Hub News Blog Posts

The first Monday in June marks the beginning of Volunteers’ Week celebrations, which is an annual national campaign organised by Volunteer Scotland. This initiative started in 1984 to recognise, celebrate, and express gratitude to volunteers across the country. Volunteers’ Week focuses on thanking those individuals who significantly impact their local communities, support various causes and charities, and assist others in need. At the start of May, the unpaid volunteers who handle most of the work at the hub, reflected that it has now been two years of very intense work completed by the volunteers here. The end of June will see the end of our second financial year, the volunteer hours put in by some is immeasurable. The management team has been selecting a "Volunteer of the Month" since the inception of our newsletter, yet they have never recognised themselves with this title. In preparation for Volunteers’ Week, the management team organised several volunteer events, pro...

May 2026 hub news The first week of May brought added stress. Getting the newsletter out is a challenging task for our already overstretched volunteers. April's newsletter was successfully distributed in time for our screening of the emergency briefing and the upcoming elections. This achievement was the result of a lot of hard work to ensure the newsletter was ready before the emergency briefing and the elections. We attracted some new members to the Hub at the screening. Throughout May and now into June, we continued filling pots with soil, planting, and giving away sunflowers. We also had several interesting meetings with an organisation called CitizenCoin during May, which is an ongoing process. On Thursday, May 7th, we served as a polling station, which turned out to be a very intriguing experience for our volunteers. More details about that are shared in this different blog post. We had to cancel line dancing and Highland dancing that day since they required the large h...

May the 1st 2026 at the hub May Day distress call Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice-procedure radio communications. It is typically used to indicate a life-threatening emergency by aviators, mariners, and local organisations like firefighters, police forces, and transportation organisations. Although Polmont Community hub is no longer in anywhere near the state of emergency it faced three years ago, when the hub escaped an extremely close extinction threat, Our Mayday distress call now in 2026 is no longer life threatening as it was in 2023, because by mayday 2024 our volunteers heard that distress call, these emergency responders answered as we all should in the event of an emergency - they took action to save the hub, by 2025`s mayday call it was to help these same hub volunteers become smart meters, as they kept the lights on and doors open while not getting into debt in the run up to getting the money to acquire the asset fr...

  PCHub Outdoor meeting area`s and planters   For over two years, the hub volunteers have been planning the transition from monoculture grass playing fields to a permaculture community garden. We felt that we were making progress with various projects, such as outdoor meeting areas, food-growing sensory walkways, a mini wildlife reserve, and rain gardens. Two years of planning these and other Gardeniser projects have passed! Sometimes, we wonder if our community fully appreciates the amazing potential of the hub's outdoor area. However, we are still navigating a lengthy legislative process to change the land's usage from dedicated open space to include a community garden, orchard, and outdoor meeting areas. This journey has involved extensive planning, research, numerous application forms, networking, and a significant amount of paperwork. We submitted a complete set of plans to the council's planning department but opposed paying a fee for something that the council's ...

  April just flew by at the hub, and we accomplished an incredible amount! April 1st was no joke! It was a busy day for the hub staff. Verture launched their strategy towards climate change initiatives, as their organisation unveiled their five-year low-carbon living strategy, Our power launch their manifesto at the Kinning Park Complex, which we attended. We loved learning about the history of the complex and had some great networking opportunities.  Additionally, we received a massive donation of books for oor wee library (OWL), and the Tinnitus Support Group expressed their delight with our growing community engagement and international recognition. Open Book held a meeting with us regarding a reading group initiative—more on this later, but it’s definitely happening! We were also interviewed for an international webinar about our Soup Night. our cold frames built from upcycled waste On Friday, April 3rd, we received a bit of a panicked email from a local group called Polmo...

  Keep Scotland Beautifull (KSB) took part in the - Big Give Earth Raise campaign – this was an opportunity for any donation to be doubled for the Climate and Nature Friendly Communities Network - which we at PCHub are, it went live at 12noon on the 22nd April 2026!!!! - all donations up to £4,000 were doubled!!!! Quite simply: one donation, twice the impact – no matter how big or small. We had until noon on 29 April to donate    Check out their 2025 Impact Report for the Network , which will show you where your money is going (and how important the Network is).   As you know, dear reader, we are one of their  Climate and Nature Friendly Communities Network. There are almost 250 community groups across Scotland (and it’s all FREE for groups). Donating through the Big Give Earth Raise campaign will enable KSB to raise much-needed funding to help support their coordination of our network.   With our financial support, they help communities build their capabi...