Category: Bungo in the Back Lanes (Page 1 of 4)

Bungo in the Back Lanes 2023

Only two weeks to go! What are you planning for Bungo in the Back Lanes this year?

Saturday 17th June 2023, 1pm-5pm.

There will be the famous society tombola and bottle stalls, residents’ stalls, two tea gardens, two bars, two live music venues, a children’s garden and a craft fair.

There’s plenty of guidance on the FAQ page, from setting up stalls, to food hygiene, to donations. But, please, no sale of alcohol, nor drinking of alcohol in the lanes – it’s illegal and may get us all in trouble.

We are always on the lookout for volunteers to help out for a bit on the day, setting up, taking down, running our stalls, etc. See the volunteers page for details.

We are also looking for donations to our tombola and bottle stalls. If you can contribute details for this year are as follows:

Tombola donatons welcome at 21 Regent Park Square – Harriet Steynor (07729 451917)
Bottle stall donations welcome at 53 Queen Square – Teresa Mooney

It’s Bungo (NOT) in the Back Lanes TODAY!

Ta-ra!

Every year, the Strathbungo Society organises the community summer festival that is Bungo in the Back Lanes. This year, we’ve had to be a little more inventive.

We couldn’t physically hold the event this year, so the Society has organised an online version of it to create a little of what the event brings to our community, complete with stalls, live music and virtual participation!

The online market will be here  from 12noon until 5pm. You can listen to the music and contribute photos or videos of your own celebrations in our Facebook event.

 

Bungo (NOT) In The Back Lanes 2020

We can’t hold Bungo in the actual Back Lanes this year, so we’ve gone online!

Right now, we’re planning the last details (like the music schedule) but here are the headlines:

  • we’re holding it on the day we’d already planned: Saturday 20th June, from 12-5pm
  • there will be an online market of stalls, live music online and hopefully your contributions of what you are doing to celebrate all things ‘Bungo
  • if you would like a stall, you can bag one here (there are two types: one for those with an existing online presence, and one for those without)
  • on the day, the market will be here
  • on the day, the music will be here, and that’s also where we’d love your contributions to the day

So… put the date (back) in your diary, book a stall if you’d like one, and plan what you will be doing on the day! With the easing of lock-down, you could even invite another household to join you if you have a garden (suitably distanced, of course).

Bungo in the Back Lanes 2020

Fellow ‘Bungo dwellers and visitors from further afield:

It will come as no surprise, with all that is happening – and all that is not happening – during these unprecedented times, that the Strathbungo Society has regretfully decided that we won’t be able to hold Bungo in the Back Lanes on 20 June as planned.

The safety and health of our community and its visitors are paramount. We cannot put our community at risk by welcoming hundreds of people from far and wide to our summer community festival in ‘Bungo’s narrow back lanes. We don’t know what the Government’s guidance will be over the next couple of months but, even if the rules were to be relaxed, we feel that people will still be nervous about attending a crowded public event in June. And – being purely practical – normally we’d be in full swing right now preparing for the event, lining up bars, music and stalls, but all of that has been put on hold and we wouldn’t be able to organise the event in time.

We don’t yet know if we can postpone this event to a later date this year. We will continue to monitor both government guidance and the public mood over the next few months. There is a risk that there will be no Bungo in the Back Lanes in 2020 (along with Wimbledon, the Olympics and many other events) but we will keep you posted on that, and on any alternatives that we might plan.

We hope that the Strathbungo community are safe and well. Please stay at home, and take all precautions if you need to venture outdoors.

Bungo in the Back Lanes 2019

A huge thanks to all the Society members who put months of planning in to this year’s event, the volunteers who helped setup, steward, and take down, the imaginative stall holders, the musicians, and everyone who came along to make the event another great success. Here’s a few random snaps of the day, with thanks to Craig Johnston for several of them.

And if you want to get more involved, planning starts again in the den at The Bungo on Tuesday 16th July, 7.30pm. There’s no let up. Come along if you have any great ideas to improve this or any other of our events!

If you have any good pictures, you can email us, or use the submission form, Write!

See you next year.

Our environment

When I first moved into Marywood Square 4 years ago I thought that the lane running up the back of my tenement was a brilliant opportunity to get some wild flowers growing, so I sowed some seeds. They came to nothing. I was busy, new flat etc, I didn’t really give it much thought. The next Spring I took it a bit more seriously and I and a close neighbour both sowed seeds. Same result – nothing! But this time I realised why. The lane had been sprayed by weed killer – or so it appeared to me by the burned vegetation. So last year I gave seed sowing a miss only to see a couple of new plants in my garden killed as weed killer drifted through the railings.

I’m now getting more and more aware, and concerned that we have a serious environmental problem and it seems that globally we’re in the throws of a sixth mass extinction of species (manmade this time?) including a major threat to insects which are at the bottom of a food chain that maintains birds and animals and are crucial as pollinators. Could we in Strathbungo not play a small part in countering this by challenging the Council, who I’m presuming spray the lanes with weedkiller, and consciously try and turn our lanes into a haven for wild flowers insects and birds. It seems to me that this could be a very positive experience for the children in the area who with proper parental encouragement and support might enjoy helping bring wild flowers into the lanes and learning about them and the wildlife they support. I’ll contact the Council (again) and this time try and find out just why they think it’s a good idea to spray weedkiller. It seems strange to me as they don’t seem to take any responsibility for any other kind of “maintenance” in the lanes. Would other residents, and maybe the Strathbungo Society itself be interested in trying to get the spraying stopped and encouraging wild life into our area?

Local characters – David Murray

David Murray may not be the most familiar Strathbungo character, given he lives 35 miles away on a farm in West Lothian, but he has surprisingly strong links to the community.

He has been delivering fresh organic fruit and vegetables fortnightly to the area for many years (thewholeshebag.co.uk), and regularly serves at the Society’s Back Lanes Tea Garden. His son has even provided the musical accompaniment on the pipes some years.

He recently helped clear the railway embankment at Marywood Square in preparation for spring planting, and is a dab hand at patching cobbles in the back lanes, currently restoring a section off Marywood Square. He is landscaping several gardens, including fresh turf for the tea garden this year.

Single handedly sprucing up Strathbungo – if you spot him, say hi!

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