Porty Podcast

Send us Fan Mail From the 1st of June 2022 the Scottish government is banning single use plastic cutlery, plates, straws, stirrers, balloon sticks as well as polystyrene cups and food containers. If you need a plastic straw to eat or drink independently or for medical purposes then you’ll need to go the chemist to get one. But this is about more than plastics, we need to radically rethinking our t...

Send us Fan Mail This week I brought together Alan Hepburn, who is trustee of a rewilding charity called ‘Scotland the Big Picture’ and writes and tweets about rewilding as @Rewild Scotland and High School student Harris Grothey who been doing some research into attitudes towards rewilding. I wanted to have a conversation about what the opportunities are for rewilding in Portobello.  Here’s a good...

Send us Fan Mail Over the last couple of weekends if you’ve been wandering along Portobello High Street you may have been stopped and asked for your input into the conversations happening as part of Heart Talk Porty. Mia McGregor and Sam Green brought Portobello ‘ The Cube’  a giant box accompanied by graffiti pens which tours all over the place and gives the public an opportunity to write or draw...

Send us Fan Mail Portobello has a fantastic selection of unique and special charity shops. We spoke with staff and volunteers of The Cancer Research shop, the St Columbus Hospice,  Live. Care. Give, the Salvation Army and the Marie Curie Shop to find out how they are all different and have their own quirks. @livecaregive https://www.facebook.com/livecaregive/ https://www.mariecurie.org.uk/local/ch...

Send us Fan Mail Heart Talk are trying to find a way for the People of Portobello to have  good quality conversations as a community. I spoke to three of the organising group Eva Schonveld, Jennifer Elliot and Justin Kendrick about what we can expect from the Heart Talk conversations this year.  This episode also features Lynn Houmdi talking about the conversation she’s hosting about the future of...

Send us Fan Mail The Rock Trust are urgently looking for volunteers to support their Nightstop Service which helps young people facing homelessness.  I spoke with Moreen Watson who is the Nightstop Development Officer in this area to find out more about what that would involve. If you'd be interested in finding out more please contact Moreen: moreen.watson@rocktrust.org Or look up www.rocktru...

Send us Fan Mail Carmen Chalmers, creator of Support the Makers this year has seen a massive surge in makers selling what they have created at their kitchen table. Carmen is a passionate champion for independent makers. She began with the local Christmas maker’s markets in Bellfield, which will still go on this year, but the enterprise has snowballed into an Instagram with thousands of followers a...

Send us Fan Mail Oli Furness co-director of Oi Musica chats to Hazel from her office in Tribe Porty about the Let it Grow Project. After releasing the Enough is Enough video last year to mark when COP26 was originally planned they received so much interest that they hope to create a tidal wave of music contributions on the internet over the coming weeks. Listen to find out how you can join in and...

Send us Fan Mail Three members of the Stitches for Survival organising group, Cathy Holman, Jane Lewis and Anne-Marte Bergseng talk about their Craftivism project coming together in the run up to COP 26.  The idea (conceived in Jane's garden during lockdown in Portobello) is to create a mile and a half long scarf, made out of stitched and knitted panels. “if we want our world to be a more bea...

Send us Fan Mail This is an episode for coffee lovers and anyone interested in what it means for small business startups and entrepreneurs to have their community behind them. I went to Bellfield to meet Regan Black, who is the brains behind the beans of Kawa coffee. Regan was keen to show me the coffee roaster that he has recently had imported from Italy, and has set up in the kitchen of the comm...

Send us Fan Mail Portobello beach is a mile long public park and the only public park in Edinburgh in which you are allowed to have a fire. But local firestarter Paul Lambie has been trying to reimagine the way that we do that and has set up a business with his friend Lewis Gourlay creating fire boxes. It’s everything that you need to have a fire on the beach: matches, firestarter, kindling, logs,...

Send us Fan Mail If someone asks you to take them on a walk around your neighbourhood, where would you go? This is what May East is asking from participants in her research in Portobello. I volunteered to get involved and had a very enjoyable walk and talk with May down Fishwives Causeway, then we sat on a bench at the Prom so I could find out a bit more about her study into how cities might be di...

Send us Fan Mail In a world where there’s an assumption that endeavours will want to expand and grow, I find it comforting to talk to one of the Porty book festival organisers Joanne Baird about a festival, that despite it’s popularity is proud to be a local festival for the Portobello community. In this episode you’ll also hear from three of the authors featured at this years festival Emma Christ...

Send us Fan Mail A new women-only bootcamp has started in Rosefield Park run by Fit and Happy. In this episode the founder and Head Coach of Fit and Happy, Julia McCabe talks about how she’s realising the role these group classes can have in building communities. Coach Iona Steadman tells us a bit more about what to expect in the class and we hear from group members about what it has meant for the...

Send us Fan Mail Although Parkrun is now a global phenomenon, each one takes on a unique local feel complete with quirks, rituals and characters. Local runners were delighted that the Porty Parkrun has now been able to start up again in Figgate Park. But behind the scenes things aren’t exactly as they were. I spoke with Ciara Webb who is the event director, and was involved from the outset when it...

Send us Fan Mail Action Porty, the group of local people who originally came together in 2016 to bring Bellfield into community ownership are planning a large scale community led conversation or more accurately many different conversations that will take place on and around an event on the 9th and 10th October called Heart Talk Porty. The question they are asking is  How do we draw on the resource...

Send us Fan Mail You know a community project is working well when you can step out temporarily and take a break if you need to, trusting someone else to look after things for a bit. Listen in as David temporarily hands the Porty Podcast over to Hazel for a while, but rest assured - he is only taking a break and will be back on the podcast soon. This is an opportunity to get to know Hazel a little...

Send us Fan Mail You may have noticed the new mural at the Toddler Hut on the Prom – or seen some of the photographs posted online. It’s a striking, colourful and beautiful piece of what’s known as ‘graffiti art’. It was sponsored  by ‘Keep Porty Tidy’ and features ‘Lawrence the Lobster’ (a grown-up version of Larry) and other aspects of  life in the waters just off our coast. The artist is Dallas...

Send us Fan Mail When the Oscar’s Group opened its new gelateria on Brighton Place yesterday, it confirmed the company as the largest employer in Portobello – and it has ambitious expansion plans with two more businesses due to open here later this year, plus one in Stockbridge. It’s been making and selling its gelato for some time now, both from the caravan on the Prom and from St Andrews Fish Ba...

Send us Fan Mail The past year has seen a great increase in the number of people looking for a cat or dog to help them cope through the lockdown. One problem that many have found has been where to find one. Organisations such as the Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home had to stop their rehoming service; they have only recently restarted. They have however been able to help in other ways, such as greatly ex...

Send us Fan Mail There’s been quite a lot of discussion over the past few months about the introduction of “20 minute neighbourhoods”. In her regular community updates, Cllr Maureen Child has talked about the way Portobello could perhaps lead the way in Edinburgh as most of the conditions have been met. However, Porty Podcast producer David Calder has found that many people locally have little gra...

Send us Fan Mail Today sees the start of the Edinburgh Science Festival – and Portobello has its part to play in the form of a photographic exhibition installed on ten scaffold frames on the Prom. It’s entitled ‘Human Nature’ but the theme is very much about the impact – good as well as bad – we are having on the planet. It first appeared a few days ago and has attracted a lot of attention locally...

Send us Fan Mail Portobello Library opens its door once again on Monday – but it will be a very different service from that which people were used to before the lockdown. We won’t just be able to turn up but, like so many other services, will have to book a specific time-slot in order to pick up or return a book, get a new bus pass or use one of the three computers – there had previously been six....

Send us Fan Mail The Friends of the Prom was formally set up three years ago as a charity. Its objectives include the organisation of recreational activities on the Prom, helping to promote the arts, heritage, and culture present on the Prom and working to improve and protect the environment of the Promenade itself, the beach and the waters of the Forth. Understandably, its activities have been fa...

Send us Fan Mail Scotland has a new astronomer Royal, the first woman to be so honoured. It’s an honorary title but it carries immense weight and influence, and Professor Catherine Heymans is determined to use it to bring science to the masses, to inspire young people and to foster a better understanding of our place in the universe. Education is a key part of the Astronomer Royal’s work as we’ll...