Reflections on Social Hubs in Moray
Last year the community response to the cost-of-living crisis was to provide Warm Hubs, places where people could go to keep warm if they couldn’t afford to heat their houses adequately.
Coastal Connections was aware that Hopeman, Spynie and Burghead were running these social spaces but were concerned that the cost of heating the halls was difficult for the community organisations. OTB made an application for funding to help the organisations heat their halls and provide teas coffees and biscuits and activities. We also wanted to pilot using community transport to get people to the spaces so included Hopeman Community Bus and some funding for us to develop the conversations we were having around community transport and social isolation.
The ‘Warm Hubs’ became ‘Social Hubs’ as that was both less stigmatised and more accurate as social isolation was the bigger issue. Burghead ran two groups and saw a rise in numbers as they added activities such as showing old photographs and crafts and the bus was used to get folk to the community hall who would have been unable to attend otherwise. They also found that people loved the homemade soup, and they had a dedicated posse of volunteers.
Spynie is a fragmented and isolated community and the hub saw people from all generations coming together to provide warm drinks and company. There was a great atmosphere as the hub ran for a few hours allowing people to drop in at different times.
Hopeman had been going a couple of months before the others and had a dedicated group who met. We produced postcards for them to drop through doors – this had been shown to be a very effective way of getting information out when we used it to get a survey out in Burghead. Social media is not always the most effective way as many don’t see they posts – Hopeman is again using this method to build awareness of a PB application. It is something small communities can do!
Over the summer the Hubs continued with monthly activities and a couple of training events and now the communities are now gearing up to provide the same hubs this year. It is good to see that the model of working together and seeing the coast as a larger whole is still part of the plan.
The social hubs were funded and supported by:
The Scottish Government, Moray Local Action Group, and tsiMORAY through the Rural Community Led Local Development Fund and the Moray Local Action Fund.
You can find out more about our Coastal Connections project and our work going on in the Moray area here: https://otbds.org/projects/coastal-connections/
Coastal Connections is a project funded by The National Lottery Community Fund, made possible by National Lottery players.