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