The Donside Hydro is Aberdeen’s first community energy scheme and one of the most exciting community renewable projects in the country. By creating 100% clean, renewable energy, it gives the people of Aberdeen – a renowned global energy city – the opportunity to be part of Scotland’s journey towards 100% renewable electricity by 2020. In return, the scheme will generate money that can be spent on improving its riverside location and neighbouring communities.

More importantly the scheme is both owned and led by the Donside Village community, located in the north of Aberdeen. In this sense, the Donside Hydro is about more than just the environment and local economies. It is about a shared ambition and the spirit of the people of the north east. And, it’s about a sense of pride in the local area.

This is of course similar to other community schemes elsewhere in Scotland, including Applecross and Braemar. Both of which bring together a sense of passion and the natural surroundings to deliver social, environmental and economic benefits to the local area and beyond.

What is it?
The Donside Community Association (DCA) secured all the required permissions to build the Donside Hydro on the site of the former Donside Papermill in Tillydrone, Aberdeen, in 2014. As a result, a community benefit society called Aberdeen Community Energy (ACE) was set up to own, develop and operate the scheme on behalf of the community.

The scheme will work by drawing water from the River Don and passing it over an Archimedean screw turbine, turning the water into clean, renewable electricity, which will be sold to the national grid. It will be based on a Barrage hydro scheme layout by raising the water level to be diverted into a turbine, without obstructing the river like a dam or weir.

Surplus profits from the initiative will then be channelled into a community fund that will be used to achieve an array of social and environmental benefits for local communities. Each year the hydro is set to generate enough electricity to power 130 homes and many thousands of pounds towards community initiatives. It will also deliver an annual reduction of 240 tonnes of CO2.

ACE is working closely with members of the nearby communities and recently held a community gathering event to identify priorities for the community fund and how it could be used to make positive and sustainable differences to the local area and local lives.

Local, ethical investment opportunity
The project is currently on track to begin development on the River Don in May 2016 and ACE will be launching a Community Share Offer over the next few weeks, offering an ethical, low-risk investment opportunity to everyone. Investors from the local community, the wider Aberdeen area and indeed the country can expect a healthy return on their investment.

ACE is also inviting conversations with businesses and individuals who may be interested in supporting the initiative financially, as either a lender or investor.

You can keep up to date with the project and find out more about investment opportunities by visiting us online.

ACEnergy.org.uk
www.facebook.com/ACEnergy2016
twitter.com/ACEnergy2016

Sinclair Laing, Founding Director of Aberdeen Community Energy / Founding Member of Donside Community Association.

So that’s what a CharrettePlus feels like!  While this blog covers only Cupar, many of the issues are common to Scotland’s Small Towns, as we know from the BEFS report.  The BEFS visit to Cupar and the subsequent report on the town inspired the creation of the Cupar Development Trust which then raised the funds to employ PAS to deliver the exercise.

The Corn Exchange, a central venue in town, hosted the consultations, which took place from the evening of Thursday March 17 to the afternoon of Sunday March 20. But the work had started weeks in advance.  That preparatory work was evident on the first evening, when pupils from Cupar’s Bell Baxter High School, St Columba’s Primary, Castlehill Primary, and Kilmaron Special School, kick-started the public consultation process with a string of ideas which challenged all of us to see the town from the perspective of its younger citizens.  Their thoughts were echoed by a strong message from Cupar’s Youth Cafe, which has customers from out-of-town as well.  It is encouraging that this generation is alive to Cupar’s heritage, its open spaces and its “small town vibe”.

Cupar benefits from the Howe of Fife Rugby Club’s ambitious development at their ground, to be available for other sports clubs who will have the chance to improve their specific facilities.  But the young presenters wanted better facilities for casual, unsupervised, ball games as well, and had identified the park at Ladyinch as an area to fence, and keep clear of dogs.  Not a huge project.  The pupils suggested also re-opening the toilet block in the Haugh Park as a community cafe and finding somewhere to create a small cinema facility and a “family cafe”, to both of which they could go  “without our parents having to drive us out of town”.  These would be a boon for the parents too – but it was clear that what the nine and ten-year olds were asking for was a town in which they could have a bit of freedom and independence at a time when, so sadly, there are reasons for parents to worry about their safety.

Another proposed project, small-scale, but high-impact for those who would benefit, was a plea from Kilmaron Special School for better access to the town centre by simple improvements to things like the pavements and crossings that challenge them on their journeys.  We hear that the inspired staff have already made progress on the pavements and kerbs, and are now attacking the question of access to buildings, including the town’s Library, and the upper floor of the Corn Exchange (a theatre and event space, above the space where all these discussions were taking place).

More ambitiously, the pupils from Bell Baxter and the primary schools agreed with the BEFS comments on the lack of a hotel, and both the former Police Station site at the western gateway to the town, and the former Reekies’ site at its southern gateway, were suggested.

All that I have mentioned so far arose from the Thursday evening session alone.  Obviously, not all would survive to be included in the plan – “CuparCould” – to be developed on the Sunday afternoon – but what a start!

On the Friday, three structured workshops were held – and were well attended.  The topics were Enterprise, Conservation & Community, and Creativity & Innovation.  Many of the issues raised that first evening came up again – and again – including the benefits of Cupar’s heritage, the problems of access to the town centre, and the need to attract outsiders to Cupar’s independent businesses.   A “quick win” would be improved signage.  A medium term target could be positioning Cupar as an exemplary “21st Century Market Town”.  Making Cupar a destination in its own right, with visitor facilities as well as increased independent retail and service business offerings, was a strong theme throughout.

The CARS and THI schemes already under way were welcomed, as was Fife Council’s project for Cupar’s ancient Closes.  The opportunities for re-use of the former Town Chambers and the County Buildings were noted, as were Cupar Development Trust’s aspirations for re-development of “Inner Court”, the area bounded by Bonnygate, Crossgate and Kirk Wynd.  It was hoped that one outcome of CARS/THI would be improved maintenance of town centre buildings and a fresher face for the town.  The Bonnygate “Missing Tooth” needed an early solution.  Many constructive suggestions were put forward, and it was clear that the PAS team and its Volunteers would have a major task pulling them all together by close of play on the Sunday.

During the day, we were visited by Marco Biagi MSP, the outgoing (and retiring) Minister for Local Government & Community Empowerment.  He heard from Bell Baxter and St Columba’s pupils and, movingly, from Kilmaron Special School on the problems of access to the town.

Before moving on to “Connecting the Ideas”, Saturday had one structured workshop – on Travel, Transport & Moving Around.  Cupar is blessed with ample parking and good rail and bus links – but little signage to guide those arriving.  It was agreed that Cupar needs to improve its cycling and walking routes to its compact town centre.  There was no shortage of ideas, only a few of which find space in this brief report.

The Sunday afternoon session was dedicated to pulling ideas together, summarising possibilities and preparing the first stages of a plan for delivery.  Artists’ impressions were available to comment on, and a presentation was shown several times as the audience changed during the afternoon.  The presentation included the first draft of a new logo for the town, and potential slogans to assist in presenting the town to visitors, home seekers, and businesses potentially relocating to the town, as well as exploring some of the specific improvement ideas.

The individual workshops were well attended, and there was a steady flow of drop-in visitors all four days.  There is clearly a lot of interest in the town in exploring possibilities for improvement, and members of established Cupar groups attended the workshops, expressing the intention of pulling together to this end.  Follow-up work is in full swing, preparing for an open public meeting on the evening of 21 April, when the enthusiastic input to the CharrettePlus will have been corralled into a forward plan for implementing the vision for Cupar as seen by contributors over the four days.

That event and its outcomes will be the subject of my April blog.  In the meantime, do visit  www.cuparcould.com Twitter (@cuparcould), Instagram (@cuparcould) and Facebook (facebook.com/cuparcould).

Promoting equal opportunities to disadvantaged communities is at the heart of the work we deliver. As the largest Regional Equality Council in Scotland, West of Scotland Regional Equality Council (WSREC) has a vision of ‘an inclusive society free from discrimination’. Working primarily with minority ethnic groups across a range of ‘protected characteristics’ our delivery is the same regardless of our project; our focus is on building links, supporting community conversations and bridging the gap between services. Scotland is more diverse than it has ever been and it is important to record and celebrate the diversity that will one day become another’s heritage.

WSREC was thrilled, when asked to tell our story at the BEFS event partly due to the recognition that as an organisation we value heritage and cultural diversity and also because this was an opportunity for us to showcase our work, build networks and form further partnerships with the heritage sector.

My usual impressions, when attending these types of events is that many of the individuals representing a sector, who are looking to diversify services, are of a white middle class demographic. This was the case at the BEFS event, however I was impressed that it was addressed frequently throughout and the issue was not ignored like the big elephant in the corner.
The speakers on the day were inspiring and the main theme, I noted, was that heritage policy should not be made in the interest of specific groups but that all backgrounds and buildings should be valued. Also, in hindsight, the fact that I was there as a representative of initiatives, which are funded by the heritage sector to engage with disadvantaged communities, means that steps are being made to ensure inclusivity.

The table discussions further helped me gauge how close different sectors were in getting it right and also how far removed individuals were in identifying the communities that they should be engaging in. The success of our delivery is mainly due to the individuals that we employ to advocate on behalf of our service users. We call them ‘community champions’ and whether they join us on a paid or voluntary basis is irrelevant. They have knowledge of the community that we are supporting and have inside information on how to market, deliver and provide linguistic and cultural support. An example of this would be recruiting volunteers from a number of minority ethnic communities to record migrant oral histories for our ‘Stepping into Diversity’ project funded through Heritage Lottery Fund. Without the means of identifying community ambassadors and having in-depth knowledge of cultural background; the impact of the project may not have been as successful. This highlights the need of employing ‘community champions’ from diverse disadvantaged communities to promote the advancement of services, which are accessible to all regardless of their background.

Similarly, with our Roots Scotland project funded through Historic Environment Scotland, we are working with delivery partners outwith the West of Scotland to ensure our service reaches a wider audience. We recognise that effective partnership is vital to reach out and engage with communities and this message was understood when addressing the table discussion questions. Concurrent themes emerged from the three table discussions that took place that day. These were that groups were keen to diversify their services however; they needed further understanding on how to mainstream equalities and reach out to communities that were not currently accessing services.

So, the need to engage is there, but how? The answer is simple really; to engage, you must involve. The heritage sector needs to be proactive in building networks with community group organisations/representatives. Steps need to be taken to ensure that governance and other decision making policies include members from all ‘protected characteristics’.

Could this be in the form of setting up an Equality Network Forum with ‘community champions’ from diverse communities identifying need and impact of delivery? Would active engagement be supported by diversifying the heritage sector to promote employment opportunities for individuals from diverse backgrounds? Could it simply be the case that the heritage sector need to build links with organisations like WSREC who offer bespoke equality and diversity training to organisations? This would, capacity build and develop skills for effective marketing, outreach and engagement with hard to reach communities?

The BEFS event was hopefully the first step of many within the heritage sector to promote equality and diversity. Scotland is known for welcoming and celebrating diversity. We just need to be sure that this diversity is an integral part of future heritage for others to enjoy.

Ghzala Khan, Projects Manager at the West of Scotland Regional Equality Council.

In 2013 outside the Knightsridge Adventure Project (The Vennie) a group of young skateboarders aged around 13-14 years old, were using the disabled ramp that led into the youth club, as a platform to perform tricks on their boards. This went on every day after school, relentlessly. One day the skaters decided to speak with the Centre Coordinator, Tom Heron, to ask if there was a possibility that one day they could have a Skate park built at the Vennie. At that time there was a large investment in new equipment at the Adventure Park and also drainage work completed on the football pitches, so the likelihood of finding further investment funding seemed somewhat remote.

The main philosophy and ethos about the Vennie is very much to get the local community involved and on board with our work. We hold community BBQs 2-3 times per year and this allows the community to come to the youth club and meet staff and see the work of their young people. It is also attended at times by local and national politicians. It was during one of these BBQs that Tom introduces the young skaters to one of the Councillors from the multi member ward and that’s where the conversation took place about the possibility of creating a Skate-park.

The Councillor took the idea forward to a Council funding panel and was able to put forward the Skaters idea. There happened to be an underspend in a particular area of funding and it was also coming to the end of the financial year and he was able to secure the funding to build a skate-park for these young people. Was this a stroke of luck or fate?

The Skaters took it upon themselves to do a sponsored skate which raised £113. Thinking this would add weight and strength to their proposal and contribute financially to their project.

Council officers then contacted the Vennie to come and meet the young people with a touch of apprehension and uncertainty. Knightsridge measured highly on the SIMD and had a fairly bad reputation for troublesome young people, territorialism, underage drinking, gang fights etc. So a somewhat different environment as to what the officers were used to.

After the initial meeting some of the Council officers got back to me to comment on the articulacy and politeness of the young people they had met and how pleasantly surprised they were, as they were expecting something very different. They then arranged for the young people to meet with the architects and contractors. The young people designed the Skate-park the way they wanted it to be so that it ‘flowed’. They took work home with them to speed up the process, and submitted their new drawings to architects. Eventually everything was agreed and the contractors were on site. The young people used to come round every day after school to inspect the construction work (almost like the old clerk of works) just to ‘keep an eye on things’.

The day came that the Skate-park was opened. Skaters came from all around to skate this new park.

Over a year later we were approached by Historic Scotland to see if we would be interested in taking part in a new initiative called Scotland’s Urban Past (S.U.P.).  After consultations with young people they decided to make a film about the process and outcomes on how they got their Skate-park. This was a magnificent piece of work with stories being told by young people and real footage of them actually performing on the ‘Skatey’ itself.

Working with SUP and creating the film has allowed us to tell the story of the Skate-park to a wider audience, because of their professionalism, expertise, knowledge and connections in the field. We would not have been able to do this on our own.

A short period of time passed when we were approached by BEFS to ask if we would like to take part in the Heritage and Diversity conference/workshop, held at the Hub in Edinburgh. We gratefully agreed but not fully knowing what we had agreed to be involved in. We also welcomed the invitation, as it was another platform to tell our story about the Vennie Youth Club and some of the valuable work it produces.

A young person from the film, Kenny Davis and Coordinator Tom Heron went along to represent the Vennie at the event. It was a bit strange to begin with and mildly intimidating, especially when we heard some of the voices which were in a slightly more upper class tone than we were accustomed.  It got us thinking (and worrying) if we were slightly out of our depth and what could we possibly offer to this environment and audience of people?  Would any one want to hear our story? We must be on the periphery…surely.

However, our minds were put more at ease as we spoke to some staff from BEFS and we got more of a picture as to how things would pan put for the day. We were particularly impressed and indeed inspired by the speakers which added to our understanding of the ‘Built Environment’.  As the workshops began and we were able to tell our story about the Skate-park people were very receptive, responsive and inquisitive about the processes involved in the project.

As the day moved on we became more confident and were able to facilitate better to suit our audience. We were also able to physically show our film during break times so that people could understand more about the piece of work we had spoken about. We received some really positive feedback both from the table discussions and the shown film.

When we started our journey developing ideas and creating a Skate-park, we would not be thinking of the built environment or our culture or history. We were just a group of young people who wanted to do something for ourselves, but also be creative and build something that we were passionate about and would have a lasting legacy. The park is as good today as it was when it was built. Young people guard and watch over it in a manner that tells you that this belongs to us, this is our contribution to our culture, and this is our built environment.

Our impressions of the conference were magnificent, one of the best conferences/workshops that we have had the pleasure to attend. From having the feelings of what can we offer this environment to learning by the end of the conference that we are very much smack bang in the heart of it.

Tom Heron and Kenny Davis, from Knightsridge Adventure Project, The Vennie Skatepark.

During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries the value of heritage has shifted in two main ways. Firstly, what is considered to have heritage value has changed and secondly, who can ascribe value has been extended. If we take the what and the who as markers of diversity then we can see a gradual, if complex and contested, shift within the heritage sector. Firstly, the notion of what is of value has shifted both temporally and also in the type of historic assets that are afforded official value, most notably with the protection of the Tinker’s Heart in 2015. This recognition of the quartz stones in Argyll and Bute was the latest example of a sector that, after much contestation, has diversified the kinds of things that can have heritage value. If we go further back the idea of providing legislative protection to a nineteenth-century industrial building, or as they were famously known, the ‘satanic mills’, was not really considered until the late 1960s at the earliest. The Granton gasholder, designated Category B in 1998, is one such example of this shift in thinking. The what category is thus largely accepted within the heritage profession as a necessary element for the evolution of the sector, particularly as more recent structures assume significance such as the replica Georgian building at 114-116 George Street, Edinburgh built in 1992 and listed in 1996.

As a recent edition of Context showed the who question however is much more complex and represents the greatest current challenge to the heritage sector. This is not simply a question of diversifying who can get involved with heritage but rather necessitates a desire to re-conceptualise what is of value. Take the Tinker’s Heart example again. Here an impassioned group of people fought for their heritage to be recognised. Or take the Southbank Undercroft in London. This area, self-styled as the “world’s oldest surviving skateboard spot”, is not listed despite the fact the historic value of the site became the tagline – ‘You Can’t Move History. You Can Secure the Future’ – behind the successful campaign to prevent its loss as a result of the planned expansion of the Southbank Centre. These powerful connections to the history of the site as expressed by generations of skaters were remarked upon by Historic England as they realised that “communal heritage values can emerge and become as powerful as more formal architectural or historic ones”.

These were connections that did not rest solely within the historic building but more in the relationship between the skaters and the historic space: the practice was as important as the physical structure. This is tricky for the heritage sector as this relationship could not be surveyed or unlocked through traditional desk-based research but rather was expressed through social media and unlocked through a dedicated research project. These were powerful expressions of why generations of skaters both held, and felt compelled to express their heritage values. If we are to truly understand why the historic environment is valuable then these kinds of voices have to be heard, not just in the designation of historic assets, but in understanding how the everyday routines of different groups of people are inextricably connected to the historic aspects of places within which we work, live and play.

Perhaps, in the context of diversity within the heritage sector, the question is not what is of value, nor who can ascribe value but where else is expertise located? Re-framing it in this way enables us to consider that other forms of knowledge exist both within and outwith the sector. The Tinker’s Heart and the Southbank Undercroft provided a challenge to the sector because they relied heavily on people outwith the sector and without any formal heritage training to identify and explain the heritage value of these sites. If, as the Historic Environment Strategy document suggests, “Scotland’s historic environment is the physical evidence for human activity that connects people with place, linked with the associations we can see, feel and understand” then the logical progression is to develop mechanisms that can recognise that these associations sometimes can only be identified and explained by the very people who ‘see’, ‘feel’ and ‘understand’ them. This is not to say that existing expertise within the sector should be replaced, far from it, but that it should remain an integral aspect within an evolving heritage sector. The progressive re-definition of the historic environment to focus on ‘connections’ and ‘associations’ within the Strategy and the designation of Tinker’s Heart signal a shift in both rhetoric and reality. The challenge now is to harness this energy so the sector can continue to evolve its understanding of the plurality of values that different people hold for different historic places.

Scotland’s Travelling People have been around longer than history portrays. I am a Traveller, and although not in the sense of ‘travelling the old roads as my family did in the past’, I still feel that sense of identity, of belonging to the seeds of my ancestors.

As a child I dreamt of one day becoming a writer.  Sadly, when a child is raised within the system of keeping certain threads of the community down, it seemed destined to belong in the realm of dreams.  Yet there’s an old saying, “if you wish hard enough…dreams can come true.”

Not actually as magical as it sounds because I did not just go to bed one night and get up an author. Aged 50, still clinging to my dream, I joined a writers group, took computer lessons and dribbled my memories onto paper; gingerly whispering my little tales as a wanderer’s child, living with a large family in a bus, to the other members of our writers’ group. They enjoyed, encouraged and insisted I send my work off to another reader, or in my case, ‘listener.’  He was an ex-editor of Scot’s Magazine and he liked my work. My story was about a child’s journey, my life as a Scottish Traveller. The publisher read my passion and accepted my manuscript. My journey had begun again. Dreams do come true.

A waterfall of words, memories and a girl to woman tale allowed for three autobiographical books.

Stories hidden in the throats of old Travellers filled the next book, a collection that would live on rather than face the grave. Scotland cannot afford to lose her threads of myths and legends no matter who holds them sacred.

Wars leave women folk in desperate situations, Travellers also fought and died for their country, therefore, I needed to write for them. A novel followed on from these sentiments. I wrote book six for historical reasons, to find as much of the truth as I possibly could unearth, a factual collection to educate the prevailing ignorance about the culture.

As an author, I talk to various organizations. I met a lady at one of the talks who told me about the state of the Tinker’s Heart.

I was stunned and ashamed. Stunned by the neglect and ashamed that for years I had never visited the site; after all it was our only monument, our sacred site of white quartz stones positioned on the road, the old junction.  Traveller’s married there, parents carried newborn to be christened and brokenhearted people took their dead to be blessed.  It had survived centuries, never moving or being dislodged. This is what happens when a place remains on the landscape. We take it for granted; never miss the water until the well runs dry, so to speak.It was at one of these talks (Sandbank near Dunoon) when an elderly lady informed me that our little monument was under threat; The Tinker’s Heart of Argyll, at the old junction with Hell’s Glen and the A815 road, was covered with dung and trampled by cattle.  There’s a new road that runs alongside, sending the old junction into a field.

As I stood on the spot overlooking loch Fyne a chill wind blew through my bones. I was left with one determined thought, “we need to get this old heart beating again!” So, I enquired as to who owned the land on which the now defunct crossroads lies and contacted them. I wrote letters but received no replies. I also went to the local group Here We Are, who refused to help but did, however, erect a cage around the stones and cleaned them up.

Locals had known of the heart for generations, so I began a search for the origins of the site. I heard various stories; one was repeated – that some of the fallen from Culloden were remembered by grieving families, who put in place the white quartz stones. In the far off past, Travellers were known as Cairds; they were connected to clans so maybe this could well be the case.

I approached Historic Scotland, who refused to help, stating the stones had been moved. We had to prove this was not so. They then said, “Stones didn’t meet their criteria”. In the 1920s Lady George Campbell would not allow tar to be laid on the stones due to its sacristy.

MSP Mike Russell then came on board. Nothing was working in our favour, so we went with a Parliament Petition; over 1000 signatures and a successful meeting with the petitions committee gave a new vigor to the campaign. Historic Scotland proceeded to change their criteria regarding Travellers, and on 18^th June 2015 they scheduled the Tinker’s Heart as a ‘National Monument’.

I set out to protect a sacred site; little did I realize that Scotland needed educating in the ways of a tiny minority of her people.

No matter who we are, where we come from, we all matter…we all count.

Jess Smith

I want to take this opportunity to talk about Euan’s Guide from a user perspective. By doing this I hope it will help to unfold the link between a modern 21st century website and the history, archeology and buildings of the past.

Let’s go on a journey…

If asked I would describe Euan’s Guide as a powerful and empowering tool for many disabled people, their families and friends.

You see for me it’s simple:

For me to do what I want to do, in the way I choose to do it I rely on the support of other people. A PA facilitates and enables me on my adventures. So people are very important in my independence.

I don’t just exist in a box and so it’s important for me to be able to get out and about. To visit the places I want to go but also the places I need to go. So in my world places are very important.

Thirdly, possibilities are an important part of my life. I like to think that anything is possible. You see it’s like this – I may not actually do something but it’s a great feeling to know that I could if I wanted to. That’s what I meant by possibilities.

For me to take part in community life and to enjoy many of the things others take for granted I need people, I need to know about the places I can go, and I like to be aware of the possibilities open to me.

The obvious question is where does Euan’s Guide fit? Let me continue my journey with you.

I started using Euan’s Guide to find out about the places I wanted to, or sometimes imagined I might like to, go. It was great to be able to get more details than just a wheelchair symbol or the curious statement of “disabled facilities” or “wheelchair accessible with assistance” – not that helpful to me.

It’s not just for me, as I could find out about places that were going to be welcoming for my friends. Friends like Ian and Kev who are visually impaired or Phil who is deaf.

Often Euan’s Guide reviewers talk about the experience on a people level – what were the staff like, what happened when you rolled up. Tips on what to look out for, ways to go, what to ask for. To many people they sound like small things but for me they make the difference whether I can make and enjoy a visit.

To be able to read what another powerchair user has written about visiting the Riverside Museum in Glasgow, going on a History walk here on the Royal Mile, or staying for a break in an old croft are a very empowering experience for me.

You see these are all places I had a fear of visiting as I didn’t know what might happen; Euan calls this the “fear of the unknown”. I am happy to report that as a direct result of reading what others had written on Euan’s Guide I’ve done all of these things! and some I’ll do again; perhaps not in the cold and wet of February though!!!

So you see, Euan’s Guide; for me has opened doors. But there’s more…

The places people visit get great feedback. Often they don’t know how good the experience they offer is. The museum that had a wheelchair height display book that I loved, the old tower house that offered me a video link to browse the inaccessible rooms and the curator who brought exhibits out from beyond the barriers for my visually impaired pal to touch and explore.

For me as a disabled person it was striking to watch the progress as the website was growing from grass roots of disabled people and venues working together and felt good. It’s driven by disabled people helping disabled people.

Here was the gift of spontaneity, in that I could take out my smartphone, open Euan’s Guide and press the ‘near by me’ button. I could see where to grab a coffee, find places I wanted to visit, and decide a visit would work for me. I could visit towns I didn’t know so well, if at all! I could find new places and I could feel part of my community.

That’s what I mean by empowering. It’s a great time in that we are seeing the coming together of so many technologies in a way that is enabling people. For Euan’s Guide it’s the availability of mobile data and wifi, the ability of GPS services to pin point where I am, and of course the many places that list and share their access information. Sometimes a permanent building, often a pop up place like an event or exhibition.

At last there’s a disabled access information web site that works fantastically well with my speech controlled computer or Ian’s laptop that reads to him or Euan’s eye controlled Tobbii. There’s a companion app that goes on the road with me and works to help me find places, tell me what I need to know, and is very much a working tool.

I want to end by sharing an ambition … I want Scotland to redraw the map, to call out communities, to people and get them involved in reviewing what’s in their local area and to share the access information they find. It doesn’t have to be complicated and could be as simple as telling people their local store has an accessible loo, the bank has level access or the archeological dig has an accessible viewing platform.

I want to extend this to imagine that the rich history of Scotland’s buildings, stories and places can be shared with everyone by opening up doors to disabled people.

Can you help Euan, me and my friends achieve that?