School of Health & Wellbeing

In her latest update, SHW community engagement coordinator Susan Grant updates us on Byres Hub activity in the last part of 2023 and launches our Christmas Foodbank Appeal

Clarice Pears opening film ‘Tackling Health Inequalities’ 

It gives me great pleasure to share the latest film about The School of Health and Wellbeing made by External Relations during our official building opening in September. The opening was a wonderful way to thank the Pears Foundation and the other donors who have supported the building. We are enormously grateful to all of the community group representatives at the event and those who feature in this film: Leanne McBride, Chance2Change; Barbara Oliver, Volunteer Tutors Association; Kay Ritchie and The Scribblers; Florence Dioka Central and West Integration Network. 

Please view the film here: Tackling health inequalities | World Changing Giving - YouTube 

 

Hub Monday's

Hub Mondays take place from 10am-12pm and include an optional tour of Clarice Pears and Byres Hub at 10.30am. They are bringing people together to share ideas, support one another and network.   

A member of the public said:

It’s a great idea and very good support for the communities.'

Everyone is welcome whether you are new to the hub, or familiar with the Clarice Pears building. This is dedicated time for members of the public and representatives of voluntary and statutory organisations to see the facilities and make links with our School. For university staff it can be difficult to take time out but Hub Monday is time well spent as staff have told me that connecting with people from outside of their speciality and especially outside of the university really reminds them of the importance of the work they are doing and inspires them to continue to reduce the inequalities experienced by the most marginalised communities.  

We hope for Hub Mondays to continue to grow and support more knowledge exchange and skill sharing in Byres Hub and to help make connections between community and research.  We will introduce some themed hub Mondays which will include a short talk and open discussion in the new year and are probably going to move to running every two weeks.  We are going to test out this format on Monday 27th November with General Practice and Primary Care’s Dr Shona MacKinnon who will talk about her own career path to School of Health and Wellbeing, what a Clinical Academic is, GPs at the Deep End, and the importance of community collaboration in research.  And on Monday 4^th December we will discuss the Glasgow Science Festival 2023 SHW community event. Susan Grant welcomes all input into starting to think through our community event next year following Feel Good Future in 2023 ahead of proposals needing to be in by 15th January. We would welcome proposals from community or university on forthcoming themes for Hub Mondays.  A special thank you to community volunteer Jaswinder Bedi for all your help and encouragement in getting Hub Mondays off the ground and to all our fantastic hub volunteers.  

A Hub Volunteer said:

It was very informative.  I volunteered myself and am very excited for future sessions.'

 

 Festival of Social Science: Wellbeing across the Generations  

Over 300 attended the University’s community day as part of the ESRC’s Festival of Social Science on Saturday 4th November including Glasgow’s First Citizen, The Lord Provost, Councillor Jacqueline McLaren.  The programme included workshops, talks, walking tours, and lots of really engaging pop ups in collaboration with research partners.  Many School of Health and Wellbeing researchers were involved and Laura Macdonald has shared her experience of being involved in the Festival in this SPSHU blog, please find it here.  

Thank you to The College of Social Science for bringing this event to Byres Hub, it was great to partner with you to deliver.  Please find a link to FoSS Playlist here where you can find videos about the day. A new film about the day is soon to be added.

 

Engagement in Byres Hub

The Festival was one of several events we as a community engagement team have helped to organise, host and facilitate in the past month for external partners. Providing the space and support to external organisations for health and wellbeing focused events has brought new audiences into Clarice Pears and from communities across Glasgow such as the Maryhill Integration Network and The Poverty Alliance’s ‘Rights in Action’ exhibition event in October where an audience of around 50 people were treated to poetry in native languages or Govanhill Community Newsroom’s ‘Mind the Gap: Health Inequalities’ event.  

We had visitors from across Scotland during the Scottish Communities for Health and Wellbeing ‘Big Get Together’ on 13th November where 60 staff and volunteers from healthy living centres came together to take part in a wide variety of workshops around community-led health and presentations including from The Scottish Government on their Place and Wellbeing programme, The SPRING Social Prescribing project and Glasgow Caledonian University and Glasgow Centre for Population Health’s Common Health Assets project.  The venue was commended especially on its accessibility from attendees.  

These events have showcased local solutions, celebrated culture, and promoted equality.  They have included poetry readings by New Scots at and young musicians from a youth group in Castlemilk entertaining volunteers and visitors at the Festival of Social Science community event. They have highlighted that lived experience is the most powerful way to really bring understanding of an issue this is shown in the Chance2Change (C2C) film about digital exclusion they screened during The Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival.  Please find a link to the ‘Going Digital’ film here.

We are seeing follow up from events with attendees reaching out to Byres Hub to book meeting space for the organisations they represent adding to the busy list of bookings, with new groups such as the Scottish Commission for People with Learning Disabilities,  The Alliance and Sight Scotland joining our Hub users this past month. In the last year, our Byres Hub has engaged over 2,500 people across nearly 80 events and hosted over 300 meetings and events in Clarice Pears for external not-for-profit organisations for free involving 4,000 attendees. 

 

Forthcoming Events in Byres Hub

World AIDS Day Gathering – Friday 1st December from 6pm 

Continuing the programme of gatherings, we are delighted to confirm that Byres Hub will be hosting the first face to face World AIDS Day event in Glasgow since before lockdown in partnership with Terrance Higgins Trust Scotland and Waverley Care. The theme this year is “Community and Stigma,” and everyone is welcome for what will be a very memorable evening.   

 

Community Matters - Thursday 7th December 

Glasgow Human Rights Network Working Group and the CoSS Community Matters Programme are relaunching the Glasgow Human Rights Network as a Scottish hub for interdisciplinary human rights expertise. The event is open to academics and students from any university in Glasgow, who are curious about the Network’s activities and eager to contribute in the coming year. It will be held from 2pm until 3.30pm in Clarice Pears room 103B. For more information and to sign up please visit their Eventbrite page here.

 

SHW Christmas Seminar, Monday 18th December from 2.30pm  

The School of Health and Wellbeing’s inaugural Christmas seminar ‘Head Injury, Sport and Health: The Gift That Keeps Taking’ will close the public programme of events for 2023. 

University staff and students can reserve a free place at the Christmas lecture via Bookit Bee at this link: SHW Christmas Seminar (bookitbee.com) 

Members of the public or community groups wanting to reserve free places, can email byreshub@glasgow.ac.uk.

 

Christmas Foodbank Appeal for the Patrick Pantry 

The Partick Pantry at Dowanvale Free Church was set up in 2020 in response to an increase in people experiencing food poverty.  The Pantry volunteers currently serve between 60 and 100 people every week.  Partick Housing Association staff want to make sure no one in the community they serve go without this Winter and so that have invited Byres Community Hub to join them in their Christmas foodbank appeal for the Pantry.  We are therefore kindly asking School of Health and Wellbeing University staff, students, visitors to Clarice Pears, and groups coming in for meetings for food donations in the lead up to Christmas.  The collection point is on level 1 and suggested items are on the poster below:

 

We look forward to many more engagements, events, and exhibitions in 2024 but for now we want to thank each and every person who has helped develop and be part of Byres Community Hub.  If you want to keep up to date with Hub activities in 2024, please join our new mailing list here.

 

Contact

E: byreshub@glasgow.ac.uk 
T: UofGByresHub
W: www.gla.ac.uk/byrescommunityhub 

Susan Grant 
SHW community engagement coordinator
Susan.G.Grant@glasgow.ac.uk 

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First published: 22 November 2023