Community Projects

Angela Wilson DCS,
Community Outreach Worker
for Upper Clyde, Tinto Parishes,
& Douglas Valley

updated as at Dec 2024

Update on our Project Worker:

After several years helping to bring into being projects not only for our parish, but within the wider cluster, Angela Wilson has stepped down. She has been superb and while we will miss her terribly, we wish her well as she begins working in community projects closer to home.
As part of our cluster conversations for 2025, as we explore and union with the other congregations in the cluster, we will be working towards appointing someone within a 0.5 capacity. We'll keep you updated as we go. Ideally, we would hope to appoint someone to the post by Easter/ end of April 2025.

In January, 2021, the parish grouping of Upper Clyde, Tinto Parishes, and Douglas Valley welcomed Angela Wilson into the ministry team as our shared Community Outreach Worker.
Upper Clyde, working on goals identified from our Local Church Review, and also in the light of COVID-19 and lockdown, has asked Angela to help us in developing the following three areas:

• Let's Get Growing - is an ongoing community growing / gardening project. This came about as a response to increased referrals of people to the food bank. What we're hoping to do is supplement the food bank boxes with fresh veg. as we can.  In 2021 we began by inviting people to grow potatoes, having received grant money for seed potatoes, grow-bags, and compost. There was enough for 100 volunteers - including our 5 primary schools - to plant up. While some of the harvest was kept for personal use, most of it was given to Clydesdale Food Bank - in total, we gathered 336lbs - or 24 stone! - of spuds to give to the food bank. 
  2022 saw us planting 400 wild fruiting trees around the parish, as well as ongoing veg. growing. We now have a 'wasteland' project in Crawford where raised beds have been created, along with composting bins - and some of our village gardeners have bee doing great work. 
  In 2023 we gave away 100 bags of compost - to our schools and a number of keen gardeners across our villages. In addition we put together 100 packs containing 10 different packets of various veg. seeds - with the aim to grow your own/ donate to the food bank project. On Sat 29 April, a small band of volunteers set to work organising large planters around the church building in Abington - with a variety of wild fruiting trees, herbs, and strawberries - all impressively deer and rabbit-proofed. As these blossom and flourish, anyone in the area is welcome to help themselves to produce. We're also hoping to establish planters around the wider part of the pathway entrance, that leads up from the village to the church. 
  2024 update - there are now planters along the grass verge up by the car park - these will be used for growing veg, herbs, and more fruiting trees.  
  Keep checking the blog for updates - and 'let's get growing'! LINK TO PAGE 
  
  
• Anna Chaplaincy Project - see our dedicated Anna Chaplaincy Page at THIS LINK
  
  
• Farming Chaplaincy Project - see our dedicated farming chaplaincy page at THIS LINK
  
  
• Dementia Support Group - this project is for a little further down the track, so watch this space!
  
  
• Bereavement Support Group - We were fortunate enough to receive a grant for this project for 3 months, with Upper Clyde funding the remaining 3 months.
  Funds were used:
  *to buy book resources to share with those who were living with bereavement;
  *pay for the hire of the hall in the Abington Hub (felt to be a 'neutral' space);
  *pay for refreshments for those coming to the group and other misc. expenses.
  The project was piloted over 6 months from October 2022  to March 2023. At the end of the pilot, the team met and decided to retain the resources gathered (books, links, etc.) and share them as needed, via our Pastoral Coordinator. However, the monthly meeting was disbanded with the feeling that a 'one to one' approach perhaps worked better in rural communities. 
  A wee video about the project was made in June - you can now view it here...
  
  
  
  

If you'd like to see some of what Angela has been involved in, to help set these up, and of her wider work, you can watch a presentation she recently gave via a zoom meeting of rep's from the various members of the parish grouping - on our YouTube channel on THIS LINK or embedded below...