Riverfly on the Esk: How Community Science can expand our understanding of river health

Rebecca Lewis, Laura Goble and Sally York will talk about:
Riverfly on the Esk: How Community Science can expand our understanding of river health at 19.30.
on Thursday 30 March 2023

Rebecca Lewis, Laura Goble and Sally York have been the driving forces behind the Riverfly on the Esk project since they set it up in 2019. Since then, Riverfly on the Esk has grown significantly and now monitors water quality at 15 locations along the North and South Esk rivers.

The project goes from strength to strength and, with a number of years of baseline data, is becoming increasingly useful. It differs from other monitoring schemes by using community engagement to collect data – an excellent example of citizen science in action. Volunteers carry out monthly surveys of aquatic invertebrates; from this they can determine how clean the water is and highlight any pollution events to SEPA.

Pollution along the Esks remains a big concern for local communities. This project empowers them to get involved and make a difference. To hear how the Riverfly project on the rivers Esk was set up, how it has established survey sites and involved community volunteers, developed partnerships and is planning for future developments listen to Laura and Rebecca when they present the next Esk Valley Trust Zoom talk in the evening of 30 March. You need to register for the talk which is free.

To register for this talk click here

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Esk Valley Trust evening talks programme 2023

As winter fades into spring we can all look forward to warmer times – and the Esk Valley Trust 2023 season of evening talks has already started.

Ed Clerk’s talk in January about his plans for the Penicuik Estate was the first in this year’s programme and proved hugely popular with more than 200 people listening in on the night. We are still completing the programme for the rest of the year. It will include talks on the work of the Riverfly on the Esk team (March 30th), Maps of the Lothians (May 26, alongside the AGM), the work of the Forth Rivers Trust (September 21) and the purpose and heritage of the Northern Lighthouse Board.

Full details of the talks and how to register for them will be given here and through our own and local community Facebook pages.

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What next for the Penicuik Estate?

The next Esk Valley Trust Zoom talk will be given by Edward Clerk who is the latest member of the Clerk family to manage the estate. He will talk about future plans for the Penicuik Estate on Thursday January 26th 2022 starting at 19.30

The next Esk Valley Trust Zoom talk will be given by Edward Clerk who is the latest member of the Clerk family to manage the estate. He will talk about future plans for the Penicuik Estate on Thursday January 26th starting at 19.30

To register for the talk click on:

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMrcOGhqDkoE9fpIFqco5K0NKeccNHtgVby

Known and loved by its many visitors the Penicuik Estate has been owned by the Clerk family since 1654 when John Clerk, a merchant with an emporium in Paris specialising in fine art, bought Penicuik Estate with the original Newbiggin House.

Since then there have been many developments with the house (including, of course, the disastrous fire of 1899 which reduced the new Penicuik House to a shell) and the estate with its Designed Landscape.

The impact of the Clerk family on Scotland’s intellectual, cultural and scientific history, has been immense and today Edward Clerk manages the Estate, is overseeing the next stages in its development and, in partnership with Penicuik House Preservation Trust, oversees the running of the conserved ruin of Penicuik House and the restoration of the Designed Landscape for the benefit of the local community and numerous visitors every year.

Plans for the Estate never stand still and Edward Clerk’s talk will outline the plans for the next stage in the development of this significant part of Scotland’s heritage.

The talk is free to all.

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Talk – William Fergusson, surgeon extraordinaire. Thurs 10th November 2022

William Fergusson, who established his formidable reputation as a surgeon before the advent of anaesthesia, was born in 1808 in Prestonpans.

William Fergusson, who established his formidable reputation as a surgeon before the advent of anaesthesia, was born in 1808 in Prestonpans. He rapidly gained a strong reputation as a surgeon and, in 1840, accepted an invitation to become Professor of Surgery at King’s College London and Surgeon to King’s College Hospital. His many achievements made him perhaps the most celebrated surgeon of his time. He died in London in 1877 and is buried at West Linton.

Peter Raine, himself a paediatric surgeon, will talk about William Fergusson’s life and work in the next Esk Valley Trust Zoom talk on Thursday November 10th at 19.30 hrs.

To register for this talk click here.

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Talk – Protecting Musselburgh from flooding

In his talk Conor will specifically address the approach taken to incorporating natural and catchment flood risk reduction options.

The next Esk Valley Trust talk will be on Thursday 23 June at 19.30 hrs

when Conor Price will discuss:

Protecting Musselburgh from flooding.

Conor is the Managing Director of CPE Consultancy, and the project manager appointed by East Lothian Council to lead the Musselburgh Flood Protection Scheme’s project management team from Turner & Townsend. In his talk Conor will outline the progress to date with this major project, and specifically address the approach taken to incorporating natural and catchment flood risk reduction options located in the Esk Catchment above Musselburgh.

To register for this free talk click on

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcqf-GgqDwsG9WCYu73eZjXfYAcdzpiYIPi

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Esk Valley Trust 2022 AGM

The AGM will be followed by a talk by Emily Burton of the Scottish Seabird Centre.

The Agenda for AGM 2022 and Minutes from the AGM of 2021 can be found here and the certified accounts for 2021 here.

The AGM will be followed by a talk by Emily Burton of the Scottish Seabird Centre on:

Marine Conservation and Community Engagement

Emily is the Conservation Officer at the Scottish Seabird Centre, North Berwick. The work of the Centre, a charity, covers marine and coastal habitats and the challenges that they face from pollution, climate change etc.. In her talk Emily will give a full picture of the charity and especially its education and community engagement activities.

As with the talk the AGM is open to everyone but only members can vote.

To register for the AGM and talk click here.

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Survey of opinions about the future for Mavisbank House

In February 2022 Pauline Megson and Tom Parnell of Historic Environment Scotland gave an excellent presentation on Mavisbank House as part of the year’s programme of Esk Valley Trust Zoom talks.

Background

In February 2022 Pauline Megson and Tom Parnell of Historic Environment Scotland gave an excellent presentation on Mavisbank House as part of the year’s programme of Esk Valley Trust Zoom talks. They covered the history of the house and its policies up to the present and invited discussion on their future. The talk was very well attended with at least 76 people visible on screen (with Zoom, of course, it is difficult to know who else was watching and listening ‘off camera’).

With such a large audience, and in light of the recent bid for lottery funding to resecure the house and policies having failed, it was a great opportunity to use the talk as a platform to capture current opinions on what might now be done with the house and its policies.

So we organised a short online questionnaire (using AllCounted) to ask some simple questions about the house, the land around it (the policies) and access to it. Initially this was emailed to everyone who had registered for the talk including those who registered but did not attend. This amounted to 96 people many of whom are not (one hopes ‘yet’!) members of the Trust as the talks are open to all. After two weeks (when responses from that group appeared to be complete) the survey was also emailed to members of the Lasswade and District Civic Society (LDCS) – a further approximately 100 people (though there would, no doubt, be some double-counting) for a further week. The survey was then closed.

The responses to the survey are anonymous and no email address could answer more than once.

The Questions

The survey asked five questions with options and gave two opportunities for freestyle comments:

  • The House: If nothing is done to Mavisbank House it will soon collapse or need to be demolished for safety reasons. What, if anything, should be done to prevent this happening?
  • Freestyle comments about one of the options about the House
  • Your visits to the Policies: Are you a regular user of the policies? If yes how often do you walk in the grounds?
  • The Policies: The policies, or land around the house, are a natural haven. What degree of management of the policies is desirable?
  • Visitors: Mavisbank House and its policies are probably best known to and visited by local residents. Should the future strategy for the House and its policies be to expand its attractiveness to other visitors?
  • Access: If more people are to visit Mavisbank House access needs to be improved. What is your view on improving access to the House and its policies?
  • Freestyle comments about: How well do you feel that the House and Policies are cared for at present?

Results

First, a caveat. In total this survey was sent to fewer than 200 email addresses. Overall there were 70 responses (58 from the initial emailing of the 96 people who registered for the talk). In terms of the percentage of people who responded the response rate is good (60% for the initial mailing and around 35% overall) but the number of responses, at 70, is still modest in the broader scheme of things. A large proportion of responses are self-selected (from people who voiced an interest in the talk by registering for it) and, almost by definition, respondents know about Mavisbank. The survey says nothing about what people might feel about Mavisbank ‘if only they knew that it existed’.

The great majority of respondents (Question 3;95%) have visited the policies at least once in the last year with around 30% visiting at least monthly.

In broad terms the expressed views about the different aspects questioned were:

The House: Very few people want nothing to be done to the house. Complete restoration (around 25%) is less popular than stabilisation with or without the creation of some kind of attraction. The most common view was simply stabilisation (36%) although, taken together, augmented stabilisation or complete restoration accounted for slightly more than 50% of views.

The Policies. Only 7% of views supported zero management and even less (4%) complete restoration of the policies. Enhanced management (54%) was the most popular choice.

Visitors: A sizeable minority (29%) would wish to keep the house and its policies for the existing range of visitors; the other 71% favour promoting Mavisbank more widely with or without any further developments. Very few favoured developing the house while doing nothing more to the policies. The most popular choice was to develop both the house and policies to attract more visitors (39%).

Access: A minority (20%) feel that current access is adequate. The two most sizeable views were to improve current pathways (29%) and to create off-site parking from the Waddingburn Road (36%).

49 comments were made in response to Question 2 and 57 to Question 7. They cover a broad range of opinion and with many suggestions. No attempt is made here to summarise those views but every comment and a summary of the detailed results can be seen by clicking on this link.

Only 12 additional responses were collected after emailing to LDCS members. This is a very small number to try to distinguish any particular feelings of people in what might be considered to be the nearest community to Mavisbank House. If anything the comments from this group were slightly more conservative as regards expanding access or making changes to the house and its policies.

The detailed responses have also been sent to the Mavisbank Trust and to Historic Environment Scotland. If you haven’t responded to the survey but want to express an opinion on Mavisbank House Pauline Megson at Historic Environment Scotland would be delighted to hear from you at pauline.megson@hes.scot.

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EVT Zoom Talks 2022

The 2022 programme of talks is open to everyone, whether members of the Trust or not and is completely free of charge.

Welcome to a new season of Zoom talks for 2022

The 2022 programme of talks is open to everyone, whether members of the Trust or not and is completely free of charge.

The talks will be given via Zoom. To register for a talk please click on the link associated with the talk that you want to join below. You will then be sent an email with details of how to join the Zoom session for the talk. You are welcome to register for as many of the talks as you want to.

Mavisbank House; Then and Now

Talk 1: Thursday February 10th at 19.30 hrs
Pauline Megson and Tom Parnell

Pauline Megson is Sustainable Place Manager at Historic Environment Scotland and among other things works to support community benefit from the Properties in Care, of which Mavisbank Policies is one of 336. She was part of the team involved in the recent bid to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for Mavisbank. Tom, an architectural historian with experience across the public, private and voluntary sectors, enjoys sharing his enthusiasm for many aspects of the historic environment. He currently works with Historic Environment Scotland as a Senior Ancient Monuments Officer.

This talk will trace the history of Mavisbank house to the present and open opportunity to discuss its possible future.

To register for this talk click here.

Fish of the Midlothian Esks placed within the wider context of the Forth district: present challenges and future potential

Talk 2: Thursday 28 April at 19.30 hrs
Dr Iain Reid

Iain is a well-known aquatic ecologist who has been involved in a number of projects at the Forth Rivers Trust. He enjoys any opportunity to get involved in environmental education and to help people learn more about the rivers around them.

To register for this talk click here.

Annual General Meeting and talk

Talk 3: Friday 27 May 2022

The Esk Valley Trust AGM will start at 19.00 hrs and will be followed by a talk the details of which will be confirmed shortly.

As with the talk the AGM is open to everyone but only members can vote.

To register for the AGM and talk click here.

Protecting Musselburgh from flooding

Talk 4: Thursday 23 June at 19.30 hrs
Conor Price

Conor is the Managing Director of CPE Consultancy, and the project manager appointed by East Lothian Council to lead the Musselburgh Flood Protection Scheme’s project management team from Turner & Townsend. In this talk Conor will outline the progress to date with this major project, and specifically address the approach taken to incorporating natural and catchment flood risk reduction options located in the Esk Catchment above Musselburgh.

To register for this talk click on

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcqf-GgqDwsG9WCYu73eZjXfYAc

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Rennie Frazer – A Tribute

A Tribute to Rennie Frazer, who died so tragically in October 2021

A Tribute to Rennie Frazer, who died so tragically in October 2021, can be found by clicking this link.

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Fisherrow – a wee bit of its story

Simon Fairnie is the son of a fishing family whose ancestry can be traced back to the early 1700’s.

He was born and brought up in Fisherrow where he has lived all his life, has an intimate knowledge of Fisherrow and its fishing connections and is always pleased to be asked to speak about his rich heritage. His special interest is ensuring that the history of Fisherrow and its people is preserved and recorded. Simon is currently Treasurer of Musselburgh Museum and Heritage Group and Co-ordinator of Musselburgh Museum.

A recording of this talk by Simon Fairnie can be seen:

 

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