Document 903

GOW Newsletter Nov 2004

Author(s): John Roberts

Copyright holder(s): John Roberts

GOW Triangle.
Gibson Street, Otago Street,
Westbank Quadrant, Glasgow G12


November 2004


Hello and welcome to our November news letter. A special welcome to all of you new comers to the area and I hope that this letter will encourage you to come along and join in the activities a few of us have been caring out over the past year and a half.

We are a body of resident volunteers who take a great deal of pride in our quiet wee haven in the west end. Our aim is to improve the environment around us and work together as a team doing different tasks.

If you are new to the area then what better way to get to meet your new neighbours and make new friends than by coming along and joining in the fun.

On the first Sunday of each month we have a clean up day, where Glasgow City Council provide us with a skip and we all get together and fill this with general rubbish form the area. Then on the Monday after this we meet up in Offshore cafe at 6.00pm and decide and review what we aim to do in the future. This is your opportunity to come along and take ownership of a particular task that you may be interested in.

Clean ups - First Sunday at 2.00pm in back garden
Meetings - Monday after, at 6.00pm in Offshore café.


Privacy of Back Gardens

We are currently trying to have two entries on Westbank Quadrant blocked off, hopefully by railings similar to those on the river, to stop access by bin rakers. These will be between No. 3 and Offshore and No. 5 and 7 and offer privacy to the back gardens. It is anticipated that local residents will gain access to the garden through a locked gate system. Local discussions are still underway. Please contact us with your views.


New Re Cycling Initiative For GOW

The City Council have offered to support us with this initiative by supplying us with blue bins for recycling our rubbish. These would be sited between No. 5 and No. 7 Westbank Quadrant and the bins are similar to the one sited in Gibson Street by the large car park/ waste ground.

The bins would be used for Paper, Plastic and Tin. BUT not for bottles, as this would cause a lot of noise around the area, however the bottle bank on Gibson Street can be used for this purpose. We will let you know when this is due to start and we hope that everyone will take up this opportunity to help Glasgow improve its re cycling record.

For more information contact -
[CENSORED: table here in original with private address details]


To Compost or not to Compost

By helping to make our area a greener place to live have you given any thought to composting your vegetable waste and even newspapers.

Here are some tips on how to get started-

Kitchen and garden waste is an immensely valuable source of nutrients and soil conditioner, so its worth making use of it, rather than throwing it away.

To make best compost, you need the right balance of air, water and garden debris. The richest compost comes from a mixture of soggy waste, such as grass clippings and kitchen waste plus Autumn leaves, which are in abundance just now.

Know is the time to discuss where you want to have the compost heap, and in fact someone may even have the correct type of bin to start this off. Firstly lay a layer of course woody pruning in the base. This keeps the heap slightly off the ground and lets air get into it and speeds up the breakdown of your materials. Throw in a load of weeds (but not roots of thick weeds) Once this is done you are ready to throw in your old kitchen waste. Its an idea to keep a bin or bag in the house so that you can keep this separate from other rubbish and then just chuck it on the pile.

If the heap is dry to start with then add a little water to it, just to get it started in breaking down. Place an old piece of carpet or sacking on top to keep the moisture in and the rain out. Then after 2 months turn it over with a fork so that it is upside down again to speed up the break down. When the bin is full or the heap up to around 4ft high, leave it for six months and you will then have tremendously rich compost, just in time for planting up your window boxes with Spring flowers.

There is something else to think about, should we agree to have our window sills decked all year round with blooming window boxes?

SO, should we have a compost heap at GOW?

Please get in touch if you would like to start



Not Quite a Roman wall, but our railings are important.!

Now that the riverbank railings have been restored to some degree of saftey, there is just one last wee task to be completed.

What the heck is this I hear you cry!!

Well as we all wrap up for the winter, so our precious railings need their winter coat. This means that we need a team of volunteers to give them a good quick coat of paint.

Just think about it, I'm sure most of you have been involved in paint parties when you moved into your flats, so why cant this be adopted for our railings? All it would take is one person from each flat to paint a section of the railings and the job would be done in jig time. So come on, who is going to take this task on board and help Ian organise a group to spend what would probably only be a couple of hours to complete the job.

Just think, if it's a cold but dry Saturday morning you could all start off with a big group hug to get warm and perhaps more!

Who knows.



Sleeping Policeman!!!!!!

Well this is my idea of a sleeping policeman.

However fortunately not everyone's. It's an important subject and needs to be discussed soon. There is a proposal that in a bid to slow down the traffic speeding along Westbank Quadrant a sleeping policeman is placed at some point on the road. It was hoped that there could have been at least two of these, but as they cost around £10,000 each I think that one is probably all we will get. So can we please come to a decision soon on where this is to be placed, and therefor make our street quieter and more safe.

Information about Document 903

GOW Newsletter Nov 2004