Penicuik Whats On - Serving the Penicuik area

Mauricewood Primary School (PTA), recently held a very successful 'Family Fun Health Evening'. This event complemented lots of activity held in school over the week to encourage Healthy Living.

Thank you to all Parents, Carers, Teachers & PTA Colleagues for all their hard work and support over a very successful week!

As part of the Keep Scotland Tidy campaign www.keepscotlandtidy.org which will run throughout April, Penicuik & District Community Council have arranged 3 litter picks

Penicuik residents are again asked to turn out in numbers. It is your opportunity to make Penicuik a nicer place to live. Safety gloves and litter pickers provided (and there may even be a wee refreshment)

The first litter pick will be held on Saturday 10th April (Cuiken Glen) at 9.30am. Meet in the car park at the YMCA Queensway. The second at Lowrie's Den Saturday 17th April 9.30am (new car park at the entrance to Penicuik Estate) and the last at Beeslack Woods 24th (meet in Tesco car park 9.30am).

For more information, please email Chris Leavy chris.leavy1@btinternet.com or phone 01968 677181

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Ladies & Gents, this is a reply to the survey I asked people to help out with below (Penicuik Centre Survey). A big thanks from both Jan & of course this site;

Hi Craig,

The prize draw for the Penicuik Survey has taken place at last, and the winner was Christine Braban, a Penicuik resident. She’s happy for her name to be published.

Thanks again for posting the survey on your site – I suspect the majority of participants came from your link. It was a massive help and I got a fantastic mark for the subsequent assessment I did using the data (a pass distinction, none the less). I will also be passing it to the PCDT to help with their Plan for Penicuik.

Thanks again,

Jan Dawson

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Do you have an interest in Musical Theatre? Would you like to help set up a new youth theatre in Midlothian?Encore! Performing Arts, is a new youth theatre currently in the process of being set up in the Midlothian area. We are looking for people to help set the committee up and make this new youth theatre a success!

Do you just want to make a difference to young people’s lives in the area by giving them an outlet for their talents? If you do then you could help in a number of ways. We are looking for a number of people to facilitate our committee. We are also looking for a musical director and choreographer.

We have a number of people on board already but would like to have a broad skill base to enable us to create the best shows possible in the local area.

Folks the people, WE the voting public vote in to look after our needs, want to demolish a local landmark. This is despite the Penicuik Community Trust wanting to buy & develop the site for the people. The following link says it so much better than I ever can. http://www.makers.org.uk/place/penicuikheritage

Please sign the petitions around the town. As our Councillors are so out of touch with us the people, & our wants & needs.

Lets show our Councillors we will no longer put up with their determination to destroy Penicuik. They're slowly turning our once beautiful wee town into a shapeless big housing estate. They're selling off land left right & centre to anyone with the cash.

Good Afternoon

As you may know the 'Dick Vet' is the Number One Vet School in United Kingdom, and is committed to providing first class education to all our students.

In June this year we will have a week of practical exams for our final year students, and in order to assess them on a range of animals we have 16 stations that require an observer to monitor what students and examiners are doing whilst in the clinics.

Last year we were very fortunate that we had over 20 of our animal loving clients volunteering for either a half or full day and found the experience very interesting. However this year we need over 50 observers, and therefore would be very grateful if you could advertise our request to your members, local community groups or acquantinces who you think would have some time to spare and would enjoy volunteering.

The exam dates for this year are from 14th June 2010, for 5 days held at Easter Bush, Roslin.

Anyone who wishes further information on volunteering, can contact myself or Sally Tait on 0131 650 7601 or email me at Jane.Barr@ed.ac.uk.

Thank you for taking the time to consider our request.

Regards

Jane
Miss J S Barr
VTO Administrator
R(D)SVS
Tel: 0131 650 7601

--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

There was lots to do, from Christmas Crafts to Children's games and a visit from Santa too!Around £1800 was raised - A fantastic achievement!

These funds are used wisely, to directly benefit the children at both Mauricewood Nursery & Mauricewood Primary School.

The PTA would like to thank all Parents, Carers and Teachers for their support and the Penicuik Community for attending the event and making it such a success

Dear readers & supporters of the site. It's been a while since the site was full upgraded. But the start of 2010 I will be rebuilding the site completely.

This is your opportunity to get in touch & let me know any features you'd like to see in the new site. Anything that you feel would improve the site.

Please fill out a quick 5 minute survey about Penicuik Town Centre. You'll be helping a student with her Masters Degree. It only takes as I say 5 minutes & you can remain totally anonymous if you wish to.

At some stage after the second world war, there was, reportedly, an attempt by the National Coal Board to extract coal from Auchencorth Moss.

Unfortunately, the report goes, they chose a particularly wet bit of the Moss to start and one if not two machines sank into the bog and could not be recovered.

I was wondering if anyone in the area can remember this event and provide more detail.

Please send your replies back to the website see "submit something" page for the email address

The Penicuik based rock band Rayne would like to apologise for a mix up resulting in Rayne being listed on posters distributed throughout Penicuik billing us as a support to the AC/DC tribute band at Penicuik Town Hall on Saturday 26th September.

Rayne cannot play this date due to a prior booking that has been in our diary for 9 months. We were advised that the date for the Town Hall gig was being moved to another time where we would have been available to play hence our name being left on the poster.

It is unfortunate as we would have loved to play this gig and we have had a fair bit of interest from folk who have mentioned to us that they were looking forward to seeing us play.

As I say this was completely out with our control and hope that folk who go to the gig have a great time as we are sure that it will be a fantastic night-Look forward to seeing you all soon at one of our gigs.

Did you start Penicuik High School 29 years ago in 1980?
Did you turn 40 last year?
Do you remember Mr Finlayson (head of year), Mr Dyble (geography) Mr Frame (history) Mr Hogg (Biology) Mr French (English) Miss Kettles (French) Mr Turner (P.E) Miss Butchart (Music) not forgetting the Head, Mr Chalmers?
Do you remember Dougie Henderson & Suzanne Clapperton as our head boy and girl?
Do you remember getting your photo taken with the Olympic swimmer Sharon Davies circa ’82?
Do you remember school exchange to L’isle Sur La Sorgue easter ’83?

If you answered YES to any of these questions then please come and join yer old school chums to party like it was 1985, only this time it’s legal for us to drink!

I've added a new page & deleted an old one. Thoughts is now gone because it was a Victor Meldrew of a page, & who cares what one person thinks. This is a community web site not a Craig Hodge moan site.

The new page is called Community, & it's for things that don't quite fit into what's on etc. For instance Jennifer Mann PR Adviser for Girl Guiding had a couple of photographs of a recent duck race in Penicuik Park. It didn't quite fit into what's on, but it was a nice idea to let the mums and dads see what happened. Of course no girls names are published. And if any parents object to their children's photos on the page they'll be taken off. However I hope they'll understand that it helps to promote a great organisation for children.

Ladies & Gents did you start Penicuik High School in August 1975? Would you be interested in another school reunion? We had a very successful one roughly 10 years ago. In 2010 it'll have been 35 years since we all started the big school. So we're looking to see what the response is before we book anything.

I've create a page on this website for us "Class of 75 Reunion" click on the button above. There's a whole list of names a few of us could remember. I'm sure if you were at school with us you could name a whole lot more. So please get in touch & let us know if you're interested.

We've also started a group on Facebook called "Penicuik High Class of 75". So if you're on Facebook join the group, you might even meet old friends you've not seen since school.

Yes the reviews are back. I know, I know. But I've had quite a few people asking for it to come back. And I've also had a couple of people saying they will do reviews to help me out as well. So it's back!

Folks I hope I'm not over stepping the mark here. But in this time of economic crisis I think it's more important that we try to shop local as much as we can. So please check out the Local Business pages on the site. Although Penicuik has no real industries as such now. We do have quite a wealth of local businesses. Hopefully the business page reflects this. There's just about every kind of tradesmen & women on this page. If you have used any of the services & can recommend them please let me know.

New Sports Group for people with learning disabilities who need a creative approach to sport, Penicuik Centre, Carlops Road, 11 - 12 Midday, £2 entry. We'll work especially to include the people traditionally excluded from activity. for more information contact Kara at Artlink 0131 229 3555

Hi, my name is Jennie Anderson and I am running the 2009 London Marathon on behalf of the deafblind charity, Sense.

I need to raise a minimum amount of £1400 for my place and as part of my fund raising efforts I have organised a charity rock night at Penicuik Town Hall on Saturday, 31st January 2009.

The doors open at 7.30 pm and there will be a bar, supplied by the Crown and 2 rock bands performing, Flat Oot and Whumff.

Tickets are £10 each and available from The Crown, Figurehead or by phoning 01968 676639.

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Happy New Year everyone! Our first news for 2009 is that we have a new venue: The Roadhouse, 136 John Street, Penicuik EH26 8NJ, Tel 01968 678405. From Tuesday 6th January we'll meet for singers nights in the Lounge Bar of the Roadhouse, 8.30 onwards, all welcome to sing, play or listen. Concerts will be in the Functions area behind the Lounge.
One big plus for the new venue is excellent disabled access and facilities. We know that some good friends found the stairs difficult, we're now on the ground floor and we'd love to welcome you to join us again. You can find us on the main Edinburgh-Penicuik road opposite the Clock Tower. Our website's being updated and there will be a map there ASAP
We'd like to thank Simon and the staff at the Royal Hotel for making us so welcome over the past year. Sadly, the Hotel's lease is on the market and we need a secure venue for guest nights. We give our best wishes to the Royal and all its staff and customers.

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Cuiken Primary school is hoping to have various events / exhibitions in March 2009 before we move into our new building. If you have any photographs of your days (or of your children's days) at Cuiken, please send us a copy as it will not be possible to return the photographs. Where are you now? We would like to compile a list of where former pupils are & what they're doing. Please either send or email names & dates to Cuiken &details of what you have been doing - a photogrpah would be good too!

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British Horse Society (BHS) TREC Championships of Great Britain 2009 - West Linton

I am pleased to let you know that West Linton has been selected as the host area for the British Horse Society TREC Championships of Great Britain, on the 21st - 23rd August 2009.

West Linton was in competition with some prestigious venues; Thirlstane Castle, Glenlivet Crown Estates and Drymen Showground among some of them. It is great news for the community that West Linton has been selected.

Some of the benefits include:

· In the region of 100 - 150 people in the area for the weekend utilising local facilities, hotels, B&B's, shops, restaurants etc;

Competitors to travel to the venue (on Bogsbank Road) via either Station Road or Bogsbank Road and we will not let our competitors use the village centre for access.

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New Thoughts Page - At first it'll be my thoughts on local, possibly national issues. Maybe even silly stuff on styles etc. It won't always be serious. Hopefully it'll make people think & even laugh at times.

If you feel you'd like to contribute please feel free. However remember it's not a page to get out personal issues as in personal disputes etc. And it may require editing at times.

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I've decided to remove the Reviews, Bands & For Sale pages. I've decided to use the space for more Penicuik related materials. As in a history page for one. I've enjoyed reviewing the bands over the years. But I'm afraid it's been too much of a one man show, & I don't have the time anymore. Plus they weren't really that well supported. 95% of the email I receive about the site enjoy the me Penicuik related pages, especially the "Old Photos" page.

I'm genuinely sorry to anyone who has enjoyed the Reviews etc. But as I have publicised repeatedly I really needed more people from the musical community to contribute to the page. I'm afraid over the five or six years I've run the site, I've had less than half a dozen musicians contributing to the Reviews page. I've had dozens & dozens of them promising to write something though. But promises are no good if people what to read a review. Which meant that I was writing the reviews taking the pictures & receiving the backlash for my comments. As I stated on the page on numerous occasions I didn't have a musical background. I used to consult with many people during the gigs asking them about the sound etc. I'd take it all into consideration & write my reviews. I of course at times couldn't wholly repeat what they have said, geez that would have landed me in jail! But it has meant that a few musicians have stopped speaking to me. I do apologise to them, but in the few occasions I have reported less than acceptable performances. I have to stress that it wasn't only my thoughts I was reporting. When more than four or five people told me what I was personally already thinking I reported it.

Which all compounded my thoughts that the reviews page really has had its day. That & the actual hits the pages were receiving. It wasn't one of the most popular pages on the site.

I'll still advertise all the gigs on the Whats On page. You might even see me out taking a few pictures. But no more reviews, unless something really special happens.

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My name is John fell and was born in Penicuik. I have fond memories of old Penicuik especially the mischief we used to get up to ( innocent I think ??) . My wife and I visited Penicuik in December 2006 and wow it's changed big time . I tried to look for an old schoolmate Derek Wilson ( I hear he's a taxi driver) to no avail. Well one of my reasons for this note is that we are coming over for a few days in December ( before Christmas) and would love to meet some of my old friends both male and female :) ( venue to be decided later ) if anyone remembers me ........ please drop me an e-mail, it would be great to see you again. jfell@absamail.co.za

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I live in Hong Kong and have lost contact with one of my best friends, Scott Calendar. He grew up in Penicuik and certainly still lived there 7 or 8 years ago.Is there any way you could help me to locate him?

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Ladies & Gents I'm very pleased to announce that Graeme Pow was this years (2008) Penicuik Turner Prize Winner. You can check out Graeme's project web site here