Allan Dickson

Part of the heritage at home initiative The Wellington Trust runs lectures on historical subjects. Members of the Society take a look at their favorate items.

Culture and Heritage discussion panel Culture and heritage was the focus of the economic recovery discussion panel last week hosted by the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce. With the panel representing a broad spectrum of the Sector including Colin Marr Director Edinburgh Playhouse, Julia Amour Director Edinburgh Festivals, Benny Higgins Chair National Galleries of Scotland and

Today is Merchant Navy day, a day that recognises the brave men and women that kept Britain afloat during 2 world wars and acknowledges the dependence the UK has on modern day merchant seafarers for more than 90% of our imports. Across the country various public, government and other organisations show their support for the

Its time for another update of what’s happening onboard the SS Explorer, with the 3rd of our quarterly Technical Bulletins. As you can imagine with Covid 19 there’s still not much happening on the ship itself. However we are getting ready to be able to open the ship to our volunteers again so work can

Last month on our blog I posted about what the Society was doing to be able to open again to our volunteers for work onboard as Covid lockdown measures have eased. That work is still in progress as equipment is being purchased and how we work and socialise during the working day is having to change.

The Historic Ship conference, organised by The Royal Institution of Naval Architects, takes places every 2 years and is a significant part of the historic ships event calendar bringing together owners, operators, academics and industry specialists. The conferences started in 2007 and this will be the 7th conference. Research paper abstract approved. The Society recently

A total of 13 historic ships were awarded funds from the National Historic Ships UK Small grant fund this month. Grants ranged from £300 to £1000 and were for work including a new shower pod to removal of engines and cleaning bilges. The ships also ranged from 1886 – 1960 and the Ross Revenge and

As the Covid 19 lockdown measures are eased the Society is looking forward to reopening the ship. In order to do that a risk assessment has been carried out to ensure the Society can provide an environment where the risks of Covid 19 have been reduced to as low as reasonably practical. Initially the SS

Day of the seafarer 2020, the theme seafarers are key workers.  We would like to say a thank you to all seafarers today for everything they are doing to keep the global supply chain operating, delivering medical supplies, food, fuel PPE and more which we need on a daily basis. We understand that many seafarers

The team at the SS Explorer has distributed our first press release of 2020. The release covers our recent regional flagship award from National Historic Ships UK. We send out a draft to a number of stakeholders and received some positive comments for inclusion into the final release.  “This is the first time the SS

The SS Explorer Preservation Society is taking part in the first online Summer STEM Academy, along with a number of other businesses and academic institutions. The Academy normally runs for a few days in Glasgow and Edinburgh each year and provides and opportunity for Students and Teachers to take part in activities designed to make

Today is World Oceans day. An initiative started in 1992 to show people how they could help raise awareness and protect our Oceans.  For decades various marine research organisations around the globe have and continue to carry out vital work in understanding the issues, how they affect our oceans and what can be done. For

As a charity the SS Explorer Preservation Society relies totally upon all of you, our amazing volunteers. We would not be where we are today if it were not for all the work put in over so many years by our group of volunteers. That includes those who volunteer off the ship as well, work

The team on the SS Explorer are happy to announce that we have been named as the Regional Flag ship for Scotland East in this years National Historic Ships UK 2020 Flag ship Awards.  The awards usually reflects the cruising programme or visitor numbers of each craft. Instead, for the first time, applications were open

Our historic ship visitor attraction  needs your help. In my deputy chair’s message last month I mentioned the Society was working on ways that our members and volunteers could continue to help and support the SS Explorer during lock down. Please click to watch my short appeal video below to learn how you can help.

Today the Society launches its first school at home learning sheet, this is aimed at early primary and we hope will keep children busy for a little while with something educational but will a bit of a difference. There are 3 activities on the sheet, a word search, a counting activity and a picture to

Members of the society recently took part in the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce’s first virtual pub quiz. The team, Explorer Enthusiasts, managed to score a reasonable 77 points through the 7 round quiz. Although we would have benefited from a younger member or 2 on the team with some of the more modern music and

Today as part of museumfromhome and heritagefromhome the SS Explorer is virtually open to the public. Look through our website and find out more about this unique historic ship and piece of heritage engineering. Watch some of the ex crew members talk about their time onboard the ship, see her in action carrying out research

This quarters update on whats been going technically with the society.

Work on the historic ship PS Waverly continues slowly as the new boilers and upgrades to the electrical systems take place. Last year the vessel had to be taken out of service due to problems with its boilers. A huge charity appeal was undertaken to raise the funds required to replace the boiler which weren’t