BOOKINGS UPDATE:
Since our bookings opened up at the end of February, there has been a lot of interest and a big rush to catch the favourite times for visiting Longcraig! As always by this time, many of the popular slots are already filled – there’s only so many Fridays in the summer, for example, and many groups want a Friday evening activity session! Read below for more.
FACILITIES UPDATE:
March continued to see lots of positive progress on the Longcraig refurbishments! This month’s photos show the outer cladding on the extension section, replacing the surfacing of the original toilet walls, new roof light windows and the much improved higher location of our cold water tank so we will get better showers! Read below for more.
The external extension is now in place, with the external cladding fitted in the past few days. All the internal area of our toilets and showers is completed to the point of fitting plumbing and electrical fittings, and cladding the walls. All the other structural work has completed demolishing where needed, and rebuilding where needed, so it also approaching the final stages. There’s still quite a lot to do, but we have reached the stage where every task completed is a step closer to the project being completed. The cold and frosty snap in March was a bit of a delay, and the very large spring tides later in the month got perilously close to the building work site, so the builders became very wary for a few afternoons just wondering how close the tide would actually come to them! Anyway, they’ve all got wellies as well as steel capped boots, so they made it through that period without mishap and are now into the latter stages of the project for us.
What’s left to do?
Once the builders complete their outstanding work, we have several Must Do activities to get the Centre back to normal with the newly refurbished contents.
– Bring back all the equipment and stuff that we had to store elsewhere;
– Return everything internally to it’s rightful place
– Refit the seating, shelves and hanging spaces in the revised changing rooms
– Tidy up and restore the ground space outside and relocate some of our boat storage
– Get everything ready for the forthcoming 2023 season
– Quite a lot of cleaning, dusting and tidying inside the rest of the building!
So, quite a lot to do in a relatively short time!
If any small groups of adults or explorers or older scouts would like to contribute a few hours towards all of this, please get in touch! As April progresses, we will have more and more opportunity to get set about these separate tasks and we would be delighted to accept any offers of help from willing volunteers. We can trade that help in the usual way by offering some boating time later in the year, perhaps over the summer, as a thank you for any work done in this way!
There are options still available:
– Evenings during the holiday period of July and August – you don’t have to be meeting as a section or unit, but you can book up ahead and tell everyone what they have to do to take part. So long as you have a small number of adults (leaders/parents etc ) available to support the session, Longcraig will take care of everything out there on the water.
– Summer time weekend day sessions are also available in the same way – give it some thought!
– And of course, we are always happy to consider bringing activities to you, whether it’s for a summer camp evet, an away day experience, or something quite different. But do give us plenty of notice for this if it is something you are thinking about!
Please contact us at bookings@longcraig.info
An important part of Longcraig’s purpose is to provide training and support for the delivery of watersports to Scouting across the Region. As part of this role we are able to provide training for those who wish to gain Activity Permits in watersports and provide opportunities for leaders to gain valuable experience in working with and leading adventurous activities on the water.
We are an RYA approved training centre and are able to deliver courses based on the training programs of the national governing body for sail sports. British Canoeing is the national governing body for paddle sports, our instructors can deliver courses based on their syllabus and leading to BC qualifications.
We can also offer courses based on a wide range of both Scout and Guide water activity badges, across all sections.
The following courses have been planned for later in the year:
RYA Dinghy Sailing Level 2/3: Weekend 29/30 July – 2 day course.
Open to people who have done a little bit of sailing but wish to become more competent, gain a qualification, or perhaps to lead towards an activity permit. This course will also cover a number of proficiency badges and awards in the scouting programme!
For more details of this and other training opportunities that are possible, please get in touch and discuss your needs, whether for adults or for young people. We can then advise on the best solution to help you meet those requirements.
Please contact us at bookings@longcraig.info
Longcraig is run entirely by a team of volunteers, both for our activities on the water and for tings 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.
We have opportunities for volunteers to help out on the water – either qualified or unqualified (in which case we will help you reach a qualification so you can gain some skills and take a more responsible volunteering role).
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.
And sometimes it’s just people, who work behind the scenes, perhaps covering promotion activities, recruitment, fund raising, or assisting with the book keeping, bookings, or even keeping the equipment in good order. Or it could be helping run the kitchen to provide catering or just simply cups of tea to the other volunteers!
But, best of all – volunteering to help at Longcraig doesn’t involve a regular weekly commitment as you would expect to need to run a section of scouts (squirrels, beavers, cubs, scouts, etc) – we can accommodate volunteering at a time and pace that suits you!
Over the winter months, we’ve held a number of opportunities for potential volunteers to drop in and see what we do. (No commitment at this stage until you like what you see!)
All we ask is that you pre-register with us so we know how many are likely to come along (and we can arrange he necessary facilities/resources)
The next date set up for this is as follows:
Wednesday 19 April at 6.30 – venue Longcraig Scout Centre
These meetings will be held at the time shown above, starting off with soup and sandwiches, followed by some brief presentations 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!
Please simply contact us at getinvolved@longcraig.info with your preferred meeting date and your contact details.
We’ll take care of the rest!
Remember you can help us raise funds for Longcraig to support training and equipment upgrades every time you go shopping (online). It costs you nothing, but every time you shop from one of the 7000+ retailers we will get a donation from the retailer.
To get started, you need to sign up to Easyfundraising on behalf of Longcraig Scout Centre at the link below.
Watch the short video there which explains how it all works!
South East Scotland Scouts
71 Bonaly Road
Edinburgh
EH13 0PB
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