Govanhill Baths Community Trust ·

The Trust's Agm 2011 Preliminary Report

Posted: 11th July 2011 By Govanhill Baths

The Annual Report of the Trust was presented at the AGM held on 15th June at the Govanhill Housing Association. The Report GBCT annual report 2011 contained the activities of the Trust and the Centre for Community Practice over the last year. Three new Board members were nominated and elected and MSP Nicola Sturgeon and Liz Gardiner of Fable Vision spoke on the theme, "From "Govan to Govanhill". A lively discussion amongst members and Friends of Govanhill Baths followed particularly with regard to the development of the Trust's Phase 1 of the Project to re-open the baths and its relationship to a growing call for more "community ownership". Please see Nicola Sturgeon's annotated speech below:-

Nicola Sturgeon Speech (Annotated), AGM 15th June 2011

Whilst the term community empowerment was a term she did not particularly like and used for want of a better expression Nicola began by saying that she wanted to say something about it because Govanhill was beginning to show that it can teach other communities in Glasgow and beyond something about it.

She first of spoke of the what she called the paradox of Govanhill; on the one hand she said, Govanhill was without a shadow of doubt in her mind more committed, energetic, enervated and dedicated than possibly any other community she knew. There was exciting activism, examples of which were the Baths Trust, the Residents Association, the Community Council, Govanhill Community Action group and others. However, she pointed out, it also had a population that in the main feels very disempowered as she had discovered during the election campaign when talking to hundreds if not thousands of local residents. She spoke of the countless number of people who expressed the sentiment that they felt disempowered and not in control of the environment and the conditions in which they were living in all of their respects. They felt, she said, unable to influence matters and were disempowered. The big challenge for groups like the Baths Trust and others she said was to bridge the gap between some of the best community action in the city and a population that feels disempowered.

She indicated that the baths building was not the only way to bridge this gap but was potentially a very powerful one. She then stressed that getting it back into use was symbolically important, it was taken away and now the community bit by bit was winning it back and that gives people both hope and optimism.

However it is not just symbolic she added, the baths building and hopefully the pool eventually had the ability to be a focal point, a real hub for the community.

“Taking an historical asset like the baths building and bringing it into community use – to use it as an integral part of the regeneration of Govanhill - is the idea of cultural planning in action, as the GBCT Annual Report describes it, ‘to contribute to the social, cultural and built regeneration of Govanhill’”, she stressed.

Going on she celebrated the work of the Trust indicating that, “the work the Baths Trust has done has been immense and I have nothing but admiration and respect for the distance you have travelled. I am sure many of you and many others were sceptical about the ability of the Trust to get to the stage, well almost, of opening the doors again, but you have, and I really pay tribute to this”

My role now, she said, as the local MSP, “is one where I am 100% committed to playing a role actively and enthusiastically to work with you, to be a support, to be an advocate and a practical help when I can, to help you get from where you are just now to your ultimate destination. Let me make very clear I endorse and back that destination and will do everything I can to help you reach it”.

She made clear, “that with me as your local MSP you will have somebody who uses every skill will be determined and energetic and enthusiastic in doing everything I can, within the rules, to help you get the funding you need to get though the fact I am a minister does not mean I can short circuit the rules”

“I have a lot of experience over the past 4 years in Govan to bring to Govanhill in to bringing investment and money into my constituency. We got Town Centre regeneration funding for Piers Institute, Heritage Lottery which helped transform the centre of Govanhill and Historic Scotland money that helped to refurbish the old ship yard buildings at Fairfield and Govanhill old parish church. That energy and enthusiasm I helped to bring I now look forward to bringing to Govanhill.

Money is scarce but still a lot gets spent every day every week every month and what I hear in GH and from many others communities is a sense of disempowerment. People don’t always feel they have enough influence on how that money gets spent, it gets filtered through the council or the health service and people there make decisions who don’t necessarily connect very closely with communities will top slice it or decide what the priorities are, and by the time it gets down to communities it is either diminished or is directed in a way the community does not think is right. I actually think that Govanhill has started to show how things can be done differently. The process by which the Equally Well money was distributed by GOCA is an example of bottom up grassroots community led decision-making and control of budgets and we should be very keen on this as is the government is keen. There are challenges though and in facing them we can get into a position where Govanhill is showing others how it can be done”.

In answer to questions from the Trust as to what leadership meant at the level of the Trust’s board she made plain she would come to our Board meetings and offer practical help and assist in any way she could with regard to seeking funding, mentioning a series of likely funders that existed.

In respect of city council local and leadership as an MSP at the wider political level she stressed that she has always tried to work constructively with the council and that;

“Govanhill is starting to do things differently as I said earlier and started to put the idea of community leadership into practice. It has only made a start, is embryonic, has a long way to go, and there is signs that the council is feeling a bit threatened by this and is starting to push back against it. One of my roles as the local MSP is to support the community in going down this path and see off attempts by big bureaucracy to take control back. As soon as you empower one person, group or community, by definition you disempower another - the one that has the power - which in this case is the council. In terms of the leadership I can show here we need to work with the community in all its various forms to make sure the start you have made to what I consider to be real community empowerment keeps going and does not get cut off before it reaches its prime and before the council reasserts itself and takes it back”.

(Our Emphases)

June 2011

(Click an image to open the slideshow)