What is a Community Action Plan you might ask? 

This is a way of giving local people an opportunity to have a say on how our communities will develop in the future.  We want to know what you would like to see included, how you feel about living here, the good, the bad what is missing and what can be improved.

How Can you help?

There will be a virtual engagement room which you can access by clicking on this link – through www.crtconnect.org.uk Look for the live link on the front page ‘Connect with the Gorebridge Consultation’ and it will take you into the virtual engagement room where there are a few videos from local people that you can watch before answering the questions. Please also share this email and the link to the survey and encourage friends, family, neighbours and anyone else you know living in Gorebridge or Moorfoot Districts who may want to give their views.

Face to Face event

For those people who would rather come and visit the “real” room, a two day event will be held at the Beacon from 10 am – 4 pm on Saturday 19^th and Sunday 20th  February 2022, where you will have the opportunity to discuss and ask any questions with the organisers .  More details will follow, but you can be sure that it will be a happy and memorable event and whisper it, fun!

What difference will it make?

This Community Action Plan will be an important document to take forward and will be used by Midlothian Council Planning and other Departments as a testament to what our community wants to achieve and look like five years from now. It will also help Local organisations applying for grant funding for their projects as they can mention this document in their applications and demonstrate how their project will help the community achieve what they said they wanted. It is a Place Standard approach to community involvement and sets out what is important to those living here.

Please get involved and complete the survey this is your community and your views matter. 

Gorebridge & District Community Council

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Gorebridge Community Cares

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Gorebridge Community Development Trust

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Moorfoot & District Community Council

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• receive and consider the board report, the financial statements and the report of the auditors for year ending March 2020
• appoint auditors and elect directors
• transact any further business as may properly be brought before the meeting

*Copies of accounts will be available online. Please email GCDT office (office@gorebridge.org.uk) if you wish to view this.

It will be lovely to see you at this event, to find out the work we have been doing and our plans for the future. As always, there will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions.

Refreshments will be of your own choosing this year!

Please book your attendance at the AGM by no later than 5th December by registering via Zoom.

The AGM is also the occasion where the Board of Trustees is elected. If you would like to stand as a Director at the AGM and play a part in the work GCDT but would like more information first, please do get in touch.

Lastly, if you are a member and would like to propose a resolution or amendment, please let us know in writing one week before the meeting and we will ensure that it is included on the agenda. Please email Dawn at this email address: office@gorebridge.org.uk

Please CLICK HERE to register on Zoom

Like you, here at the development trust, we are watching the crisis unfold.

For the past 6 weeks, again like you, we have had to adapt, and super quick.

What was okay to do at breakfast time, had, very often, changed by lunchtime.

Someone once said, ‘a plan is just a plan without action’, I can’t remember who, but right now, for many charities, social enterprises and businesses that plan is just a plan.

The action simply cannot happen when the plan is built on a foundation of quicksand or go against government guidelines a day later, when the rules change, or when you do not have control of what you can and cannot do.

For the past few weeks, we have heard about Respond, Recovery and Resilience.

Community Resilience is not new, but for what we are facing right now, the context is.

We have – Gorebridge community, Midlothian community, Scotland community, UK community, World community – never been here before in our lifetime.

No organisation was ready for what we are living through.

Community Resilience is knowing our vulnerabilities and knowing our capabilities and assets.

Community Resilience is preventing and mitigating the stress of the emergency and using all the knowledge and strengths we have to recover.

Gorebridge didn’t have a prepare plan for COVID-19, of course it didn’t.

Gorebridge Resilience was set up quickly, people coming together to prepare and respond at the same time. Usually they are two separate tasks. Completed at a slower pace.

Very quickly, we, Gorebridge, found ways to identify and respond to vulnerable people and offer the support they might need, while working in partnerships across such a wide range of agencies, organisations, groups and charities to ensure that the right resources and readiness was there when someone asked.

What have we (the Trust) learned? So far? Phew!

Well, Gorebridge, we (you and us) can respond to an emergency. Of that, be in no doubt.

There are so many assets in Gorebridge, it is not buildings or capital, it is our people and our willingness and genuine human compassion to respond.

The Trust (staff and board) are also looking at our own activities.

Projects. New projects on hold. New projects that are more possible now than ever before. And we look at the Beacon, just opened a year and already we are (staff, trustees, funders) talking recovery, scenario planning, what if’s, maybe’s and don’t knows.

Never even had time for its 1^st birthday party! We don’t know. We do know that right now it is delivering exactly what it was built for.

We know – like every other charity and business – we are going to have to pivot. Think differently. Respond. Identify need. Use the space for ensuring that those needs are met.

We are going to have to look at ways of caring for the asset that the community wanted and making sure when we get through the other side of this that there is something to come back to that is stronger than before.

What does that look like?

The plan you mean? We don’t know yet, we are talking daily about possibilities. We will ask you to come with us.

All we know is we are looking at 12 – 18 months down the line we are all on just now, with no light at the end of the tunnel, and whatever we do will have to help the Gorebridge community recover. That we will have to respond.

Let me know your thoughts, leave a note in the comments:

• What is community resilience to you? Do you have a meaning?
• What do you think recovery looks like for Gorebridge?

Oh, and if you would like to be part of the Trust, you feel you have assets to offer, please get in touch. Perhaps you would like to be a board member or a volunteer? Drop a line to dawn@gorebridge.org.uk and let me know.

Love, Dawn x

Being open and transparent about our finances is important.

Our annual report includes a breakdown of the money coming in and out going out of GCDT. It outlines what we have been doing to meet our charitable aims and objectives in the financial year for the regeneration of Gorebridge, and outlines the progress we have made to date and what still needs done.

You can read our full financial statements and Trustees Annual Report for the year ending March 31st 2019 at the bottom of this page, there is also a hard copy available for any member of the community to read at the Beacon.

You may have noticed that our accounts were submitted 55 days late this year.  This was due primarily to the auditors scrutinising our VAT liability within the Capital Goods Scheme.  The scheme is complex when you have both taxable and non-taxable activities being held in the building.

Download and read our annual accounts here.

Gorebridge Community Development Trust will be holding it’s Annual General Meeting on Friday 6th December at The Beacon, Hunterfield Road, Gorebridge, EH23 4TT.

We do hope you will be able to join us as we reflect over our activities of the last year.

As well as looking back, we will look forwards, and inform how the work of the Trust will be taken forward over the next 12 – 18 months.

The AGM is also the occasion where the Board of Trustees is elected by you, its members. If you would like to stand as a Trustee at the AGM and play a part in the work GCDT but would like more information first, please do get in touch 01875 816320 or email office@gorebridge.org.uk.

So we can cater for the correct amount of please complete the form below and highlight any additional needs or requirements you may have.We look forward to seeing you there.

This event is free and open to all members of the community. If you would like to be able to vote at the AGM please contact dawn@gorebridge.org.uk for a membership form.

Non members are not eligible to vote.

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4:00 AM on Thursday, 18th May, 2017 – beneficent sleep is restoring the energy of Gorebridge residents, to see them safely through to the final day of this late spring month.

4:10 AM – Fire-fighting units arrive in Gorebridge to rescue what they can of Gorebridge Community Beacon from the raging flames of senseless fire.

Time and location – the site of the conflagration was on the east side of the Beacon and this no doubt played a part in delaying the alert until voracious flames had taken merciless hold of Gorebridge’s proud investment in the future. Deploying astonishing speed and incredible skill our emergency heroes soon extinguished the blaze. Their prompt and focused action will surely prove to have curbed the extent of the damage sustained by the building.

Beacon progress up to 17 May 2017

In various sections finishing was under way; painting of a number of rooms was completed; implementation of the staffing plan, including volunteers, had begun; detailed planning of the cafe could take place; many local groups had confirmed their interest as users/tenants of the Beacon; a revised Business Plan, taking account of current circumstances, was drawn up and was approved by our funders; we are continuing to strive to develop a financial plan that will see the Beacon safely through the initial period to the time when the project becomes self-sufficient and indeed can make important contributions towards further community development; site visits have enabled several community groups to see for themselves the quality of design, wealth of facilities and admirable workmanship that make Gorebridge Community Beacon an outstanding achievement of the Gorebridge community.

I am full of admiration for the huge number of supportive messages we have received from far and wide and I thank you all. My promise to you is that we shall keep you informed, get the Beacon built, and put it to work as expeditiously as possible. I hope to meet many of you at the public meeting described overleaf.

Once again Trust staff and Board have demonstrated their faith and commitment by facing up to further adversity with courage, determination and an encouraging measure of humour. They are stars.

The Way Forward

We have been greatly moved by the many expressions of sympathy that we have received from all quarters. Indeed, the willingness of folk to step up and help us is overwhelming. Of course, we would dearly love to take full advantage of these generous offers. The only problem is that there are so many uncertainties that we cannot begin to see the way ahead.

One thing is certain: This Beacon will be built and will support the people of Gorebridge and beyond.

What needs to happen to allow us to see with real clarity the way ahead? The insurers have to carry out their loss adjusting roles, a thorough survey by our architects, engineers, contractors and all the many sub-contractors regarding the current state of the building, the agreement of our funders to whatever adjustments in timings are required. The additional costs to our staff, architects and other professionals, refreshing the Business Plan and the Financial Plan, appointment of contractor for repairing and completing the building.

A public meeting with take place on Monday 12th June 2017 in Gorebridge Primary School (Activity Hall) from 7pm – 9pm. All welcome.

 Jane, who took over from Paul Renwick last month, is a professional architect with over 25 years project management experience in many diverse sectors from commercial office building design to community facilities.  Past buildings she has been involved in include the BT Headquarters at Edinburgh Park and the Loch Lomond Gateway Centre while working for Bennetts Associates, Edinburgh and, in her own practice, SHS BURRIDGE,  Jane has recently been developing early proposals for a new HUB facility at Glenmore in the Cairngorms National Park.

 Jane will be working with GCDT 3 days a week and the focus of her role will be the set up and start up of commercial operations at Gorebridge Beacon. She has held several senior management roles in the past and has good varied business running experience. She also holds 2 part time teaching positions at Dundee and Edinburgh Universities and has several Voluntary positions including being a STEM Ambassador.

 At present Jane is researching other organisations that have set up similar facilities to the Beacon with a view to learning from their experience. Our trip to the Isle of Luing in Argyll & Bute was part of this exercise. She is also engaging with any group or individual who hopes to use the building – so please get in touch with Jane if you do.

 Paul joined the trust as development manager in March 2013 and has been a stalwart member of the team over the past three years. His wider community role was taken over by events relating to Gorebridge Beacon and he has spent much of his time with the trust helping resolve contractual and managerial matters with construction company T & A Kernoghan and the design team. He took on this role with extraordinary rigour and good cheer and without his crisis management skills the trust would not be where it is  today

 Paul has now moved on to become community development worker at Fauldhouse Community Development Trust where he will hopefully be able to focus more on community work than he was able to with us, and we wish him very well.

However, as I walk in the other direction toward Arniston I pass the half-completed Beacon building which looks a bit of an eyesore covered in scaffolding and tarpaulins. The war memorial standing in front of it looks rather sorry for itself and adds to the sense of dereliction. Like a lot of other people my reaction was “something needs to be done “. But just complaining doesn’t change anything and so I decided to volunteer to help. I knew that the Gorebridge Trust was involved with the Beacon project and called in to their office at number 58 Main Street to talk to the Trust team. I found the volunteers at the Trust open, friendly, and welcoming and they soon found a role for me.

As a retired engineer and business director I enjoy being involved with the practical hands-on side of the Beacon project as well as the challenge of helping to ensure it is completed on time and within budget. When the building is finished, it will be a magnificent asset for the people of Gorebridge and will have something for everyone.

I am finding volunteering work very rewarding and am enjoying meeting other people and working within a team. Various other groups within the village are also working hard to improve the environment and opportunities for the people of Gorebridge and I’m glad to play my part. The decline of mining and other traditional industries has meant that the community has suffered economic hardship and a lack of opportunity for young people. However, Gorebridge is in a state of transition. The railway and significant new house building means that there will be an influx of people coming in to the village. The increase in activity is exciting and it is an opportunity for us all to contribute towards making Gorebridge a welcoming place to which we are all proud to belong. We need to embrace the changes that are taking place but I feel we also need to recognise our past. I worked in coalmining for 26 years and for many in Gorebridge like me mining is part of our personal history and it is part of the heritage of this community. Gorebridge is one of the few mining villages in Scotland where there is no physical symbol marking our mining heritage. I think we need to address this.

So, in my retirement I find I have plenty to do. I’d like to help to complete the Beacon, work on increasing community engagement, and start a mining heritage project. To anyone else who is thinking of volunteering, come forward. I can recommend it!

It would be difficult to go anywhere in Gorebridge without seeing evidence of the work of the Trust.
Of course, the highest profile belongs to the Beacon in Hunterfield Road that, when completed in late spring next year, will finally provide the flexible, multi-purpose facility recognised by Midlothian Council as badly needed, capable of offering benefit to each and every resident of Gorebridge and district.[su_spacer]
On that day Gorebridge folk will begin to discover for themselves the myriad ways in which the Beacon opens up possibilities for improving and enriching community life.

Everyone welcome – not just members – to find what the trust is up to and has achieved this past year.