SHRUB Newsletter: October 2025

SHRUB Coop
Oct 21
4 min read

Updated: Oct 23

🎃 Spooky Season Greetings! 🎃

We have two very exciting events happening this Friday: a SHRUBBY Karaoke Party and a Glow Ride with the Infra Sisters! 🎤🚲 Check out all the event details and a few other exciting bits of news from the SHRUB community below!

👻 Karaoke Party on Friday 24th October 👻

Join us for a spooky SHRUB-aoke at the Edinburgh Student Housing Co-op! 🎤💚

🗓️ Date: Friday 24th October

⏰ Time: 6:30 PM - 10:00 PM

📍 Address: Edinburgh Student Housing Co-op at 28 Wrights Houses, EH10 4HR

The venue is wheelchair friendly 🫶

BYOB (Bring Your Own Brew) & DIY or second-hand costumes encouraged !! 👻♻️

Alt Text: Halloween-themed event poster for “SHRUB-aoke.” The design features a haunted castle, bats, and singing skeletons. The SHRUB logo appears as the moon, surrounded by the text “Halloween SHRUB-aoke” in a circular pattern. Event details are displayed in orange text, with the Edinburgh Student Housing Co-op logo in the bottom left corner.

🚲 Infra Sisters Bike Ride on Friday 24th October + Free Safety Checks at The Wee Spoke Hub 🚲

Infra Sisters have teamed up with Cycling UK for a Glow Ride on Friday 24th October, calling for safe infrastructure for women and girls in Edinburgh as part of their #MyRideOurRight campaign.

The Wee Spoke Hub team have kindly offered to do free safety checks on the day between 13:00 - 18:00 at 13 Guthrie Street, EH1 1JG

Light up your bike and join in! All welcome as allies; this is a women-organised event 🫶

Alt Text: Event poster for a "Glow Ride" organised by Infra Sisters and Cycling UK. Features glowing cyclists against a purple background with the title “Our Streets Our Nights Glow Ride.” Text invites people to light up their bikes and join a ride calling for better, safer cycling infrastructure for women at night. Event details: Friday, 24th October, 7:30 pm at Middle Meadow Walk.

🧩 Help Rebuild the Welfare Working Group 🧩

We’re looking for people from across the SHRUB community to help co-create a new vision for how the Welfare Working Group operates and supports everyone’s wellbeing.

Historically, the Welfare Working Group aimed to ensure the mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing of all staff, volunteers, and members at SHRUB Coop. The group played a key role in representing, supporting, and raising concerns from the wider membership where needed, as well as maintaining and reviewing our Safer Spaces, Conflict and Complaints, and Disciplinary Action policies.

We know it’s time to rethink how this group works, but we’re not yet sure what the best way forward looks like - if you’re passionate about welfare, wellbeing, and supporting our wider community, don’t hesitate to get involved by emailing welfare@shrubcoop.org 💪

👋 Say Hello to Our Newest Staff Members! 👋

We’re excited to welcome Jade and Chris to the Wee Spoke Hub team! They have joined us through our SEStran and Third Sector Resilience funding streams, which will run until March 2026.

Jade Norton (she/her)

Trainee Bike Mechanic

"I got involved with the Wee Spoke Hub as a Volunteer Skillbuilder so I could spend more time around bikes and immediately was surrounded by amazing energy and people with great excitement for bikes. As an Trainee Bike Mechanic I get to help more people get around safely and learn how to fix all things bike-related. I'm looking forward to working with the SHRUB community and spreading the enthusiasm about how great cycling is!"

Chris Piras (he/him)

Monitoring & Evaluation Officer

“Hello! I’m here to keep track of all the amazing things that happen at the Wee Spoke Hub, the impact they have on people, and sharing it all with our funders. I originally got involved to learn more about bikes and look after my own better - but I’ve also really enjoyed supporting others at Bike DIY and with cycle training. The SHRUB community is so inspiring and welcoming and I’m really grateful to have found it!”

💚 Mary Morton Nominated for the Green Award! 💚

Community heroes from across Scotland have been shortlisted for BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Radio nan Gàidheal’s Make a Difference Awards 2025, and we’re so happy to share that Mary Morton has been selected as one of the 33 finalists across 9 categories!

Mary’s dedication and care for people and the planet shine through everything she does, and we’re so proud to have her as part of the SHRUB community. Well done, Mary! 🏆💚

You can read more about the nomination in the article written by Edinburgh Live.

Alt Text: Split image: On the left, Mary posing with arms outstretched in front of a shimmering, golden backdrop with "BBC Radio Scotland" text. On the right, a purple plaque reads "BBC Radio Scotland Make a Difference Awards 2025, Highly Commended, The Green Award, Mary Morton."

🌱 Regenerative Futures Fund Update 🌱

We have been busy exploring the Regenerative Futures Fund proposal, currently working through the Three Horizons Framework. We are using this tool to map our projects and see if they align against the Regenerative Futures Fund priorities (climate change, poverty and racism) and understand whether and how they drive systemic change.

This process will help us identify how we can integrate those learnings into SHRUB’s wider organisational long term strategy beyond this specific funding opportunity.

Here’s what we are working on:

1️⃣ The co-design team is gathering input from SHRUB’s working groups for the Three Horizons exercise and the RFF proposal.

2️⃣ We will share the project mapping results and discuss the next steps at a proposal meeting and/or at the AGM - including whether we want to move forward with the proposal and hold any voting. We’ll keep everyone informed so that interested members can participate.

3️⃣ Our goal is to finalise the proposal by mid-December, ready to submit to the RFF team in their January 2026 submission window. The submission window is still being determined within the RFF cohort.

We’re excited about this collaborative process and grateful to everyone contributing their ideas and feedback 🌱 If you are interested in getting involved please email hello@shrubcoop.org