Friday 10 March 2023
Welcome to Community, your Dumfries and Galloway community bulletin.
We are always keen to hear of any positive stories about things that are happening in your community and would like to feature them in Community – please email us at communitybulletin@dumgal.gov.uk and one of our reporters will get back to you.
 Spring Clean Dumfries and Galloway
It's Spring Clean Scotland time, and who doesn't love a Spring Clean? Dumfries and Galloway Council is proud to support the Keep Scotland Beautiful campaign that runs from 17 March to 17 April. Council services are looking forward to working with volunteers to tackle the left-behind litter and bring back the sparkle to our exceptional open spaces.
If you know of a local community group looking to organise or participate in a litter pick, there is support available. Our council can provide bags, litter pickers, gloves and hi-vis vests for events, and collect the bags for recycling or disposal afterwards.
To register, please let us know the date, start time, end time and location of your event by emailing supportdg@dumgal.gov.uk or by contacting your local ward officer.
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Flood Recovery Community Conversations
The series of Flood Recovery Community Conversations has now come to an end, with conversations having been held in all of the worst affected communities of Dalbeattie, Kirkton, Tynron, Dumfries and Stranraer.
Nine teams from across Dumfries and Galloway Council, along with colleagues from six partner agencies, attended all of the events to provide citizens with information and support. Local Community Councils and Community Resilience Teams were also represented at the events. Across these events, a total of 185 citizens attended the Community Conversations with the majority of citizens being particularly keen to speak to staff from the council's Roads and Flood Risk Management Team.
Feedback from these events is currently being collated by the ward officers and will be shared with all attendees who registered for feedback, local Community Councils and made available on the dedicated Community Conversation webpage. This information will also be made available on the Flood Recovery Support webpage.
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 Police Officer Recruitment
Have you thought about joining the police? Police Scotland is recruiting in Dumfries and Galloway now. You need to be aged 18 or older (you can apply at 17.5), be physically fit and hold a valid driving licence. Qualifications are not essential to join but you must pass an entry test.
If you are successful, you'll go through 12 weeks of full training at Police Scotland Headquarters, Tulliallan, also home to the Scottish Police College. After that, all new police officers spend the first two years as a probationer, continuing to learn on the job. Once you have completed your probation, you can then specialise. That could include CID, child protection, cybercrime or road policing to name a few. The opportunities to progress your career and development are endless.
There are information recruitment events coming up in Dumfries and Stranraer. You can hear from serving police officers on what the role is like. You can also speak to members of the recruitment team about the application process.
The events will take place on:
- 20 March – 6–8pm, Stranraer Police Station, Port Rodie.
- 21 March – 6–8pm, Dumfries HQ, Cornwall Mount.
Galloway Mountain Rescue Team Recruiting
Galloway Mountain Rescue Team (GMRT) is now recruiting and holding a recruitment day at its base in Newton Stewart on Saturday 11 March.
You are invited to visit the team's base, meet some of the team members, and get an insight on what it takes to join the team.
The closing date for applications is 31 March.
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Community Activators are Active
Over the past year Dumfries and Galloway Council’s Active Communities team has been working in collaboration with the Health and Social Care Partnership to increase the delivery of region-wide older-adult physical activity opportunities.
Over the past year Dumfries and Galloway Council’s Active Communities team have been working in collaboration with the Health and Social Care Partnership to increase the delivery of region-wide older adult physical activity opportunities.
The Community Activator classes will be delivered in a fun and inclusive manner and will improve the physical, mental and social wellbeing of participants. The programmes also aim to prevent de-conditioning and contribute to Health and Social Care priorities including healthy ageing.
Thanks to funding from the Health and Social Care Partnership, Community Activator staff have undertaken a range of training to ensure programmes are age and stage-specific while being delivered in a safe and inclusive environment.
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 Improving the Cancer Journey
Dumfries and Galloway Health and Social Care Partnership and Macmillan are inviting third sector organisations to a series of engagement sessions on Improving the Cancer Journey (ICJ) in the region.
The new Macmillan-funded service is expected to be fully up and running in Dumfries and Galloway by September this year. It aims to transform the lives of people affected by cancer by providing tailored practical and personal support, shaped around their individual needs.
The engagement sessions are being held to connect with the third sector to fully explain what ICJ involves. They will also look at what the third sector in the region is doing currently to help people with cancer and, moving forward, what else they could do by adapting, developing, or exploring current or new services. They will also agree how the new service will engage with providers in future.
Third Sector Dumfries and Galloway is helping to facilitate the sessions and asks organisations to book spaces as soon as possible:
Stranraer Millennium Centre, Wednesday 12 April: Book here
Lockerbie Town Hall, Wednesday 24 May: Book here
English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)
One of the many things that the ESOL team in Dumfries and Galloway Council's Lifelong Learning team is delivering across the region is Supported ESOL self-study classes. The classes run as drop-ins and are aimed at people learning English using digital resources.
People can practise and improve English skills through games and activities online, including reading and comprehension and completing assignments. Individuals can work to different levels and learn English at their own pace. There is also tutor support when needed – it's easy and fun.
The first group has successfully started in Dumfries, and drop-ins are opening soon in other areas including Castle Douglas, Dalbeattie, Stranraer and Annan.
For more details about Lifelong Learning and ESOL, please email the team or visit the webpage English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)
Dr Flora Murray – Suffragette, Surgeon & Daughter of Dumfries
Dumfries Museum is celebrating the life and works of Dr Flora Murray this Women’s History Month. A suffragette and a pioneering surgeon, Flora Murray ran a military hospital in World War One with her partner in life and work, Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson. Flora was born in Dalton, Dumfriesshire in 1869. Since 2022, she has featured on the £100 banknote in Scotland. The painting of Dr Murray that was used for the note’s artwork is on loan to Dumfries Museum from the Royal Free Hospital, London.
On 14 March, there will be a free online evening of talks about Dr Flora Murray hosted by Museums Galleries Scotland with participation from the Imperial War Museum, Dumfries Museum and The Imaginarium. The main speaker will be Wendy Moore, award winning author of Endell Street: The Trailblazing Women who ran World War One's Most Remarkable Military Hospital (a Radio 4 Book of the Week).
The exhibition ‘Women of Dumfries: Art, Suffrage, Temperance and War’ is open at Dumfries Museum until January 2024.
You can book now to join the online event on Tuesday 14 March between 6.30 and 8.30pm.
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Dumfries Camera Club Annual Exhibition
A selection of over 90 framed works from around 20 Camera Club members will be displayed across Gallery 1 and the Gracefield café from Saturday 11 March to Saturday 6 May. The exhibition offers something for everyone to enjoy, from wildlife to portraiture, landscape and cityscapes. These feature both colour and black and white images, some of which have featured in the past year in various national exhibitions and earned some club members a range of awards and medals.
The final week of the exhibition overlaps with a show in Gallery 2 on the work of world-renowned documentary photographer Diane Arbus, which is coming to Gracefield Gallery 2 at the end of April on loan from the Tate/NGS Artist Rooms collection. To complement this, camera club members have produced a range of more than 100 portraits of people and businesses in Dumfries, to build on their previous project of five years ago when they produced images of 1,000 people in Dumfries and Galloway.
Admission to Gracefield exhibitions is always free and we are open Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 5pm, with our Gallery 2 Café Refresh last orders at 3.30pm. You can find Gracefield at 28 Edinburgh Road, Dumfries.
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