stressful a time this is for them all, but it never prevents them being unfailingly polite and helpful.

To everyone else - no matter how you vote tomorrow, PLEASE VOTE.

May Day

May Day today - and only 2-days until the Local Government Polls open.

I clearly hope residents cast their vote according to local issues and really do consider whether the last 5-years of SNP/Lib-Dem control in Edinburgh have been a success, and if they want more of the same? Or, is it time for a change?

I know the answer I'd prefer ;-)

... and I hope Edinburgh Labour have demonstrated over recent years that we have tried to listen carefully to the views of local residents; especially in the way we've gone about constructing our local manifesto, a short summary of which is up on the main Edinburgh Labour website this morning.

For me - it really is time for a fresh start, with a co-operative council listening to local people and working together with local communities. A council where fairness, accountability and responsibility really matter. That's the core message in our offer to Edinburgh ... it will run through everything we do in the next 5-years.

But, however you vote (and I hope you do vote!), do please take some time to read the various Parties' manifesto proposals before Thursday.