Glencairn Community Health & Wellbeing Project commenced in 2022, utilising a grant from Dumfries & Galloway Community Mental Health & Wellbeing Fund to employ our first dedicated H&W project officer, Katie, who joined us in September 2022. Since then, Katie has worked hard to develop and present a range of health and wellbeing projects and events, ranging from ‘Art for Wellbeing’ and ‘Musical Memories’ sessions, to Netball club and Healthy Eating workshops.

Here are some of our current activities:

Digital Buddies

Katie is available in the Hive on a Thursday morning from 10am until 11.30am to help with your digital issues (internet access, difficulties accessing or completing forms, etc) and any other Health & Wellbeing questions you may have.

Moniaive Community Garden

It’s hard to believe that work only started on our Community Garden in December 2023, when we held our first community drop-in event to discuss finding a home for our food growing aspirations. With Glencairn Community Council permission secured to develop the (little-used) Car Park Picnic Area, work commenced on creating the garden in March 2023. Using a small allowance from our D&GCMH&W grant, we were able to purchase items and materials to start the construction. A team of volunteers helped us to refurbish a donated tool shed, to install a water butt, and to build raised beds (from baths!) and compost bins. The Community Pay Back team also provided us with three purpose-built and fully-accessible timber raised beds, to complete our infrastructure. Planting sessions commenced immediately, and we were eating the first salad crops by early June.

June 2024 also saw our first garden “Swap & Share” event, which attracted over 70 participants. In September, Katie and her volunteers supported the village Fashion Show, and some of the funds raised on the night were donated to the new garden to help establish an Outdoor Kitchen. This was used to provide lunches during the Autumn ‘Garden Planning’ sessions, and then to provide hot soup for our first Halloween event, which attracted over 40 youngsters to the garden. The outdoor kitchen has been used for almost every event since then , including the Living Advent Calendar, and community BBQs.

The Community Garden has been very well-used, providing us with outdoor space for teaching and sharing food growing, preserving and cooking skills and knowledge. A weekly work-party maintains the raised beds, and the primary school now visits regularly to enjoy gardening (their dedicated raised bed) and other outdoor activities. At the start of October 2025 our “Green Gathering” event was centred on the garden, and among other activities, local people came together to help us build a Wormery. On Halloween this year the garden attracted over 100 visitors of all ages, who came to enjoy guising, apple bobbing, hot dogs and soup. The garden shed was turned into a Fortune Teller’s booth, and became the star of the show.

Monthly Repair Cafe

We held our first Repair Cafe in March 2023, and have never looked back. There’s clearly a good appetite for ‘Make Do and Mend’ in Moniaive, as we usually manage 20-25 repairs per session, saving our customers money, and preventing unnecessary waste from going to landfill. Our Repair Cafe was established using a grant from the Pockets & Prospects fund, which enabled us to buy the basic tools and equipment needed to get started.

The Repair Cafe meets between 10am and 1pm on the First Saturday of every Month in the Glencairn Memorial Hall. Our skilled and enthusiastic volunteers will assess your broken item and (where necessary) agree a price for the repair – you only pay for replacement parts, they provide their labour for free! Most months we are able to offer repairs in Bicycles, electrical items, PCs and laptops, guitars, and textile items. While you wait, there is plenty of coffee, cake and conversation to be had.

You can read our first Monitoring Report on the Repair Cafe here:

In May 2025 the Repair Cafe was recognised with the “Environmental Champion” Award in this year’s Glencairn Gazette Awards. In October the Repair Cafe joined with our Green Gathering event to offer additional activities for youngsters and families, to help encourage the next generation of young ‘repairers’. Over 60 people attended, including 15 youngsters, who had the opportunity to play with electronics, bikes, guitars, and textiles.

From November 2025 onwards our Repair Cafe is offering a hot, two course lunch, for a small donation. Our volunteers will be using food donated through a Dumfries Food Waste initiative to create healthy, “low waste” lunches. The first session saw over 35 people stay to share a lovely meal together.

Table Tennis

The Table Tennis group meets on a Wednesday morning, 9.30-10.30 am in the upstairs Hall at the Glencairn Memorial Institute. Players of all ages (over 16 years) and levels of experience are welcome to come along to join in with some light exercise, coffee and conversation. It’s all very light-hearted, and non-competitive, though the team have played their first ‘away’ match this year!

The Green Gathering

In October 2025 we used a grant from the D&G Climate Hub SEED Fund to hold a 3 day event, centred around our Community Garden. We offered two events plus a lunchtime activity each day. Due to particularly bad weather, some events had to be moved indoors, and one walk had to be postponed. Everything else went ahead and all the events were well attended and enjoyed.

And here are a few photos from some of the other things we’ve done: