Posts by Ciara Maguire

  We are pleased to present Agnes Houston’s newest booklet exploring dementia and sensory changes, specifically looking at changes to taste and smell. The booklet captures personal experiences as well as hints and tips to support people to live well with these changes. There is also a short video that demonstrates some of the practical…

Community Bonds are a new initiative that allows people to pool their financial resources into a community loan fund which will then benefit local, social and community enterprises. Outside the Box has made a small investment in the bonds.  We think this approach gives another option for the types of groups we are working alongside.…

It was great to be part of the Intergenerational National Network session in Dumfries last week.  We had interesting conversations around how town centres work well for everyone including older people. This means thinking about what sorts of shops there are, how easy it is to get about and what encourages people to feel that…

Brechin Community Singing Group began as taster sessions in February following feedback gained from attending different community events during Autumn 2017. The group is open to anybody who wants to sing. All are welcome and there are no auditions! The purpose of the group was to bring together local people who enjoy singing and share…

This month we are facilitating a series of workshops with people doing unpaid work in Glasgow. Unpaid work is also called community service. People have been sentenced by a Sheriff to a set number of hours of work. We are talking with people, and the staff that support them, about what doing unpaid work is…

Reports from each of our Rural Wisdom Local Area’s are now available to read online. We have been working in Angus, Eaglesham and Highland Perthshire and have spoken to older people and groups in each area to find out what works already and what could make their area work better for older people. We’ve had…

Last Friday I had the pleasure of spending the morning with Edzell’s primary seven class where we were discussing age-friendly communities and beginning to plan our inter-generational film project. First we spent some time discussing a bit about the older generation and sharing perspectives: Can older people ‘floss’?  (not the dental kind – it’s the latest…

On Friday, we launched our new Families Mental Health and Wellbeing Resources at our Rainbow Families on Film event. We worked with Rainbow Families and Scottish Queer International Film Festival to screen a range of films looking at differnet aspects of LGBTQ family life and experiences. We were thrilled to see such a great turn…

We are very happy to announce the arrival of our new Mental Health and Wellbeing Resources for families. Developed as part of our Families Supporting Families project, we spoke to parents and families across Scotland to put together a series of hints and tips. The tips come in three parts, ‘Hints and Tips for Parents…

This week, we were deeply saddened to hear that our friend Marie from Grampian Opportunities had passed away. Marie was part of the Outside the Box family, contributing, participating and enthusiastically helping us develop and test ideas to support and encourage people and communities who want to change things for the better. We first met…