Dancin' in September
Published: 30 September 2024
As well as welcoming community groups to the Hub, we have been out and about at community events across the city, including the opening of the Govan-Partick bridge, and Explorathon in Castlemilk.
At the end of August and through September, I had the opportunity to participate in several community outreach events. With a bagpiper in Toryglen leading in 25 young people to Active Life Club’s 25th Anniversary event, a music stage in Govan for the opening festival of the Govan-Partick bridge and dancing dinosaurs in Castlemilk at UofG’s Explorathon, it's been a lot of fun. There is such value in taking our research and researchers to where people are. More information on some of these events and more below.
2023/24 in numbers
8,507 public visits, 539 meetings hosted and 42 tours of the Hub - just a snapshot of a busy year in Byres Hub!
Byres Hub Our Year in Numbers infographic
Active Life Club event
As part of their week of celebrations for their 50th anniversary, General Practice and Primary Care (GPPC) researchers joined Byres Hub at Active Life Club which serves Glasgow Southside’s 25-year anniversary. ALC have for all this time been removing barriers to sport, developing young people as volunteer coaches, making social connections for families and empowering their communities. GPPC are proud to have them as a research partner on their Systematic project and we brought some of the photos from that work to the event to share with the women involved.
Govan-Partick bridge opening community event
The University was a sponsor of The Glasgow Barron’s Govan Bridge Footbridge Festival and had a stall at the event. Across the day, teams from The Living Lab, GALLANT, INTO Govan and Byres Hub were there. We were also promoting our Explorathon Family Days taking place the following weekend.
Thanks to community partners on the other side of the river, Partick Housing Association and Partick Community Council for spreading the word with our flyers too. Around 6,000 people attended. There was a marketplace and stage set up at Govan cross with music all day and the crowd dancing and singing along to Colonel Mustard and The Dijon Five adapted lyrics to their song ‘Cross The Road’ - yes you guessed it - ‘Cross The Bridge, Cross The Bridge’.
With the Footbridge Festival on one side and The Clydebuilt Festival on the other, the occasion had the spirit of Glasgow Commonwealth Games or going even further back – Glasgow Garden Festival!
Georgie, Community Engagement Coordinator from The Living Lab said, “There was a such a buzz and the many young people who visited our stall were really engaged with the activities. It was great to see the parents and carers too getting involved. There was a lot of local people but also lots of people who travelled to Govan for the day from Partick and the other side of the river but also much further afield. We have the Govan Fair but because of the success of this event, the community are keen to do something similar in the future to keep celebrating the bridge."
Explorathon Castlemilk
Explorathon, Scotland’s contribution to European Researchers’ Night, is one of Scotland’s largest public engagement with research festivals. It seeks to ‘Make Research Real’ by showcasing research going on within Scotland and the impact it has on people’s lives.
The core audience for Explorathon is families, young people and people who do not have a connection to higher education. Each year, over 10,000 people attend in-person Explorathon events across Scotland.
This year, the University of Glasgow, in addition to running two community days on campus and delivering online training for Explorathon Institutions, decided to take activity off campus to Castlemilk in the southside of Glasgow and run a free community day.
We had around 50 volunteers including research teams from across the University, student and staff volunteers, our community partners, The Soup’erheroes and Glasgow Club Castlemilk and 250 members of the public attending. Activities included a solar powered mobile recording studio and three School of Health and Wellbeing activities. There was also free food, refreshments, soup packs, giant chess and face painting.
It has been a while since I have delivered such a large event in the community. The logistics are always more challenging but the team behind the planning and delivery are really happy with how things went and most importantly, everyone who came along looked like they were having a really good time. From the feedback, the vast majority of people had not previously attended a university event so we reached a genuinely new audience.
Visit by the Secretary of State for Scotland
Accompanied by Uzma Khan, UofG Vice Principal for Economic Development and Innovation, the Secretary of State for Scotland, Ian Murray MP, visited the Hub in September for a tour with Professor Sara Macdonald to learn about the collaborative working that underpins research taking place in the School of Health and Wellbeing. Mr Murray also met with representatives from some of our community partners, Spirit of Springburn, Annexe Communities and COPE Scotland to hear about the work they are doing to support health and wellbeing in communities. You can read more about this visit here.
September's ALISS in Wowland
ALISS drop-ins in partnership with Weekday Wow Factor are probably my favourite day of the month in the Hub and last month was no exception. Our community spotlight was with Holly from Women on Wheels, a community interest company based in Govanhill who help woman of all ages learn to cycle and/or build their confidence in cycling including led bike rides and bike maintenance classes.
Amber Sharif, ALISS Engagement Officer at The Health and Social Care Alliance returned to the Hub to see how our drop-ins were going. Read Amber's blog
ALISS (A Local Information System for Scotland) is a national digital programme enabling people and professionals to find and share information on organisations, services, groups, resources and support in their local communities and online. You can add to ALISS by registering for an account and then adding your organisation and related services, activities, groups, etc.
One of the Hub’s resident writing groups, Writing Wrongs, came to share their work for the first time in public with us. We were very privileged! They had curated a special line up of poems and short pieces about time which were poignant, reflective and humorous and we loved hearing them.
One of the Hub’s resident writing groups, Writing Wrongs, came to share their work for the first time in public with us. We were very privileged! They had curated a special line up of poems and short pieces about time which were poignant, reflective and humorous and we loved hearing them.
Writing Wrongs meet in the Hub on the first and third Fridays of the month at 10am. Their format is submissions by two of the group of work in progress, which the other members offer feedback on although on the day we also have a prompted writing exercise and a good exchange of news and views on writing matters. The membership is varied from some experienced writers to relative newcomers. They are a friendly group and keen to attract new members so if you wanted to give them a try you’d get a warm welcome. Please email byreshub@glasgow.ac.uk and we can put you in touch.
One of the members, Michael Goodman, has given his permission for us to share his poem ‘Where Does It Go?'
Where Does It Go?
Where does it go? I wish that I knew,
It fades oh so quickly as the days ensue.
Yet something that happened a lifetime ago,
Is still fresh in the mind, like an afterglow.
The days can be long, it all depends,
But time is not constant; it seems like it bends.
We’re suddenly faced with a new month starting,
When we’ve barely had time to see the last one departing.
As the seasons go by, it’s quite unsettling,
That sense of the lack of time feels threatening.
It’s not as if we have any control,
Over all of the ways time can take its cruel toll.
The older we get, the faster time passes,
And some will resort to rose-tinted glasses.
It’s one way of hiding ourselves from the truth,
That so many decades have passed since our youth.
The years slip away and for that there’s no cure,
But we can make the most of each day, that’s for sure.
The passage of time is our greatest opponent,
So what we must learn is to live in the moment.
Make everything count, look around and you’ll find,
There’s so much you can do with a new frame of mind.
Rediscover an interest that’s long been on hold,
Or find something different, exciting and bold.
Let new thoughts and experiences make your days bright,
And time will stand still when you fill it with light.
Knock down all the barriers and go with the flow.
If you take up the challenge, you’ll beat this old foe.
Our last two drop-ins this year are on Friday 18th October and Friday 22nd November. Everyone is welcome, no booking necessary.
Research and Development Review
Earlier this year, on behalf of ScotPEN, I attended a stakeholder workshop for the planning of Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE)’s People’s Vision for Research and Development public dialogue project. The outcomes of this project have now been published including the ‘participants’’ People’s Principles (shown in the graphic below) and accompanying reports and recommendations can be found on the CaSe website.
The final Chronicles of St Mungo’s Square
Please enjoy the sixth and final instalment of The Chronicles of St Mungo’s Square. Thank you so much to Aileen Paterson of The Scribble Creative Writers for sharing her work with us.
First published: 30 September 2024