Making Just Futures

In summary, Making Just Futures is the means to reclaim skills, agency, and wellbeing as part of a learning community. Every week we’ll offer skill sessions, at levels to suit beginners or for those who want to take something a bit further. Every season there’ll be new workshops. Learn about yourself and others along the way. Or join discussions about issues that affect us and our neighbourhoods

Current sessions cover an introduction to gardening or woodwork with options and workshops to suit a range of interests and capabilities. This season they will include: tool care, carving, felting, lime plastering, pyrography - with more crafts, discussions, and gatherings planned for the months to come (check back soon).

Anyone is welcome to join and we particularly want to welcome folk living locally, and those from communities across the city struggling to get through week to week, for whatever reason. Perhaps you’re struggling to get by on a limited budget or overcoming struggles related to addiction or just feeling a bit low. Maybe you've been out of work for some time. Or perhaps you experience some form of discrimination or are new to Scotland.

To Join

To join the Making Just Futures learning community - with access to the full range of skills sessions and other shared resources, you're invited to come along for 4 community sessions:
- what matters to us, how we care for ourselves & each other;
- what we need to be safe - both from hazards but also to learn;
- how the space works and
- how to make a soup or stew.

Taken together, they’ll give you the best start in finding your way round and getting more out of the experience.

To find out more, come along to one of our Weekly Welcome sessions on Wednesday mornings (11am-12:30pm) and chat to someone. We’ll show you round and talk through how it works, and you're welcome to stay for our community lunch afterwards if you’re up for that.

To help us manage numbers we ask you to book the welcome session you want to attend, and to let us know if you can't make it - here are the links for November and December's sessions (link opens in new window):

Wednesday 22nd November

Wednesday 29th November

Wednesday 6th December

Wednesday 13th December

Wednesday 20th December

If you have any allergies or access requests please let us know in advance and we will do our best to accommodate these.

If you want more referral information, you’ll find that here.

Please be aware that we usually have a few (well behaved!) dogs on site, and with us being in an active workshop there will be doors open and it can get quite chilly so please dress appropriately. If this presents any difficulties for you, please get in touch and we will do what we can to help you.

Beyond that Making Just Futures will host gatherings, discussions and events that will be open to the wider community.

You can also sign up for info about these below

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You might also want to keep an eye on our linktr.ee/galgael

This project is supported by Glasgow Communities and Place Fund (UKSPF), NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and other funders without whom this project would remain less possible.

COMMUNITY SKILLS TO IMAGINE, DETERMINE AND MAKE JUST FUTURES

Latest

Referring Someone

More information for referral agencies supporting someone to access what GalGael offers.
Making Just Futures

Making Just Futures is a big new piece of work for GalGael. Over two years, Making Just Futures will empower communities to imagine, determine and ultimately make just futures that meet their needs for living well and sustainably in an increasingly uncertain world.
GALGAEL TEMPORARILY CLOSED

WE'LL BE CLOSED FOR THE NEXT WEE WHILE... Glasgow City Council has declared the derelict building next door unsafe and have suspended access to the workshop. We'll let you know as soon as we get an update but for the time being we need to suspend much of our workshop activity - including Practical Woodwork and Thursday evenings 🥲
A new state

Govan Free State: living in the early days of a better nation. So COP26 is coming to town, about the same time as GalGael enter our 25th year. And so we thought what more appropriate way to mark all this than to declare a new free state - returning to our roots in Pollok Free State - an anti motorway camp. A playful, creative exploration of power and legitimacy in the face of climate emergency. An act of solidarity with those communities struggling for recognition of their territories.

Referring Someone

More information for referral agencies supporting someone to access what GalGael offers.
Open Workshop Nights

We have a workshop with tools and benches so every Thursday we open that up to the wider community. Thursdays are open format - they very much depend on who shows up and what they bring. But we can promise workshop space, a basic meal and some banter.
Boat building

GalGael works together on demanding common tasks that build community and demonstrate ways of living with more humanity. Working together on boats of all shapes and sizes is one of the ways in which we do just this.

Timber and firewood

We produce a number of Scottish hardwoods - often by working with partners within Historic Environment Scotland and Glasgow City Council to bring locally produced timber for sale to the public and for use in our products.
Boat building

GalGael works together on demanding common tasks that build community and demonstrate ways of living with more humanity. Working together on boats of all shapes and sizes is one of the ways in which we do just this.
How to participate

There are many ways to get involved in our work. Find out how to become part of what we're doing, visit us or stay connected.
Why we need volunteers

GalGael offers activities that help people reclaim skills, agency and sense of worth. Without our crew of dedicated volunteers, these activities wouldn't happen nor would the many other adventures we have.
About our social enterprise

Our range of products and services - activities that generate meaning and income to help us become self-sustaining.
GalGael Next?

Big changes at GalGael
Open Workshop Nights

We have a workshop with tools and benches so every Thursday we open that up to the wider community. Thursdays are open format - they very much depend on who shows up and what they bring. But we can promise workshop space, a basic meal and some banter.
A new state

Govan Free State: living in the early days of a better nation. So COP26 is coming to town, about the same time as GalGael enter our 25th year. And so we thought what more appropriate way to mark all this than to declare a new free state - returning to our roots in Pollok Free State - an anti motorway camp. A playful, creative exploration of power and legitimacy in the face of climate emergency. An act of solidarity with those communities struggling for recognition of their territories.
Our story

Our story is crafted by many people. It starts in one of the most deprived areas of Glasgow, where the GalGael grew from an environmental campaign. We created GalGael as a vehicle to take forward what we’d learned and to move from being about what we didn’t want to what we did want.
Colin's passion shared in BBC Alba documentary

BBC Alba documentary Birdman of Pollok, Curaidh na Coille tells the story of Colin Macleod our founder - a power story for our times. "An inspiring insight into a quest for justice, equity & sustainability of people and place" Broadcasting on 30 December