Category: General (Page 3 of 37)

Our hosting company will be updating the server where our website lives so the site may be unavailable over the next few hours (1 November).

At the Strathbungo Society AGM on Tuesday 24th October, as well as the usual annual reports and a fascinating insight into Bygone Bungo, we held discussions on a variety of subjects at different tables. We asked each table to provide the top 3 or 4 points from their discussions, so here they are:

The coming year

1. Promote the Society as a support / platform for folks in the community who want to do things – from setting up a book club or lunch club to a community dining event etc; we’ve got contacts, seed-money (perhaps), social media and web presence to help folks realise their ideas.
2. Let the wider community know when there are important, formal consultations on the go: the Society successfully lobbied the Boundary Commission for Scotland to get Strathbungo into the same UK parliamentary constituency as Pollokshields (as it is for Council and Scottish election); no one else in Strathbungo commented (or knew about it).
3. Think about a community-based Christmas giving event: ideas included working with a local choir to sing carols and use it to seek donations to local food banks. Or (ditto) hiring Pollok Park’s Clydesdale horses to do a Christmas ”trot about” up and down the Squares and Gardens.
4. Other ideas: more arts stuff at Bungo in the Lanes, even working with artists to create artworks; get a box junction at the entrance to Moray Place to enable freer access; encourage flower planting in the lanes …

The phone box

Aka the “Bungo Booth”?

1. All agreed this would need a flexible design and organisation that could allow it to be used by many different local groups, organisations, business (and for us to be able to link in with them).
2. Popular on the survey and in the group was an information panel on local history / Greek Thomson… Discussed possibly of this being on external solid side of booth as a permanent display allowing rest of booth to be used as a multi-purpose space.
3. Potential uses: book exchange, bike station, pop up shops / events, art exhibition / installation, tool library, greenhouse, starting point for architecture / local history trails / running groups. Hire for use would be nominal amount to cover running costs.

Web presence

1. Make better use of social media: need to be much more active e.g. use our own Facebook page more, post in the Strathbungo & Shawlands Community group, use Twitter and Instagram?
2. Rethink website (aka The Bungo Blog): need to think about who uses it and why, keep the blog (not everyone is on Facebook), think about what information newcomers to the area need/want to know.
3. Check out other community websites as examples: e.g. Pollokshields Heritage & others

Feel free to add your thoughts here, or to comment on our Facebook page. Thanks to everyone who came and took part!

A new exhibition of the work of Strathbungo’s own Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson – he designed and lived at 1 Moray Place – is currently on at The Lighthouse.

Organised by The Alexander Thomson Society, the GIA and the Mitchell Library, it focuses on Thomson’s drawings of some of his key projects and includes 17 of his rare original drawings.

The exhibition is part of the city-wide celebrations of the bicentenary of Thomson’s birth.  It runs until 8 October 2017 and entrance is free.

For more information about The Alexander Thomson Society see –  http://www.alexanderthomsonsociety.org.uk

An ex-Strathbungo resident, Kevin, is looking to return to the neighbourhood. Kevin’s asked if anyone thinking of moving away and selling their property could contact him please? You can email him at schirnk@gmail.com.

Come to our Christmas extravaganza with food, shopping and entertainment in one perfect evening! We’d love to see you there.

Stalls selling crafts, cards, art, unique gifts and hampers, with live entertainment and much, much more! Christmas shopping evening cafes serving meals, teas, coffees and cake.

Entrance (including arrival canapes): £2.50

All proceeds will go to the Cosy for Christmas appeal from The Space, Govanhill

#QPChristmas

Queen’s Park Baptist Church

Address: 20 Balvicar Dr, Glasgow, G42 8QS

Email: office@qpbc.org

Phone: 0141 4233962

Website: www.qpbc.org

Facebook: Queens Park Baptist Church

Twitter: @QPBC

Following the “Make Your Mark” consultation earlier in 2016, proposals have now been published for developing the old Gasworks plot in East Pollokshields, with an open consultation being held by developers at the Tramway on 8th November between 2-7.30pm.

Although Pollokshields Community Council welcomes new development, they are concerned about the lack of consultation about what is to be developed and have asked the Society to help publicise the development proposals. Here’s what they say:

“We welcome new housing development in our area but only when there is full community consultation and consideration of the effect on Pollokshields – schooling, public transport, traffic implications, additional leisure & green space requirements. The developers of the first social-rented phase have declined our invitation to provide detailed plans in advance so we can circulate their proposals. Instead they have committed only to the minimum necessary under planning law by holding the ‘exhibition’ at the Tramway next week [on November 8th]. This is the sole statutory requirement to ‘consult’ under existing planning laws.

We urge you to attend the Tramway event where we will record your comments and ensure they are conveyed to the planning authority. A community council member will be on hand throughout but if you have some spare time to help us keep a record of your views, please get in touch.

Because we regard the 8^th November event as inadequate for meaningful consultation we intend to repeat the exercise at a planned Public Meeting on 24^th November. The venue is SoulRiders in Forth St from 6-9pm – however the Home Group management has not yet committed to attend. This is part of a more detailed event to present the results of the MakeYourMark charrette earlier this year. We will include a vote on how to best organise community empowerment. A buffet will be offered from 6pm as well as an exhibition. Full details very soon.”

You can download the leaflet about the Tramway consultation here.

Further to the ongoing Network Rail saga, Network Rail has contacted The Strathbungo Society with revised plans to erect a boundary fence along the length of Moray Place.  In response to sustained community pressure from Strathbungo – and particularly Moray Place – residents, Network Rail seem to have reconsidered their plans in a number of regards, which is welcome.

The Society has been pressing Network Rail to meet with The Strathbungo Society and local elected representatives – at the City Chambers – to discuss their proposals in full.  All local elected representatives – councillors, MSP and MP – have backed the Society’s position and Network Rail have committed to meet soon.  Cllr Norman Macleod has offered to arrange the meeting, which we hope will be held later in August or early September 2016.

We’ll aim to keep you posted, and the Society will push for an community-based consultation once Network Rail’s wider plans are known – and agreed.

Kevin Kane

Chair, The Strathbungo Society

Ian Stark of Vennard Gardens is waging a one-man war on obesity and welcomes feedback or debate on his perhaps provocative theories. Here, with a nod to Sir Isaac Newton, he observes the blackbirds who feed on his apple tree.

[This article has been posted by a blog admin on behalf of Ian Stark.]

A proper Eureka Moment!

I have a very small apple tree in my back garden which each year gets loaded (usually around 1,000) with cooking apples. I distribute with difficulty most of the apples, but this year there were well over 1,000 and I left over 100 on the tree and on the ground. While eating my breakfast one morning, I watched a blackbird eating from one of the apples on the ground. It just ate what it wanted then flew away.

Most of us have heard of the last apple that fell to the ground and, according to legend, led to a Eureka Moment that changed science in respect of gravity. Well – the bird on the ground was a very real eureka moment for me. One thought led to another and an especially good feeling went through my body. Think of all birds, light, thin with their little hearts beating 19 to the dozen. Except that is, the birds that walk on the ground – turkeys and hens to name but two.

You see, (or I hope you soon will) for the past four years I have been writing a book that goes slightly askew from current advice. I completed the book, checked all the facts and science, found definitive proof and arranged for the book’s publication. I had written in my book that 90% of the nutrients in apples are sugars! (Check nutrients online.) Also, that sugars are the fuel most used in fast exercise – without the food being stored as body fats before use. This is a key!

Sorry about that, it was such a pleasant little story and I’ve just turned most of you off, but please bear with me and keep an open mind if you can. This leads to better lives for all of us and hugely better for some of us!

So what happens to birds that stay on the ground? They can’t do fast movements and they get heavy therefore can barely fly. Cheetahs and greyhounds burst with fast energy but strangely are never heavy or fat! Elephants and Hippos don’t often use fast movements, grazing’s their way and heavy they stay.

Wrongly, I’d guess, this triggered my brain. I had completed a book that I had been writing as a hobby. However I had based my original conclusion that fast exercise (not food or lack of food) was the key to reducing weight gain and therefore obesity and Type 2 diabetes. I arrived at this by observation and the science of how the body works (my idea had formed over 40 years) and I was happy that my book showed this.

However, I had found no science that could verify completely that obesity would be reduced by people taking fast exercise in any given population (although my belief was that it would reduce obesity). Until, that is, I found a relatively new study of 132,793 British women which looked at how they had been living and this proved conclusively that sufficient fast exercise does make a population thinner! Look up – http://jech.bmj.com/content/68/Suppl_1/A23.1.abstract (“Physical activity in relation to body size and composition in women in UK Biobank”) and argue with it if you can!

My conclusion is that if anyone takes a lot of fast exercise – they won’t get fat. Those who take a moderate but very regular amount of fast exercise will need to keep an eye on when they eat and what they eat—and watch that they don’t take very large amounts at one sitting. Those who only take minimum exercise will be extraordinarily lucky not to put on gradually increasing amounts of weight, as well as watching when, what, and how they eat. So there you are:

A bird on the ground,
not looking around.
Has led to a thought,
that hasn’t been taught.

Fast Exercise is the primary means of avoiding obesity!