All Together Edinburgh

All Together Edinburgh raised a whopping £600 over the 2 days at the Meadows Festival and £225 at the Leith Festival day. A huge thanks to everyone who helped and supported our charity. All the volunteers enjoyed themselves selling vintage clothes, accessories, antiques and tickets for the tombola. We also had great fun setting up the gazebo. We think we’ve got the hang of it now. It was a great team effort. All monies raised go directly to our charity shop/training centre in Leith.

We have had 64 people gain qualifications in the shop and 75% have moved into paid employment, voluntary work or college. We have 10 people in our training programme all hoping to finish with a Ready for Retail, Work Skills 1 or Cleaning Skills certificate.

Debbie

We are please to announce that all of our 2016/17 trainees graduated at the White House, Craigmillar on Wednesday 22nd February. They enjoyed a great evening including a slideshow, certificate presentation, rendition of “Love me Tender” by Gordon (our very own Elvis) and a superb buffet provided by the White House Kitchen.

The graduates addressed the audience and said that they had gained confidence, retail and work skills They said they enjoyed working in the shop and look forward to moving on to work or college. They were presented with their certificate by the All Together and Skills Path staff:

• Hamza Raza – Ready for Retail
• Joanne Dickie – Basic Work Skills (r4r)
• Alisha Dickson – Work Skills 1
• Emily Aikman – Ready for Retail
• Gordon Duncan – Ready for Retail
• Shaun Rodgers – Work Skills 1
• Shaun Stoddart – Work Skills 1
• David Martin – Work Skills 1
• Matthew Power – Ready for Retail
• Ovik Choudhury – Work Skills 1

Well done!! A big thank you to everyone who attended the event or helped make it a great night. A special thank you to Darren, Michael, Noel, Caroline, Angie and Brian

Click below for pictures:

THANK YOU

To all the volunteers who cycled for 30 minutes each in our 9 hour Broomstick cycle challenge on Sunday 30th and Monday 31st October. Everyone got dressed up in Halloween outfits, cycled in our shop window and we managed to cycle 93 miles over the 9 hours. We raised a whopping £175 for our charity.

The All Together Team

THANK YOU

to Jessica, Ashleigh and Euan for completing the 46 mile cycle from Glasgow to Edinburgh and to Debbie and Robyn who completed the Wee Jaunt from Linlithgow to Edinburgh.

It was a lovely day and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. We raised just over £300 for our training centre in Leith. Thanks to the cyclists who took part, to everyone who sponsored the cyclists and to those who came along to support them.

The All Together Team

THANK YOU

We would like to thank everyone that came along to our annual clearance event on the 8th and 9th July. We had two amazing days and made a whopping £1510. These much needed funds help us run our training centre/charity shop in Leith Walk.

We would also like to thank the volunteers who helped to set up the event, worked on the stalls and helped clear things away. We couldn’t do it without you! We also couldn’t do it without the South Leith Parish Church staff who allow us to use their hall for 3 days and were very helpful and supportive.

We celebrated our 5 year anniversary on 25th June 2016 with a buffet and refreshments every day for the whole week! We wanted to ensure that past and present trainees, volunteers, customers and other supporters had a chance to come along and enjoy the celebration. We have had continued support from volunteers and organisations over the last 5 years. These include HSBC, Health and Social Care (Edinburgh City Council), Intowork, First Port, Edinburgh College and Borders College and of-course the Skills Path team.

I would like to thank the people who have supported ATE throughout the last 5 years:

• Darren and Carroll from HSBC who have helped with donations, our graduation and volunteer days

• James Duncan from Intowork/Project Search who helped set up the website/logo, e-bay, I.T expertise and supported and assessed trainees in the shop

• Ronnie Grocock who supported the shop from day one, helping set the shop up, training/assessing trainees, collecting stock,involving ATE in the faashion show and Christmas Fairs and supporting weekly football sessions

• Gill Smith, Bill Ewen and Jane Gillespie from Health and Social Care who gave me the key contacts for setting up ATE and supported our project from the onset.

• Noel Guy from Skills Path who has been part of ATE for the whole 5 years training, assessing and moving trainees on, for his computer, retail, networking skills and his sense of humour

I would like to give a special thank you to:

• Michael Stubbings from Skills Path who helped get the project off the ground, helped with funding applications, staff support in the shop, stock collections, storage, printing leaflets and knowledge/skills in the social care field.

Debbie

A big thank you to Martin Brownjohn who donated £84.00 to All Together after running 8 miles as part of a relay team in the Edinburgh marathon on Sunday 29th May. Martin wanted to donate funds to help support a much needed and valued service for people with learning disabilities.

His commitment and support is sincerely appreciated and without support we would find it difficult to exist. Each year All Together Edinburgh continues to create training and employment opportunities for people with learning disabilities. Through our charity shop/training centre in Leith we have seen many lives change for the better. All of our trainees have grown in confidence, gained transferrable skills and achieved a recognised qualification.

To date, 54 of our graduates have moved into retail/customer facing environments or further education with 5 graduates securing paid employment.

All Together have donated musical instruments to White House Star Troupers in Craigmillar.These workshops are for kids aged 8-12 who are learning drama, drums and the guitar with the aim of forming a band next year.

The All Together Football sessions (for people with learning disabilities) were set up in October 2014 with a “goal” of getting past and present trainees fit, learn football and basketball skills, build confidence and to work as a team. Other people have now joined and there are now around 20 people who take part every week. A big thank you to Leith Communiity Centre who have allowed us to use the Sports Hall for another year to enable us to continue these popular football/basketball sessions. A big thank you to the staff from Edinburgh Council who help run it each week. We couldn’t do it without them.

The Broomstick Challenge was on 30 October and we raised £155. Staff, trainees and volunteers from a cycle club dressed in Halloween outfits and cycled on an exercise bike in the shop window for 30 minutes each from 10 to 5pm and cycled an amazing 101 miles. Customers guessed where we would finish and the correct guess won a hamper. A big thank you to Sarah who organised this event.