Although the sun seems to have misplaced his hat, we are nevertheless in the summer season, and so last week Cathcart, Merrylee and Muirend Community Council held our final meeting before the holidays.
As well as checking in on our campaign for a new pitch at Merrylee Primary and the proposal from Reconnect Theatre to take over the Couper Institute – both of which I covered in last month’s blog – we also signed off on plans for our summer events, so I thought I’d tell you a bit about that this month.
Our summer fete has become a fixture in the area’s annual calendar, and this year we’re moving up the road to the newly renamed Orchardlea Church. We’ll be revealing plans for this shortly, but expect our usual wildly popular face-painter to make an appearance, along with the book-swap stand, loads of kids’ games and hopefully some music. Last year we also tried a home baking stall for the first time and you all demolished hunners of cakes in minutes, so that will definitely feature too!
Plus we’ll be running our Cathcart Discovery Trail. Launched in 2025, this fun, free activity encourages residents to visit local retailers who’ve hidden an unexpected item in their window. Last year we enjoyed spotting pineapples, cuddly toys, umbrellas and many other odd items: who knows what our neighbourhood businesses will come up with this time!
And we’re already looking towards another September Doors Open Day at the Couper Institute. For the last two years, we’ve run hugely successful tours of this gorgeous building in partnership with Glasgow Life, and we’ve loved hearing your memories of weddings, parties and family gatherings at the Couper down the decades. This year we’ll be including a film screening as part of our activities: keep an eye on our social media for further details.
Plus we’ve got our usual quarterly Micro Talks, as well as plans for activities aimed at both older and younger people in our area. All of this work is done by our brilliant volunteer events team, who are constantly dreaming up plans, drumming up funding and writing up risk assessments so we can put on creative, safe and low-cost (often free) events.
It’s all part of our aim to bring people together: we strongly believe that everyone deserves to be included in our area, and we want to create as many spaces for inclusion as possible. The world often seems like a scary place, and it’s hard to have any influence on global events – but we can affect our own neighbourhood. We can choose to be positive and welcoming, and to find ways to come together. We can decide to say hello to our neighbours, make use of our local amenities and campaign for improvements. We can always find ways to talk, listen, share – and of course, eat cake.
Cathcart, Merrylee and Muirend Community Council meets on the second Wednesday of each month, from 7-9pm at Cathcart Baptist Church or online via Zoom. (We don’t meet in April, July, August or December). We welcome everyone to get involved: email cmmcommcouncil@gmail.com to find out more.
