Please ask your councillor to act

We're asking councillors to raise a motion 'We believe Edinburgh Leisure should be funded to retain its Creche service' which we hope will be debated and voted on by the full council at its meeting on 17th Dec. We are confident we have the support of the Labour group, Greens and Tories which means we only need to convert one or two of the snp/lib dem coalition to vote for this and the creches would be saved! At least one of them has already voiced their concern about the creches closing but we have to keep the pressure on each and every councillor to vote with us if we're to save our creches. Please call your councillors if you can and ask for their personal vote rather than let them refer you onto a.n.other.

You can find your local councillors through this link.

Don't Forget The Local Demos!

Please come and join us at any/all of our series of local demos this week before the mass demo next Thursday 17th Dec (09.30-10.30am outside City Chambers on High Street). Bring children too and any eyecatching fancy dress (Lazy Town Edinburgh? is our theme), face painting, banners etc.

Thursday 10th December - 10.45-11.45am outside Ainslie Park Leisure Centre, 92 Pilton Drive, Edinburgh EH5 2HF

Friday 11th December - 10.30-11am outside Portobello Swim Centre, 57 The Promenade, Edinburgh EH15 2BS

Friday 11th December - 10.15-11.15am outside Gracemount Leisure Centre 22 Gracemount Drive, Edinburgh, EH16 6RN

Campaign Relaunch Gets More Coverage

The relaunch of the Save Our Creches campaign has had more coverage today. Please check out the BBC News website and the Edinburgh Evening News.

Next Week Local Demos At Ainslie Park And Portobello

We're staging a couple of mini demos next week

- outside Ainslie Park between 10.30 and 11.30 on Thursday 10th Dec, and
- outside Portobello Swim centre at 10.30 on Friday 11th Dec.

Others may follow at Gracemount and Drumbrae - just let us know what you're planning there and we'll spread the word. Come and join us at any of the demos if you can - and most important of all, remember our demo outside the City Chambers on the Royal Mile Thursday 17th Dec 09.30 to 10.30.

Save Our Crèche Campaign - STV Coverage 2 December

Following on from the campaign's first press release, the media has started to take interest in what we're doing. See interviews from Ainslie Park users and Edinburgh Leisure on the STV website.

(You can find the piece about 2 minutes and 50 seconds in).

Keep up the good work, and please use the email address to let us know of any other coverage you see.

Save Our Crèche Campaign - Demo on 17 December 2009

We're holding a demo outside the City Chambers, on the High Street between 09.30 and 10.30 on Thursday 17th December to lobby councillors arriving for the final full council meeting of the year - we believe our elected representatives should pressurise Edinburgh Leisure into dropping its crèche closure plans. Come and join us.

If you can, please contact your councillors, MSPs and MPs and ask them to contact Edinburgh Leisure and urge them to reverse the crèche closure policy via this link.

We have two petitions - an online petition and a paper petition. Please sign the online petition and use the paper one wherever you go!

And there's now a Facebook group for people to discuss ideas - it's called Save Edinburgh Leisure Creches. Come and join us on Facebook

Save Our Crèche Campaign Reignited

Last Tuesday, Edinburgh Leisure announced its plans to close its remaining crèches in the capital. The crèches at Ainslie Park, Drumbrae, Gracemount and Portobello are to shut, due to lack of funding, in March 2010 unless an alternative provider can be found. We fear one crèche, at Ainslie Park, may not reopen after Christmas.

Closure will have a huge negative impact on the lives of many families in the city, never mind on the dedicated staff who'll lose their jobs. The service currently provided is excellent. Its loss would be a terrible blow for the parents/carers and children who use the crèches. If people can't access health and fitness services they are less able to look after themselves, and the children they care for. The impact mentally and physically could be immense on individuals and increase pressure on the health service at a time when all political parties say they accept the need (and indeed actively lobby) for better health services - what use are Leisure Centres a significant section of the community cannot access?

Coverage of the decision has already begun – see the BBC News site here.