Page 84 - Microsoft Word - Guiding light final version 0839 1106.doc

It also reported on a new EU directive on seat belts in coaches with a fine of up to £2500 where an operator fails, and a lower fine up to £500 if the driver fails, to provide the necessary notification about wearing them.
When Pat Blain was chair in 2008 she reported in Capital Quips that Carlton Hill had been closed to coaches as the result result of a coach reversing into a pallet of stone and more stone having to be ordered at extra expense.
The branch also produced Capital Info which provided guides with useful information about Edinburgh attractions and restaurants.
However the advent of Facebook changed the way guides communicated and now most information is exchanged between members on the internet.
One of the functions of the association is to represent the interests of members on issues that might affect them and in 2013 the Edinburgh branch committee and the national STGA Board were involved in lobbying Edinburgh city council on its proposal to stop traffic along parts of the Canongate.
In the end the council decided not to stop traffic but in 2019 it introduced an experimental ban on traffic on sections of the Royal Mile and the issue is far from closed.
In 2017 the branch organised a series of walking tours to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the New Town in association with the Edinburgh Tourism Action Group and Essential Edinburgh.
Edinburgh’s Georgian Shadows Walking Tours attracted over 900 visitors and forged links with key tourism organisations in Edinburgh as well as some local businesses.
The tours initiative also won a place in the regional finals of the Scottish Thistle Awards. The following year the branch ran another series of walks to help promote a marketing campaign focusing on 100 objects which played a part in the history of `Edinburgh.
A regular topic of conversation for guides over the decades has been about the provision of public toilets and in 2019 things came to a head in Edinburgh following a series of closures and the banning of coach parties using the Holyrood Palace toilets when they were not actually visiting it.
As a result the Edinburgh branch set up a committee to compile a list of toilets guests could use in the city but they also lobbied the city council about the lack of public conveniences.
The first International Tourist Guiding Day event in Scotland in 1989 when Ros Newlands, then Edinburgh branch chair, and Pat Dishon took
senior figures on a tour of the city.
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