A huge thank you to everyone who joined us for our Autumn Assembly yesterday! It was fantastic to bring together so many inspiring people from across Edinburgh for a day of conversations, creative workshops, shared food and new connections.
This year’s theme, Many Communities, One Table, was set to explore the role of food in bringing people together, building relationships and strengthening community resilience. From growing and preparing food to sharing skills, resources and ideas, we wanted to explore the many ways food connects our communities and how we can build on these connections across the city.
We were delighted to see so many familiar and new faces in the room, with so many lively conversations and connections happening throughout the day. Here’s a roundup of what we got up to, along with all the opportunities, events and calls for support shared during our Town Hall!
💬 Widening participation and making connections
We kicked things off with a talk from Dr Jason Ran, who shared his research and reflections on widening participation in community action. Jason raised some important questions about who gets involved, who might be missing from the conversation and how we can make community spaces more accessible and welcoming to more people.
We’re planning to share a recording of Jason’s talk as soon as possible, so keep an eye out for that!
From there, Jess Gildener led us through a facilitated networking session, helping us get a better sense of who was in the room, how people are connected to ECCAN, what they’re working on and where there might be common ground.
It was great to see so many conversations taking shape around the room, with people connecting across different neighbourhoods, organisations and areas of work. We hope lots of new ideas were sparked during this time!
🍛 Lunch, with a little help from The Mosque Kitchen!
We also want to say a huge thank you to everyone for your patience, care and understanding when our lunch plans fell through! We really appreciated how everyone took it in their stride and used the extra time to continue conversations from the morning’s networking session.
And an especially big thank you to The Mosque Kitchen, who stepped in with no notice to feed over 60 of us, serving up a delicious vegan feast!
If you’re not familiar with The Mosque Kitchen, they’re a much-loved Edinburgh institution based beside Edinburgh Central Mosque, serving generous portions of affordable, freshly cooked food. We’d really encourage you to pay them a visit, support their work and enjoy some of their excellent food.
💡 Workshop highlights
Poppy, Grow2Eat: Growing Made Easy
Poppy led a relaxed session decorating tin cans to turn into plant pots for easy growing at home. Everyone planted up their pots with seeds to take away, offering a welcome moment of calm amongst a busy day.
Chris, Choirs for Climate: Sustainability & Lyric Writing
Chris led an hour of collective lyric writing, with the group creating and performing their own song by the end of the session. We were really impressed with what they managed to come up with in just an hour.
Harriet, Edinburgh Can B: Social Food
Harriet gave the group a taste of Edinburgh SOUP, a community funding event where people pitch ideas for local projects and everyone gets to vote on which ones receive support. A chance to experience the format firsthand and explore how it can help bring community ideas to life.
Sibar and Lyndsay, Granton Community Bakery: Gijnij Flatbread Making
Sibar and Lyndsay led a hands-on flatbread-making session, filling the room with some incredible smells (we only wish we could have captured them on camera). Everyone went home with a freshly made, delicious Gijnij wrap.
📋 Opportunities and links from the Town Hall
We closed the day with our Town Hall, bringing everyone back together to share news, upcoming events, requests for support and opportunities to get involved. There was plenty to share, from volunteering and community food projects to opportunities to shape city-wide plans and support community-owned renewable energy.
We’ve gathered everything below so you can follow up on anything that caught your interest, or discover something you might have missed!
🙌 Opportunities to get involved and support local projects
Bikes for Refugees (Scotland) is looking for donations of bicycles to refurbish and redistribute. Bikes don’t need to be in perfect condition, so if you’ve got an old bike sitting around, consider passing it on!
CADi Couriers is looking to connect with local suppliers for its sustainable essentials delivery scheme.
Teens+ is looking for volunteers and donations of paint to support its projects.
BANZAI Bikes is looking for volunteer bike librarians to help run its cargo bike library. You don’t need any specialist cycling knowledge, just an interest in helping more people access bikes.
Granton Community Bakery - Pop along on Saturdays, 10am–1pm, at Pilton Community Health Project for delicious, locally made sourdough bread, available on a pay-what-you-can-afford basis!
Edinburgh Remakery: Connect 50 Crowdfunder - Help tackle digital exclusion and electronic waste! Edinburgh Remakery is raising funds to refurbish and gift 50 laptops to people who need them across Edinburgh and the Lothians. You can support the campaign by donating, sharing it or contributing unwanted technology.
📅 Events and upcoming opportunities
Active Inquiry: Legislative Theatre, 10th December - A free event exploring barriers to participation in climate action and how communities can influence change. Get involved in an interactive approach to exploring the challenges that prevent people from taking action.
Impact Arts: Green Starts, January to March 2027 - Referrals are open for this environmental conservation and employability programme for young people aged 16 to 24 (up to 26 for care-experienced young people) who are not currently in employment, education or training.
Artist as Advocate - An upcoming gathering exploring walking, nature and creative practice.
The Scottish People’s Meeting - Opportunities for individuals and organisations to get involved in the next gathering, including hosting activities and contributing to the programme.
SCCAN Societal Resilience Series - Explore how communities across Scotland are building resilience through SCCAN’s series of events and discussions. An opportunity to share ideas and explore how we can strengthen our local communities.
Keep an eye on our Events List to see more of the events coming up across the ECCAN Network and beyond - and subscribe to our newsletter for monthly updates!
🌱 Initiatives and community action
Good Food Edinburgh Plan - Work is beginning on Edinburgh’s next Good Food Plan, with opportunities for community groups to contribute, share ideas and help facilitate workshops. Keep an eye out for opportunities to get involved as the plan develops.
Edinburgh Community Solar Co-operative - A new community share offer is open, giving people the chance to invest in locally owned solar energy. The co-operative has been generating renewable energy from rooftops across Edinburgh for over a decade.
Greenlight-funded projects - Several of the initiatives mentioned during the Town Hall have received support through ECCAN’s Greenlight fund. We’ll continue sharing updates, opportunities and ways to get involved as these projects develop.
We’re regularly adding news, events and opportunities from across the network to the news section of our website, so we’d encourage you to check back regularly to see what’s happening and find more ways to get involved!
💡 Have your say
Your Voice: Visitor Levy funding - The City of Edinburgh Council is inviting ideas for community projects that benefit both residents and visitors. A total of £1.7 million will be available across Edinburgh’s 17 wards over three years, with the current ideas stage open until 6th December 2026.
Help shape ECCAN’s new Policy Circle - We’re bringing together a small group of people interested in helping community voices influence climate and environmental policy in Edinburgh. Whether you have experience in policy or simply care about what happens in your neighbourhood, we’d love to hear your ideas!
Universal Basic Income for Farmers: Explore the campaign for a basic income for farmers and find out how you can get involved in the conversation about the future of farming and food production.
Could Edinburgh go car-free for the Tour de France in 2027? With the Tour de France coming to Edinburgh in 2027, there’s an opportunity to explore what a car-free city centre could look like. Find out more about the proposal and how you can share your views.
💚 Let’s keep the conversations going!
One of the best things about our Assemblies is getting people together who might not otherwise have the chance to meet, and hearing about the different ways people are working to support their communities.
We hope the conversations and connections made yesterday will continue beyond the Assembly, and we’d love to hear about any collaborations or ideas that come out of the day.
If you didn’t get a chance to share something during the Town Hall, or have an event, project, opportunity or request for support you’d like us to help spread the word about, please email communications@eccan.scot.
We’ll continue sharing news and opportunities through our website, newsletter and social media.
🍻 Keeping the conversations going: People, Planet, Pint
The conversations didn’t stop when the Assembly finished! We headed over to The Auld Hoose for a People, Planet, Pint meetup, giving everyone a chance to carry on chatting and connecting in a more informal setting.
A big thank you to Eirini for organising the meetup and to The Auld Hoose for hosting us! We hope everyone who came along had a great evening.
📣 Join us for our AGM on 23rd November!
Our next opportunity to come together is ECCAN’s AGM on Monday 23rd November, from 6pm to 7:30pm, online.
As a member-led network, it’s important that our members are at the heart of our decisions and future direction. The AGM is an opportunity to reflect on the past year, hear what’s ahead, ask questions and have your say in how ECCAN is run.
We’d love as many members as possible to join us!
📝 We’d love your feedback!
Unfortunately, the feedback survey link we shared at the end of the day wasn’t working, so apologies for that! If you were there then we’d still really appreciate hearing your thoughts on the Assembly, what worked well and what you’d like to see at future gatherings.
We’ll also be sharing photographs and footage from yesterday as soon as we can - thanks to Carlos Hernandez for documenting the day.
Finally, thank you to everyone who came along and contributed to the day, to Jason, Jess and our workshop facilitators, and to the wonderful team at Greyfriars Charteris Centre for hosting us. We look forward to following up on the ideas and connections that came out of the Assembly and to reconnecting with some of you at our upcoming AGM!
Until next time,
The ECCAN team 🌱