July Updates

On the first of July, our bookkeeper was working diligently on our end-of-year accounts. We would have preferred our financial year to end in September, as we started operating the Hub on October 1st. Therefore, an October-to-October financial year would provide a more accurate reflection of our performance since we took over management of the Hub, rather than aligning our fiscal year with the bank account opening in June 2024. As it stands, June marks the financial year-end for the Hub, which involves significant work beyond just issuing invoices for bookings. We needed to ensure all bills were updated and paid before July 1st, keeping us busy until 10 PM the night before.

We must segregate different funding packages into grant spending or reserved funds, as well as track our income, outgoings, and expenditures. This process also involves counting petty cash and logging receipts and bank statements. Our bookkeeper excels at this task throughout the year, and we truly appreciate her diligence. Thanks to another year of excellent bookkeeping, we prepared the necessary paperwork for submission to our accountant, and a full report in collaboration with our treasurer will be ready in time for our AGM. As a sneak preview, we’re proud to announce that the Hub has now successfully completed two strong financial years, thanks in large part to our bookkeeper's diligent account management and good financial practices.

On July 2nd, we launched a new group: the Open Book Reading Group, and hand dryers were installed. We cleaned up the old metal sign at the front and added more sunflowers to the new flower beds. Along with some fresh paint, these updates revived the Hub’s appearance. The installation of five hand dryers in our restrooms allowed us to eliminate the use of paper towels, significantly easing the burden on our volunteers. Not only did this change lead to cost savings for the Hub by reducing the need for paper towels, but it also reduced the workload for the toilet cleaners and recycling team, who previously had to manage the disposal of thousands of paper towels in our planters and compost areas.

More planters were built throughout the month, mostly filled with sunflowers. We received a visit from the district council, which had an intern looking to conduct an impact report for the council’s property review team. We were identified as a positive example of a success story. We also held a Teams meeting with the Tree Council regarding our funding application and had further discussions with our architect. Additionally, we submitted the Hub for an award with Social Enterprise Scotland, but unfortunately, we were not successful this time. A new group called The Big Theatre Experience held a summer school break theatre workshop, which involved children occupying various rooms in the Hub over three or four days in July. The week culminated in a finale show for all families on Friday, July 10th. The Hub crew was invited to watch, which was a delightful experience. It always brings us joy to see the main hall filled with families enjoying a theatrical production that the children had worked hard to learn throughout the week.

We also put up signs in all rooms informing groups that we have to cease our recycling efforts. Over the last two years, recycling has become extremely challenging and often disheartening. We have realised it is impossible to manage the bins effectively while juggling all our other responsibilities. We’ve learned the hard way that, whenever we place a bin out, people tend to throw in whatever they want. Given that this space is organised by unpaid volunteers, the amount of time we were spending segregating others' rubbish was simply unsustainable. As of July, we are now politely asking people to refrain from bringing single-use items into the Hub and to take their litter home

We had a visit from the new MSP, Martin Day, who came in for a very productive long meeting. This was in response to SCOV's request for the Scottish government to explore how they can better serve the third sector and communities, particularly focusing on community wealth building. One of the neighbours came along with a strimmer and helped with some of the grass cutting. We managed to keep an area short enough for children to play ball games. We were also interviewed by Local Stories Exchange, which is looking to create a film about us; that project is still ongoing. Additionally, we put in a lot of work on yet another CARES funding application. We finally got the front planters nearly completed, which are now good enough for planting. We still need to put on the roof section for those front planters. It was a busy month of watering and feeding, as we grew over 1,000 sunflowers from seeds.

We received an email from the National Lottery informing us that our application for £3 million was unsuccessful. We also faced setbacks with our application to the ChangeX Community Improvement Fund; we just need to keep trying. Subsequently, we applied for funds from another group and received a new portable appliance tester (PAT) volunteer, which was timely since our original volunteer left without explanation. The new volunteer also wants to advance the tool library and repair workshop initiatives and has started upgrades to our welding machine.

On Sunday the 19th, the African Apostles, who worship at the hub on Saturdays, brought a large group of volunteers to help with the front planters. This involved significant manual work, and we were delighted with what they achieved. They planted the last of the sunflower seedlings that day. Scotland experienced a long dry spell that month, making the job of watering all these plants quite challenging during July. Kenny had a lengthy online discussion with Planning Aid Scotland, which turned out to be a complete waste of time. Nationwide planning departments are making life more difficult for SMEs like ours, even though they are supposed to be supporting us in achieving government policy. We constructed a new tool cupboard, which we are calling "Cliff's Cupboard," in honor of the tools and equipment donated by Cliff Hartley (Claire’s dad). Sadly, we lost our most beloved and respected trustee and friend, Tom Sneddon. His funeral and burial took place on July 23rd, where we paid our respects. We discussed the possibility of planting some fuchsias at the hub in his honour.

Throughout the month, we participated in numerous webinars and online meetings. Soon, we will need to work on our data and document backup systems, as we are accumulating a significant amount of governing documents. We are adopting SCCAN's manifesto, with all this digital data we are accumulating our own data centre to manage it all. We made improvements to our website and mailing system, highlighting the urgent need for our own intranet and cloud solutions, as well as upgrades for smart building technology. In late July, we got closer to achieving a switch to ethical banking, but we encountered significant challenges. This culminated in us making a formal complaint. The hours lost during this process will never be regained, and the stress and frustration experienced by our volunteers have taken a toll on their mental health and well-being. However, we found some satisfaction from our complaint being upheld, and by the last day of July, our new bank account was finally active.