ANIMALS
Edinburgh Zoo Live Webcams;
Panda Cam, Penguin Cam, Koala Cam,
Paigton Zoo Cams with Flamingo’s, Meerkats & Monkey’s

MUSEUMS
National Museum of Scotland has resources HERE including animations, nature trail ideas, arts & crafts & of course you can explore all the treasures of the museum online.

CREATIVE WRITING
Creative writing and reading with Open Book HERE

THEATRE
Online plays and panto with National Theatre online. Watch on YouTube HERE

DANCE
Free online dance classes from Dancebase: Scotland’s National Centre for Dance HERE

ARTIST TALKS/PODCASTS
Photography Down The Line is a series of conversations between artists, photographers and the Director of ‘Stills’, a registered charity and centre for photography based in Edinburgh. Started during the time of the Coronavirus lockdown, this series aims to discuss, celebrate and share the ideas of artists at this challenging time. LISTEN HERE

ONLINE TREASURE HUNT
Escape Room Durham – free online escape room challenge! CLICK HERE

SPACE
Join NASA with a view of the earth from space on their live cameras HERE

WELLBEING & RELAXATION
Lots of great wellbeing and relaxation resources HERE

CALLIGRAPHY
Free online calligraphy resources HERE

MUSIC
Scottish Chamber Orchestra – music for all ages HERE

Although we worked safely to restart some of our face to face groups in our building and the garden in 2020, due to the new lockdown restrictions all face to face activities at WHALE Arts will be paused from for all of January 2021. We will revisit this towards the end of January and plan to restart face to face creative, wellbeing and gardening groups as soon as we can, but only when we are safely able to do so. We will be in touch with participants, volunteers, freelancers and support workers towards the end of January with an update.

We will continue to work with our freelance artists to share creative ideas and activities on social media throughout January. Please keep an eye out for Wellbeing Wednesdays on our social media platforms. All our groups that have been meeting digitally will continue as they have been.

We will continue to prepare the WHALE Arts Community Takeaway every Friday starting back Friday 15^th January 2021. This is a hot take-away meal prepared by our chef and can be collected between 1-2pm every Friday. And we will continue with Friendship Calls throughout January. If you know anyone who would like to collect a delicious meal please share this information with them. Anyone local to Wester Hailes who would appreciate a weekly Friendship Call get in touch with info@whalearts.co.uk.

SCOREscotland’s Community Fridge located at WHALE Arts will continue to operate. This is open on January 7th 2021 and will operate on Mondays and Thursdays between 1:30pm to 3:30pm. If you would like to use the Community Fridge please contact: madhavi@scorescotland.org.uk

Our building will remain open throughout January with minimal staff for essential services only. We are still able to take room bookings for essential face to face services – please get in touch with roombookings@whalearts.co.uk to find out more.

Please take care of yourselves and those around you, this is hopefully the final hurdle in what has been a very challenging 10 months. We continue to be here for the local community in as many ways as we possibly can working with other local groups and organisations. We are well connected to others working locally so please do get in touch if you are looking for some support and if we cannot help directly we can put you in touch with someone else who can. 

The Happy Sentinel Shares a Little Winter Positivity in Wester Hailes

The first happy edition of the Sentinel is being delivered to homes across Wester Hailes this December, sharing local good news and creative elements from WHALE Arts with the local community. 

The paper was put together by WHALE Arts Co-Production Artist in Residence Mo Odling, with content entirely gathered from local people and projects. Printed on WHALE Arts new risograph printer, a huge thanks to our wonderful volunteers to help to collate and fold all 6,000 prints! 

The Happy Sentinel marks the launch of Pod Press, a new publishing house in the West of Edinburgh. Pod Press will be publishing artworks, maps, guides, stories, books, leaflets and more – capturing and sharing the wealth of creativity which happens in Wester Hailes. 

You can find the downloadable version of the Happy Sentinel below.

Keep an eye out for the Christmas Truffle recipe in the Happy Sentinel – here is the author Susan with the celebratory batch for the WHALE community meal! Delicious 🙂 

A huge thanks to everyone who submitted content, from the local hero nominations to the articles. Happiness is an action, we hope receiving the Happy Sentinel shared a little brightness to your day! 

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