South East Edinburgh Greens

This report covers South East Edinburgh Greens' (SEEG) activities over the
period June 2022 to May 2023.

Membership

Our membership has increased from 233 to 241 members in our two council wards.

Meetings and events

It’s been quite a quiet year, with no elections, so we’ve been happy to see some
new folk coming to recent meetings and events. It’s also been useful to have the
chance to discuss local issues and what we can do practically to campaign on
these.

Sub-branch Meetings

Our meetings have been mostly hybrid this year. We had our first in-person
meeting in July at the Charteris Centre. The venue wasn’t ideal for online
attendees and was expensive, so we returned to Nelson Hall as soon it was
available in October.

Some of the topics we’ve discussed: Diversity and Inclusion in our sub-branch,
the politics of the Festival, Car Free Holyrood Park campaign, Sheriffhall
Roundabout Public Inquiry and Holyrood Park Road.

Festival Stall

Some new members came to a meeting to talk about their concerns around the lack
of support for artists and performers in the cost-of-living crisis, and how
exclusive the Festival had become because of accommodation costs. An outcome of
this was a stall on The Meadows during the Festival where we promoted our
policies which support artists and performers, and gathered views about the
Festival from people passing by and stopping for a chat. The stall went well and
lasted all day, despite the weather.

Joint Meeting with South Edinburgh Greens

In March we headed over to Morningside for a special meeting with SEG where we
shared our ways of organising and campaigning experiences, and generally had a
good blether. It was a great meeting. Thanks to SEG for suggesting this.

Co-operatives Meeting

The April Branch Meeting on Co-operatives took place in Nelson Hall and SEEG
members were pleased to support the meeting with volunteers (on the door,
providing refreshments, setting up the hall and tidying up). With people active
in co-ops speaking about their experiences, members found it a really
interesting and eye-opening event.

South Side Green Walk

SEEG took our turn doing a Green Walk around the South Side in May. We wandered
around looking at some of the area’s less-known history in tucked away places,
and talked about how the community was nearly lost during the 60s and early 70s
to plans for a six-lane highway right through it and University developments. We
started off at The Causey, home to a local public space campaign members
support. Over 20 people (members and friends/family) came along and most stayed
for the whole walk (which was quite long!) and ended up in Summerhall.

Public Space campaigning

SEEG members attending the branch meeting on local public space campaigning in
November, reported back to our December meeting that fruit growing and unloved
greens spaces had been discussed in their group and it was decided that we
should send an email out to members to see if they had green spaces locally that
could be better looked after and used by the community.

There wasn’t much response but we have been looking at areas along the cycle
path from the Innocent Railway to the Skelf bike pump track. The first area
we’ve been exploring had already thrown up complicated ownership issues.

We also have an ongoing interest in a Car Free Holyrood Park campaign and have
started to look at how the four-lane Holyrood Park Road could be better used as
a public space.

Green News

We delivered editions in autumn and spring:

It’s acknowledged that we are struggling to maintain full coverage of Southside-
Newington with numbers of delivery volunteers declining.

Appendix – Office Bearers 2022-23

The following people were elected as office bearers at our AGM on 9 June 2023: