As a way of connecting people more with their community, helping families work together to find out more about their community, including local businesses and gathering people’s ideas on what they would like to have happen in the area that doesn’t already exist, Eaglesham History Society and Community Connections came up with “How Well Do You Know Your Area?” Family Quiz with prizes!

We adapted questions from Eaglesham’s Heritage Trail and made up some of our own. We distributed the quizzes through Eaglesham Primary School, St. Joseph’s Primary, Eaglesham library, Eaglesham Facebook pages and anywhere else on and offline we could think of.  They were also the main focus of the first Community Connections ‘Pop up’ Village Gathering and were handed to people who engaged with us during that.  The quiz became a talking point for the whole village!

We found out that people would like self-defence classes for women, a gaming club for kids, a community choir, a swimming pool, more plants, a family scavenger hunt, a community garden, beehives for locally produced honey, a Mens’ Shed (open to women too!), DIY for women, arts & crafts for adults, amongst other things.  They said they felt Eaglesham and Waterfoot are great villages to live in as you can go for so many lovely family walks in nature and there are so many things to see and do.

The lucky winners were Aicha Hadji, James Malcolm-Blythe and Claire Barsanti.  Prizes were awarded at The Eglinton Arms in November by Carolyn Stark, hotel manager and Ken Mallard from the History Society.  Prizes had been donated by the hotel, Ian’s Kitchen and G R Brown Butchers.

As well as gathering all this invaluable information from people to explore, feedback from the quiz was tremendous.  Everyone said they really enjoyed the family experience of walking around the village looking for clues. They said they’d lived in the village for years and didn’t know a lot of the history that they discovered from the quiz.

One of the questions highlighted that the first ever woman pilot, Winifred Drinkwater had been born in Waterfoot, and another that Nazi Rudolph Hess had mysteriously crash landed in Floors Farm in Eaglesham where he was captured.

“Great idea and fun for all the family!” quoted one family. “We loved spending the time together really exploring the village we live in” said another.

Learn more about the Community Connections project and how to get involved.