Photo Credit: Hailey Beavis
WHALE ARTS IS REOPENING / RESTARTING
We would like to ask everyone to have a read of this and pass on the message to anyone who you think might need to know.
THE STORY SO FAR
We have spent the last 12 months adapting and flexing our programmes, activities and services to work alongside the community, other local organisations and groups to support the community of Wester Hailes with food, phonecalls, art and wellbeing packs, digital devices and support and much more. We have all been working hard throughout lockdown doing our best to meet local needs. This has only been possible due to our hard-working and committed staff, freelance artists, volunteers, trustees, tenants, partners including residents groups and our supportive and understanding funders.
RESTARTING
These plans are based on current information and advice and may be subject to change.
We will communicate with participants about exactly when their activity will be restarting, how sessions will be taking place and respond to any questions or queries to ensure everyone feels comfortable taking part in our programmes.
We plan to restart groups and reopen the building from
17th May 2021 onwards. This doesn’t mean that everything will restart straight away, we will communicate with group participants individually to let them know when face to face groups will restart.
FOOD
We will continue to serve a community meal each Friday from 1pm – 2pm at WHALE Arts during April and May 2021. We hope to start some face-to-face community meal gatherings outdoors over the summer – more information to follow once we have worked out how to do this safely.
Although the WHALE Arts building remains closed to the public the Community Fridge and Pantry managed by SCOREscotland will remain on reduced days.
The Community Fridge is Open Monday and Thursday 1:30pm to 3:30pm while the Community Pantry Opens fortnightly on Wednesday 2pm – 3:30pm
If you would like to use the Community Fridge or Community Pantry please contact SCOREscotland on 0131 442 2341 or 07496 190 916
OUR PROGRAMME
Our groups – Stitch n Time; smARTcraft; Men’s Making ; Let’s Create; Street Arts; Let’s Dance; Play Sense Create; Film Club; smARTies; Mums into Business; Wester Hailes Connects Digital Skills Drop-ins; Members Breakfasts; Community Gardening – have been engaging remotely using different methods of communication.
From 21 May onwards we will begin to restart these groups. This will happen in a staggered way – participants in our groups will be contacted directly once we have more detail to share.
PARTNER PROGRAMMES (which usually happen at WHALE)
Programmes delivered with partners have been postponed for 12 months with many groups taking part in remote and/or outdoor versions of the groups:
Room for Art – with Art in Healthcare; Fork in the Road – Edinburgh Tool Library; Expecting Something – with Starcatchers; Open Book; Indian dance – Theiya Arts; Edinburgh Art Festival – art trips and schools groups; NuStart.
Our partner organisations will be in touch directly with participants when they are ready to restart sessions and we will share this information with our community when we have it.
Room Bookings, Rentable Office Desks and Office Tenancies
We have been taking bookings for essential services throughout the last 12 months within the health and safety restrictions in place for COVID-19. We are slowly and carefully opening our doors to having more general room bookings again. We have introduced strict measures to reduce the risk of coronavirus transmission in the building through a thorough risk assessment.
ROOM BOOKINGS
We aim to officially commence with room bookings and rentable office desks in the WHALE Arts building from as a provisional start date (this date is subject to change.)
Rental spaces will be offered from 26th April provided that the type of booking is allowed within government guidelines and risk assessed.
The rental spaces are listed below:
Arts Workshop (activities in line with guidance and risk assessed, meetings in limited numbers)
Performance Space (activities in line with guidance and risk assessed, meetings in limited numbers)
Board Room (activities in line with guidance and risk assessed, meetings in limited numbers)
Green Room (activities in line with guidance and risk assessed, meetings in limited numbers)
Wee Office Space (long-term tenancy available – please email to enquire)
You can send a booking request for all of these rental spaces online. For more details including rental room measurements and capacities please visit our webpage here.
If you are interested in booking our rental rooms in block bookings (4 weeks or more) or are interested in a coworking space tenancy of 6 months or more, please get in touch by calling us on 0131 4583267 or email: roombookings@whalearts.co.uk
Let Us Know If You Need Help
Please get in touch with the WHALE Arts team if you need support or a conversation on 0131 458 3267 or by emailing info@whalearts.co.uk
Kind wishes,
The WHALE Arts Agency Team
