Helensburgh Community Hub Update
Argyll and Bute Council · 7 May 2024
Back to Helensburgh and Lomond Area Community Planning Group — 7 May 2024 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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Helensburgh Community Hub – CPG update May 2024 Reading Minds – Helensburgh’s Book Festival More than 400 people enjoyed the second year of Reading Minds, a weekend of wellbeing through books from 22-24 March. Helensburgh’s book festival is a collaboration between the Hub, Jean’s Bothy and Helensburgh and Lomond Carers Centre, and this year, in addition to the three organisation venues, we held events at Colgrain Primary, Hermitage Academy and the fabulous setting of the drawing room at Hill House. Next year’s Reading Minds festival will be held over the weekend of 28-30 March. But before then there will be some ad hoc Reading Minds events including Book on a Boat in May (in partnership with Cruise Loch Lomond), Meet the Author on Saturday 17 August in the Hub, and an autumn whisky event (postponed from this year’s festival). “I enjoyed the friendly, relaxed atmosphere of the event, as well as the amazing quality of the authors and interviewers who made it a very inspiring and successful event” “I was only able to attend one event but it was lovely and thoughtful provoking.” Dolly Parton Imagination Library and Reading for Pleasure related activity We will be hosting a Dolly Drag Bingo event in September to fundraise for our expanding Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. More information coming soon. As part of our focus on highlighting the importance of encouraging parents to foster a love of reading to and with their children we welcomed a group of new parents to the Hub as part of an NHS/early years project. New activity in the Hub - A social group for neurodivergent adults called Unmask and Unwind has started meeting on the second Thursday of the month from 7-9pm. - Crafty Conversations – wellbeing and crafting sessions - will be starting on Fridays from 7- 9pm from May 24. - Monday Monthly Moves for people with memory problems or a dementia diagnosis and their carers is on the last Monday of the month from 2-3.15pm - Refugee integration: in June we are beginning volunteer-led conversation sessions for new members of the refugee community. We would also like to organise a celebration this
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summer involving sharing food from different cultural communities who live in Helensburgh. I would like to ask CPG partners to support this event. SCVO #essentialsector campaign The Hub Development Manager recently attended a Scottish Parliament reception that highlighted the SCVO #essentialsector campaign. Much of the discussion was around the need for fair funding for the sector. The Hub's film was also used for a training webinar for more than 130 third sector organisations from across Scotland about how to make a film using your mobile phone. More information about the #essentialsector campaign is here #EssentialSector - SCVO and film making training resources are also available on the SCVO website. Volunteering We are continuing work to make volunteering more visible and valued across Helensburgh and Lomond, and we will be repeating our highly successful collaboration with Visiting Friends to host a celebration lunch as part of Volunteers Week Scotland on Sunday 9 June at the Civic Centre from 2- 4pm. Volunteer involving organisations will be able to book places for their volunteers through Eventbrite and we are asking organisations to make a small contribution to the cost of hosting and catering the event. Below is a collage of photos (by Kathryn Polley) from last year’s wonderful afternoon of recognition and connection. Development Manager Gill Simpson 01436 678088 / manager@helensburghcommunityhub.org.uk Registered Company SC645409 Helensburgh Community Hub Registered Charity SC05045