Workshop Event Ideas

Sandbox	The following are a few topic ideas and suggestions for formats and activities Ideas input welcome
Austerity measures	The Village Square although we wish to create a space for enjoyment and learning, we also want to encourage healthy open and vigorous debate and discussion on the political, economic, and environmental platform.
	Govan Mappers There are mappers already working away in Govan at present and there has been growing interest in the Open Street Map (OSM) for recording you place and space. Come along and find out about these things and the possibilities for your area.
	The Open Street Map is involved in making a people’s map of the world. From refugee camps in Africa, as well as your local area and the kind of information you want to know.
Tinkering	Have you ever wanted to tinker with things, strip them down to see how they work, to change what they do. Design or build something yourself. Tinkering is a great way to learn things. 1. A traveling mender of metal household utensils. 2. Chiefly British A member of any of various traditionally itinerant groups of people living especially in Scotland and Ireland; a traveler. 3. One who enjoys experimenting with and repairing machine parts. 4. A clumsy repairer or worker; a meddler. 1. To work as a tinker. 2. To make unskilled or experimental efforts at repair; fiddle: tinkered with the engine, hoping to discover the trouble; tinkering with the economy by trying various fiscal policies. 1. To mend as a tinker. 2. To manipulate unskillfully or experimentally.
Understanding	What is economics got to do with you? politics? Do you feel you would like to understand these things a bit better. These things control our lives. The more we understand about them the more we can take back that control. Economic decisions we make almost every day as we balance our income with our outgoings. Politics is how groups of people organise themselves and come to decisions consensually. There are those who would rather you didn’t think about these things and leave everything to them. Do you think they could do a better job than you?
	Asset Map Govanhill Learn from what the people say in Govanhill in the creating of their asset map. Community lead research We believe that communities are best placed to determine their own interests and progression routes. Our research work therefore aims to support communities to develop reflexive skills in gathering and analysing information relevant to them. These skills have a value beyond the duration of any specific project.
Model making	Making things in three dimensions helps you to think about space in a different way we have a certain amount of materials that we can use to build your ideas.
Talks Discussion Meetings	We would like to encourage folk to come along and talk about a whole variety if things, have meetings and think about ways to communicate with people in your community and in the wider world. Film nights can be arranged. We want to encourage those working in the community to come along and tell folk what they are doing and also to encourage talking to each other.
Cafe	The PI cafe offers comfortable surroundings in which to meet people and have something to eat. The Cafe closes at 2:00 but the space is still available for meetups and tea can be bought from the machine.
Community Garden	Would you like to talk about growing ideas for around your area. What the garden is about and how to grow your own.
Creativity	You do not need to be an “artist” to be creative. The creativity needed to survive in some of the worst conditions of poverty far accedes the creativity of the artist.  Art is how we live not something confined to the narrow confines of the “artist practice” the gallery, or the self-appointed expert. Bring your art and creativity to the village square.
Introduction Open source computing	Open Source computing is about using free operating systems (the thing that makes them work) and software (programs for doing things) rather than paying lots of money for them. In open source you can also help to develop software and alter the code used to build software. *Introduction to open source computing  (with music) 30: 00 OS program Without music 19: 52
Reading group	Some of the best books to be read are those that others have suggested. Talking about different books and sharing what we understand them to mean helps to broaden the scope of our reading.
History	To see where we are going we need sometimes to look back. Not even so far into the past. Contemporary history as well as ancient history can reveal to us important precedents, achievements  that can help with building a vision of the type of future we want from the experiences of those involved in past struggles. 1990. “The Glasgow Keelie” and “Workers City” where publications that highlighted the financing of culture which we have become all to aware of today.
Writing group	Expressing what we are thinking through words and using words to articulate what we mean is a skill that is available to anyone who can read and write. We are all “writers” Sometimes we just need the gentle encouragement of each other to get started
Drawing	Observational drawing, one aspect of drawing is an exercise in looking at things. Not imagining what things look like but studying things and drawing what you see. A rendering of visually factual evidence, which is a skill that can be applied to many other aspects of looking at life. Imaginative drawing on the other hand can take the place words and be used to jog the memory of ideas. And that’s only two things.
Common Good	The common good would seem a reasonable concept (idea) to base the endeavours of the village Square. Common to all for the good of all. (With a heavy bias towards representing the most with the least, considering common good assets at present are being exploited by those who need it least.)
Science Workshops	Couldn’t a beneficial interest in science be created, if the interface between science with the public was better developed. Wouldn’t the public’s perception of what science is and means be better understood, if it were related to the everyday reality of their lives. Not so much by the wonder of television, but by the wonder of natural phenomena and how we fit into the structure of nature. We think so
Bike Workshops	It can’t helped to be noticed there is no bike shop nor outlet for fixing bikes and encouraging people to get on them in Govan. There are plans to create a bike workshop in the community and Dr Bike has offered a free workshop to get hings started. We have plenty bikes needing fixed and plenty candidates for riding them.
Film nights	When Hollywood released “On the Waterfront” in 1954 starring Marlon Brando to much acclaim. Another film made the same year “Salt of the earth” The only blacklisted American film in history was banned for its daring political content, which anticipated the civil rights and feminist movements by nearly ten years. “On the Waterfront” Anti union propaganda went on to world acclaim. “Salt of the earth” about striking miners, is practically unheard of, even today.
The FORUM	The forum was an idea put forward a few folk in Govan, Glasgow. The project is established to pursue the following objectives: To explore ways of presenting a communication platform relevant to the working class section of our society. To explore all kinds of topics even sensitive or unusual ones. To help foster understanding of things we can work together on and enjoy, amongst members of society. To collaborate in producing studies on the endeavours of the group that may be relevant to our communities. To help explain things in plain English and through issues that are relevant to folk in the community.  FORUM
Free University	In this country we have a lot of freedom and liberty to do things and one of these is to educate ourselves. Much of formal education is driven by  train for the work place. At the free university the work is usually driven by the want to do it, self-improvement, self-determination and a hunger to learn. A much healthier and useful approach to education. Most of what we learn is learned outside of school anyway, and most of what we learn outside of school usually is more useful to our lives.
Teenage Fan Club	Apart from PR companies, brand names policing ideas to keep them off the street and the demonisation of the government, who else apart from themselves, some dedicated workers, their parents, actually thinks anything about teenagers. The government doesn’t know what to do with teenagers apart from think of ways to control them. When our youth need our support in the confusing time when they are in the transitional stage of moving from childhood into adulthood, the weird time, we abandon them to the market, “further education” and Facebook. Or if they are lucky a mindless job. “The Teenage Fan Club” will think of ways to mentor teenagers in life beyond teenhood.
Manifesto for a new society	The manifesto is for the use of any grass roots, community, group, or individual, who is looking to create a format or to build a set of principles to help guide them towards a new civil society. In order to change things it is useful to have a plan, a road map, some overarching aims that we all hold dear. Changing society means institutional change, as well as cultural change. To create institutional change we need mass movements. We need the collective strength of our communities and our individual endeavours under a banner of some aims we can agree on. These aims do not have to be controversial. For instance. Sensible housing, health care, education for all, can relate to many of the underlying issues in our communities and encompass much of the work being done and also help to formulate what needs done.*Introduction to Peoples Manifesto Project 11: 16 A project running in Glasgow helping to consolidate community vision and activities towards a new civil society.
Outreach	Visiting groups out with the community are welcome to share the resources of the Village Square, set up and share events of mutual interest, swap experiences and introduce ideas.
RIB at Square event every Month.	The RIB started running stalls and working with other organisations in October 2006, since then it has been involved in over 40 events (some big, some small) including collaborations with film festivals, screenings, conferences, talks, punk gigs, and community events. It has utilised a range of venues – including Kinning Park Complex, the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Pearce Institute, Nice N Sleazy, STUC, GFT, Friends Meeting House, the free Hetherington, Drumchapel Community Centre, Dows, Scotia bar, Lauries bar, Glasgow Social Centre, Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities. This ‘Book-fair’ has more in common with a wee bookshop than a large book festival. However there are four or five strands to each RiB… stuff for sale, things to swap, materials free to take away, library stock to view and events to engage in…
Precarious Worker Project	Precarious work is a term used to describe non-standard employment which is poorly paid, insecure, unprotected, and cannot support a household. In recent decades there has been a dramatic increase in precarious work due to such factors as: globalization, the shift from the manufacturing sector to the service sector, and the spread of information technology. These changes have created a new economy which demands flexibility in the workplace and, as a result, caused the decline of the standard employment relationship and a dramatic increase in precarious work. An important aspect of precarious work is its gendered nature, as women are continuously over-represented in this type of work.
Village Square making Community Connections.	Come and find out how you can participate and present ideas for the VS at the Tuesday evening Govan Conversation, dinner nights. Tuesday 6:30*Have you something to say about your community? *Have a project you wish to carry out? *What do you see the main issues in your community to be? *Do you have skills you want to share? *Would you like to look after some Open Source computers *Do a workshop on Open Source technology? *Generally help out with projects, ideas? *Do a writing workshop? *Make a radio program? *Run a drawing class? *Do a talk? *Workshop on basic woodwork skills? *Workshop on practical engineering skills? *Tinkering, stripping, exploring, how things work *Ideas for film shows? *Musical evenings? *Cooking skills? *Gardening skills? *Organising skills? *Local history knowledge? *Radical history? *National History? *Global history? *Politics? *Basic understanding of economics? *Civil rights? *Climate Change? *Popular Education? *Working class movement building? *Theater and self organising? *City walks? *Geography? *Architecture? *Civil Society? *Nature rights? *Free University? *Common Good?