Welcome to the autumn edition of Birth & Beyond.
What a few months it has been for everyone at the Birth Resource Centre.
The big news is that we will be starting the new term’s classes on 8
September no longer at 40 Leamington Terrace, but at the Eric Liddell
Centre, at 15 Morningside Road, Edinburgh, EH10 4DP.
As many of you will know, Nadine Edwards has hosted all of the BRC’s
sessions in her own home for a number of years. This has involved a
tremendous commitment and effort, without which the BRC would never
have been able to grow to what it is today. Our heartfelt thanks go
to Nadine and her family for all that they have done – enjoy having
your home to yourselves again after so long!
Moving out of such flexible, rent-free premises into rooms that we will
hire by the hour is a major financial and logistical challenge. You
will probably have received a letter from us several weeks ago asking
for donations and volunteers to help in this change. I’m delighted to
say we had a wonderful response to that letter, with many generous donations
and offers of help. We were also touched with the feedback we received
from users about what the BRC has meant to them. We have put a selection
of these testimonials, with permission, on our website: www.birthresourcecentre.freeserve.co.uk.
Many, many thanks to all who have offered to help and have made donations.
We also thank those in the business community, in particular Carol Aitken
at APCO Scotland, who have made generous gifts – these too are much
appreciated. Fiona Hyslop MSP has kindly agreed to be our patron, having
attended our classes herself in the past, and we are grateful for her
support.
Our fundraising efforts so far, together with donations and standing
orders, have raised enough to cover at least our first six months at
the Eric Liddell Centre, which should give us sufficient time to put
in place a longer term funding strategy. We would be delighted to hear
from anyone who has knowledge of charities’ funding. Anyone else who
is interested in helping us, in particular with distribution of publicity,
is very welcome to get in touch: the BRC phone number is 0131 229 3667.
As we are moving into new premises, we felt that this was a good time
to think again about our name, the Birth Resource Centre. The first
part of this process is to ask you, our users and supporters, what you
think about the name and whether you think it accurately reflects who
we are and what we do. I hope you will read the article about this on
page 5 and let us have your feedback.
We look forward to seeing many of you when classes restart after the
summer break, and hope that our new location will be just as conducive
to the warm and supportive environment we aim to provide as Nadine’s
home has always been.
Because of our premises move, some changes have had to be introduced.
Unfortunately, we will not have the storage space we have had in the
past, so you will need to bring your own pillow and blanket along to
classes, should you wish these. Also, only a selection of books, rather
than the entire library, will be available at each session. The final
point to note, due to our need to meet room rent, is that we will now
be operating a block booking system for classes (with some exceptions,
for example, concessions, and those in the final weeks of pregnancy),
so please contact Chloe, our co-ordinator, on the BRC number, to check
out the details and to book in for sessions.
Thank you again for all the support we have received: it has proved
once again what a valuable and important service and resource the BRC
provides.
