SCHA's Community Heritage Project
Grassroots Heritage in Scotland
Grassroots Heritage in Scotland is SHCA's current major project, funded by Historic Environment Scotland and the National Lottery Heritage Fund. We're travelling across the country to bring together those involved in community heritage and to listen to the issues that matter to you.
Aims
The main aims of Grassroots Heritage in Scotland are to provide those involved in community heritage with opportunities for networking and to identify issues both unique to areas and common across our network. These common issues will then allow linking across regions, through national online meetings. They will also be used to inform co-created training materials, to be delivered in autumn 2025.
Roadshows
At the centre of the Grassroots Heritage in Scotland project is a series of 12 community heritage roadshows that are being held across Scotland, starting in autumn 2024 and continuin throughout 2025.
The roadshows are a mix of displays, networking and discussions on important topics that matter to local heritage organisations in this region. Local Steering Committees for each region ensure that the roadshows reflect what local organisations want to be discussed.
This is your roadshow!
It's your opportunity to share and have your say. SCHA is here to listen, signpost and learn how we can be the National Voice for community heritage groups in Scotland.
Everyone involved in or interested in community heritage is welcome to attend any of the roadshows they are interested in. Get in touch if you want to be a part of your local day!
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Roadshows are being held in: Argyll (Sep 2024), Southwest (Oct 2024), Borders (Oct 2024), Edinburgh & East (Nov 2024), Clyde Valley & East Ayrshire (Nov 2024), Glasgow to North Ayrshire (Feb 2025), Central Region (Feb 2025), Highland (Mar 2025), Aberdeenshire & Moray (Mar 2025), Dundee & Fife (Mar 2025), Western Isles (Sep 2025), and Northern Isles (Sep 2025).
Upcoming Roadshows:
6th September 2025 at Stornoway Town Hall
13th September at St Magnus Centre, Orkney
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Online Discussion Session:
17th June, 6.30-8pm
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Online Training:
Details coming soon.
Outputs and Outcomes
We are using the discussions from the regional roadshows to identify the key issues for community heritage in Scotland.
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We are producing a report on these, with individual chapters for each roadshow as well as a cross-analysis of themes.
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Online training sessions are being created, based on topics generated from the roadshow.
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The online training sessions will be on the themes of:
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Volunteering
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Funding
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Social media and promotion
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The Directory of Community Heritage Organisations will provide a comprehensive inventory of community heritage organisations in 2024-2025. It will be published at the end of the project.
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Networking and collaboration opportunities will result from the roadshows and SCHA will make every effort to support these, including where groups wish to continue the regional roadshows in subsequent years.
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We are evaluating how effective the roadshow format is in meeting its networking, listening and signposting objectives. The interim report from our roadshow feedback forms, published in January 2025, is available on our Library page. This will shortly be updated to include the feedback from the spring roadshows.