New Building – Facilities Upgrade
We’ve been delighted to be able to offer the newly upgraded facilities at Longcraig to our users, since the middle of June. Whilst we have had some restrictions, to do with the flows of water from showers to drains, the vast majority of the work has been completed and details sorted out to our satisfaction.
The general feedback from everyone is a very positive ‘ big improvement’ which is great to hear and we now move forwards to catch up lost time and to prepare our plans for next year where we hope to operate for a full season without any planned disruptions.
We will be delighted to welcome any scouts or leaders to come see for yourselves over the coming weeks or months, just get in touch to check when the Centre will be open and make any necessary arrangements.
An Apology
To all those Groups who made bookings with us in good faith for the early part of the year (May, and early parts of June) we do apologise once again for unfortunately having to cancel, postpone, or re-arrange your booking. It’s not something we do lightly, but obviously we couldn’t have access to the centre when it was still a building site, and the timescales were always going to be quite tight to have all the necessary work carried out if we were to avoid disruptions to those first few weeks. Many groups did manage to get alternative dates booked up, but we are aware that some didn’t.
So, if your Group was one of the unfortunate ones please do get in touch with us before the end of this year, so we can plan between us for a firm date for next year, ahead of our online booking system opening up. We’ll do our best to accommodate you and try to make up for any disappointment this year. The best way to get in touch is through bookings@longcraig.com and we’ll take it from there.
And a Thanks:
We’d like to thank all the Groups who were able to get to their chosen water activity, for their patience while we endeavoured to manage their bookings around the builder’s extended work timescale.
We’d also like to thank others whose bookings were unfortunately messed up by those same building works. We recognise your patience and we hope we can do better next year and finally satisfy your expectations to get time on the water for your chosen activity.
Our achievements this year
Despite our shortened season this year, we’ve done quite a lot both on and off the water.
These include:
- A busy and blustery dinghy sailing course in July;
- Taking a kayaking event at Loch Lomond to support two Group‘s summer camps;
- Several good uses of our ‘three bridges tour’ when it’s not been enough breeze to enable us to sail boats as we would like;
- Supported a number of individuals and Groups by lending equipment for them to carry out their own water activities elsewhere;
- Lots or routine activity sessions for cubs, scouts, explorers, guides and for a number of scout groups who were camping in or near Edinburgh this summer.
We’ve also supported a couple of events within Dalmeny Estate (on whose ground our Centre lies) with tables and chairs for special events they’ve been running;
We’ve supported a number of other community events in and around South Queensferry, even during the times the builders were on our site.
Since the building work was completed, we have also been able to push on with completing our security fencing around the boat park. This involved a very large gatepost to hang the heavy gate on, as well as completing the final sections of fencing which we held back last year to keep space available for the builders.
Still to come:
The 2023 season on the water is fast coming to an end, and most of the remaining time left is already booked up.
But we do still have a few things to offer:
- We’re running a Powerboat Course in November – this can be at level 1 or Level 2, and can be for adults or for older scouts and Explorers.
- We recently acquired a second, larger, and better Barbeque set so we are well placed now to offer a BBQ meeting for your Group, section, or leader teams.
- We can also support meetings such as AGM’s, planning meetings, or training sessions should you be seeking a venue and looking for somewhere slightly different – now with great showers, toilets and changing facilities!
Please register your interest at bookings@longcraig.com
Volunteering?
A very big Thank You to a number of people who have come forward over the past weeks and months, and we appreciate your help and support since we were able to get back together at the Centre.
But we can still make great use of more volunteers.
Longcraig is run entirely by a team of volunteers, both for our activities on the water and for things onshore and around and throughout the Centre. To help us ensure we can meet the growing demands from young people and our growing scouting movement, we need to keep increasing our band of volunteers to enable us to keep pace.
As well as volunteers to help-out on the water, we have opportunities for land-based volunteers who help operate the Centre. Sometimes these require admin skills, but sometimes we need folks who can run a range of land-based activities which supplement our programme.
We’re particularly looking to establish a small team who could provide the support to the Centre to keep it operating cleanly and safely. This team could be responsible for cleaning and sanitising the facilities and the equipment (although we all do this every time there is an activity booking, it ‘s not always possible to do as much or as thoroughly as we would like); for preparing equipment and facilities for upcoming events and bookings; for taking care of the grounds around the Centre to make sure they are spick and span.
Volunteering to help at Longcraig doesn’t involve a regular weekly commitment as you would expect you would need to run a section of scouts (squirrels, beavers, cubs, scouts, etc) – we can accommodate volunteering at a time and pace that suits you!
We are holding open sessions in the coming months to meet potential volunteers and explain what we do. We’d be delighted if you could pop along to one of these sessions, All we ask is that you pre-register with us so we know how many are likely to come along (and we can arrange the necessary facilities/resources)
The next dates set up for this are as follows:
Thursday evening 21st September – Longcraig 7pm
Saturday 7th October – Longcraig 1.30pm
Sunday 12th November – Longcraig 2pm
These meetings will be held at the time shown above, starting off with tea and cake, followed by a brief presentation and an opportunity to discuss what we do and how we do it. And, more importantly, how you might fit in to that too! And we will have people on hand to answer any questions that you may have too! And, a tour of the new upgraded facilities!!
Please simply contact us at getinvolved@longcraig.info with your preferred meeting date and your contact details.
We’ll take care of the rest!
If you can’t make the set aside date above, please still get in touch!
We can meet up with groups from one person up to a good number, at other times as well as the set aside dates, so just let us know what suits and we will try to accommodate.
Do you have any parents in your Group who might be interested in this? Please do let them know!!