Community Driven Activity in Byres Hub
Published: 14 February 2024
Susan Grant, School of Health and Wellbeing Community Engagement Coordinator shares some memories from 2023 and some updates from our Hub community so far in 2024
In her latest update, SHW community engagement coordinator Susan Grant shares content from the community-driven activities in Byres Hub in 2023- and some updates from the start of 2024.
It has been a while since our last Hawkeye community engagement blog but before I update you on what has been happening in the Hub in 2024 so far and introduce ‘The Chronicles of St Mungo’s Square’, I wanted to share some reports, photos and a film from memorable events we hosted in the Hub at the end of 2023:
Mind the Gap
Greater Govanhill and The Ferret Scotland hosted the Mind the Health Gap event in Byres Hub in October at the end of their year-long project. Summary of the key insights from the event are on the Greater Govanhill website.
Festival of Social Sciences
The School of Health Wellbeing collaborated with The College of Social Sciences on the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)’s Festival of Social Science (FoSS) 2023 and The College have produced a highlight reel featuring the Community Day which took place in Byres Community Hub in September. This really captures the variety of social science research topics which were explored during this event relating to the theme of ‘Lifelong Wellbeing’. We love seeing people having fun and sharing knowledge in our Clarice Pears building.
Find more details on the ESRC website.
Self-Care Week 2023
The School of Health and Wellbeing were pleased to have been one of the 100 organisations across the UK to have taken part in National Self-Care Week 2023 ‘Mind and Body’. Staff wellbeing is a priority for our School as part of our Athena Swan action plan and so we exhibited outcomes of a workshop with Mental Health and Wellbeing and COPE Scotland during The Festival of Social Sciences Community Day during Self-Care week in November alongside resources to improve self-care practice.
There is a review for National Self-Care Week 'Mind and Body' 2023.
Self Care forum have more details on their website.
World AIDS Day Gathering and Exhibition
The community event on the evening of World AIDS day 2023 in Byres Hub was a powerful, emotional and inspirational tribute to: those who have lost their lives to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS); the research and medical advancements that have led to treatments so that HIV can’t be passed on; the volunteers who have worked tirelessly to end support and end stigma for those living with HIV and the staff from Terrance Higgins Trust (THT) Scotland and Waverley Care Scotland who are working to eradicate HIV in Scotland. The lived-experience speakers and the choir’s rendition of ‘The Little Light of Mine’ will do doubt have left a lasting impact on everyone in the audience as it did our staff and volunteers. We also had The Centre for Virus Research and THT Scotland’s art installation and the first HIV televised public health campaign in Scotland since the 1980’s showing in the Hub all week. Many thanks to the University Executive and Facilities team at the University of Glasgow who lit our iconic tower red on this cold, crisp December evening in memory and solidarity.
The Scottish Government’s and THT Scotland’s TV advert.
SHW Christmas Seminar
It was great to see so many people join for hot chocolate, mince pies and the School of Health and Wellbeing’s inaugural Christmas (BSL) Interpreter Friendly lecture ‘Head Injury, Sport and Health: The Gift That Keeps Taking’.
There is a recording of this event on youtube.
Christmas Foodbank Appeal for the Patrick Pantry
Thank you to everyone who donated items to our Christmas food bank collection. A film of the Patrick HA collecting our food drive donations and taking them to Partick Pantry at Dowanhill Church on a Bike for Good Glasgow cargo bike can be found on their facebook page. The Pantry is open every Thursday 2.30pm – 4.30pm and the last Saturday of every month 11am – 1pm.
University of Glasgow's SDG Report
The school’s work is highlighted throughout the University’s annual report detailing its commitment to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) report, including a feature under the Health Inequalities section on page 11 about Clarice Pears and Byres Community Hub.
View more information at the University's SDG webpage.
Chronicles of St Mungo's Square
The Chronicles of St Mungo’s Square are written by Aileen Paterson, a member of one of our Hub groups, The Scribble Creative Writers. Aileen has been working on them since the group started meeting in the Clarice Pears. She has been following the work and changes outside the building. We are very grateful to Aileen for allowing us to share her writings. They provide a social history of the Western Campus development from May 2023 until May 2024 and we will publish them in instalments. They remind me of Glasgow artist, Mitch Miller’s ‘pigeon’s eye’ drawings he terms ‘Dialectrograms’ which are ‘illustrations drawn not from on high, but as those at ground level see and live it’. The Chronicles describe the new campus and Clarice Pears becoming part of the West End community. We are very grateful to Aileen for allowing us to share her writings and we will do so in instalments here on Hawkeye.
The first installment is now on our Byres Hub website.
Looking ahead to 2024
Research Involvement
The Hub is a physical entity in Glasgow’s West End serving our local community and groups across the City but participants in our initial consultation highlighted that ‘Information should be available online as well, for those unable to travel to the Hub’. This website and our other communication channels such as our X account (link) and our newsletter (link) are our means of helping to share information with groups and individuals who are existing or future hub users or are much further afield. The hub aims to help to develop new research questions through lived-experience panels, to support research at proposal stage to help shape it and to bring more diverse and representative voices to current funded research projects seeking participants. This section therefore promotes opportunities for people or groups to get involved in research.
The new section on the Hub website is now live.
If SHW researchers would like to promote a live research engagement opportunity, please complete this form https://forms.office.com/e/JDmxyusMeQ.
Hub Mondays
Because there’s so many different pockets of people – whether it’s recovery community, or cancer recovery – there’s people across Glasgow and across Scotland who are fighting the same cause but there’s no way of linking them up. And I guess I could see that as an opportunity to have a space where people could come together.”
Focus group participant on Hub consultation
Hub Mondays are bringing people together to share ideas, support one another and network. We have a new group which has been formed from the Hub Mondays called The Scottish Inter-Cultural Association (SIA) and a member of the local community has now been connected with and volunteering with one of our Hub user groups, Differabled. We have had Seonaid Cleare, a researcher in Mental Health and Wellbeing join to talk about a new research study using a tool to support young people’s emotion regulation in the moment within their daily lives and one of our Hub groups, Volunteer Tutors Association is now talking to the team about how they can involve some of the young people they support.
In December we also discussed the Glasgow Science Festival 2024 SHW community day and have now submitted our proposal for an exciting event on Saturday 8th June which will provide more of an experience for individuals, groups and families in line with the 2024 Festival theme ‘Glasgow’s Transforming’. So watch this space!
We want Hub Mondays to support more knowledge exchange and skill sharing in Byres Hub and to help make connections between community and research. To help achieve this, we will introduce some themed Hub Mondays which will include a short talk from an internal or external speaker on a particular area related to preventing disease, improving health and wellbeing or reducing health inequalities followed by an open discussion.
We tried out this new format at the end of November with General Practice and Primary Care’s Dr Shona MacKinnon who talked 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.
We hope you can join us at a future Hub Monday which will take place every two weeks going forward. Our themed talks and networking are from 11am – 12noon and 2024 Hub Monday topics are as followings:
- Monday 29th January: Patient Public Involvement and Engagement in research
- Monday 12th February: Poverty Awareness for research and engagement activities
- Monday 26th February: Wellbeing for the working age population
- Monday 11th March – Small data: hints and tips for data management
- Monday 25th March – Substance use, health and wellbeing
- Monday 8th April – Trama Informed Practice
- Monday 22nd April – Student Engagement with the Voluntary Sector
ALISS In Wowland Community Drops-Ins
In our Hub consultation, ‘Information about health and wellbeing services in communities‘ was a top priorities for participants who also identified the issue of ‘digital exclusion in some areas and among some groups’ so felt that having a ‘drop-in space where people can access information was seen as important’. We hope this new initiative which started on Friday 9th February will respond to these aspects of the consultation and it will be supported by our free hub laptop loaning.
Like everything in Byres Hub, this has been community-driven after the idea was brought to us by Hub group, Weekend WOW Factor and we have developed 'ALISS in Wowland' in partnership with The Alliance.
Our next drop in will be on Friday 15th March from 11am – 1pm. All Welcome.
Sign up to our newsletter
See photos of some of our meeting rooms on our website
Contact
E: byreshub@glasgow.ac.uk
X: UofGByresHub
W: www.gla.ac.uk/byrescommunityhub
Susan Grant
SHW Community Engagement Coordinator
Susan.G.Grant@glasgow.ac.uk
First published: 14 February 2024
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