A busy and varied Friday

One of the things I love about being a Councillor is the wide variation in the things I get to do. Today was a great example of this.

This morning, I was asked by Station Commander Eddie Renfrew to come along to the first day of a new initiative in Kilbirnie House, the community resource based at Calton Fire Station. Kilbirnie House is kitted out with great facilities for young people to get them interested in fire safety, as well as having a conference room and computer suite.

Strathclyde Fire and Rescue were keen to get local people in to use the resources, and got in touch with John Wheatley College about hosting a computer skills course. Today saw the first group of women from the Calton come along to get started. They're all looking forward to surfing the net, sending some emails, and improving their typing skills, and I'm glad to see their enthusiasm being met by the local Fire and Rescue service. It's a great opportunity, and a very practical way to get the most out of their resources.

I hope the ladies will forgive me for posting up this picture of them as the lesson got underway!

Following this, I rushed back to the City Chambers for the Executive Committee. Today's agenda included a huge paper on Council funding for a range of organisations, details of the polling stations at the upcoming General Election (no confirmation of date, sadly!), a submission to the private members Bill on Autism Strategy, and proposals to allow groups to bid to run the Community Centres Culture and Sport Glasgow are proposing to close.

After lunch, I met with a constituent in Barrowfield, who is concerned by the behaviour of Celtic fans arriving by buses. Some drink, leave rubbish, and urinate close to his home. No one should have to put up with that, so I'll be doing what I can to help.

I attended the World Day of Prayer service at St Michael's in Parkhead. This was a great event, where all the local churches had come together to present a service composed by women in Cameroon. John Mason MP also attended, along with Frank McAveety MSP, and the congregations were pleased to see so many politicians giving their time and support. I had a good chat with some of those involved afterwards, and sampled some of the lovely home baking. I hope my singing didn't annoy too many people - I'm more used to Hampden!

After that finished, I popped back into the office to clear a few things off my desk. It's great to be out and about, but the paperwork tends to build up the second I leave!

Weekend of football

I've had a pretty enjoyable, if busy, weekend of football. Saturday of course was Hampden - for me, every Scotland game is a huge must-win game. Macedonia was particularly so.

I love going to Scotland games, and can't stand watching them on the tv. The atmosphere can be breathtaking, and I had a weird feeling as the team ran out, and as we sang Flower of Scotland, that everything would be ok. It took an agonisingly long time for the goal to come (and yet longer for McFadden to find the back of the net), but I was satisfied with the result. I can't wait 'til Wednesday night.

I got back home, and watched some of the England game with my husband, then went out for dinner with my mum and auntie Carol at Celinos on Ally Parade. I love going there, and I'm delighted they've started opening late Thursday - Sunday. I watched the second half of the Denmark - Portugal game when I got back.

This morning, I decided to forgo a Sunday morning lie-in to head out and see my Gran in Wishaw. My Gran White served in the Wrens in the Second World War, but had never been in contact with them after she was demobbed. An item in a Committee paper had led me to discover a contact for the Wrens Association in Glasgow, who had kindly dropped off some info for my Gran. She was very excited to find out they were still going, and I hope to take her along to their meeting on Thursday.

After a quick pit-stop back home for lunch, I headed down to Glasgow Green Football Centre, where I had been invited to the unveiling of a plaque dedicated to the memory of the founders of Rangers FC. The plaque was unveiled by Heather Lang, the grand-daughter of Peter McNeil.

Speaking to some of the attendees, it was interesting to find out that relatively little had been known about the roots of the club and that even Heather wasn't aware of her family connection. The investigative work of journalist Gary Ralston and club historian David Mason had brought a lot of the history to light, culminating in a book and the beautiful plaque itself. The plaque is obviously engraved metal, but this should give you an idea of what it says!



Later in the afternoon, I attended the finals of the UK Asian football championships at Celtic Park. This event was organised by the Scottish Ethnic Minority Sports Association, and was contested by Sporting Bengal and Punjabi Wolves. The very competitive match ended in a 1-1 draw, and went to penalties. Sadly for Punjabi Wolves, their final player to take a penalty missed his second of the afternoon, and the trophy went to Sporting Bengal.

It was a really nice event, well assembled by Dilawer Singh, President of SEMSA, and Culture and Sport Glasgow. To give the players even more credit, many of them were fasting for Ramadan and had also played in the preliminary games yesterday and Friday. Not many professional players would cope with that! There are so few players of ethnic minority origin in Scottish (and English) football, but given the talent on show today, I'm sure there will be plenty coming through.

Women's Day Event

I attended an event today at Celtic Park organised by Greater Easterhouse Women's Aid to mark International Women's Day (yes, I know it was on the 8th of March), which centred on highlighting the continuing scourge of domestic abuse.

I was already aware of some of the issues, but the presentations at the event focussed my attention on many other issues and problems. In particular, two issues stood out: the number of hoops a woman fleeing violence must jump through, and the high proportion of domestic abuse cases in the East End of Glasgow. Many agencies were in attendance at the event, and I hope that they will be spurred on to tackle the communication and co-ordination problems identified in the presentations. There seems to be a real need for everyone to work smarter and more closely to prevent women falling through the gaps.

I hope as well that the warm words spoken by people today turn into further action to change attitudes and stop the very private cycle of violence which persists in our society.