Starting as an Open Hoose project, Delicious formed as a group of amateur bakers and bread enthusiasts, getting together to share recipes and tips, as well as making dough!
How it started
Led by retired nurse and keen amateur baker, Liz Grieve, Doughlicious was set up to offer a space where people could access and learn the skills needed to create a dough, whether for baking a simple loaf of bread, or starting a pizza base, whatever appeals more!
Passionate about baking and the process of informal learning through knowledge sharing, Liz has sought to create an approachable and educational space, free of charge, where she could share her experience of baking with others and learn new techniques and recipes in return.
Watch the short clip below for a Doughlicious member’s insight into the group, and why it matters to them.
The purpose
Using only organic and natural ingredients including wheat grown and milled in Scotland, Doughlicious looks to impart the skills to bake bread at home, with the ethos that, by doing so, the local community can feed directly into the grain economy of Scotland.
Doughlicious aims to:
Empower and inspire people to bake their own bread
Provide a place to learn, share skills and experiences
Offer opportunities for members of the community to get together
Contribute to a sustainable Scottish grain economy
Doughlicious is a group open to anyone who likes to bake or wants to learn how to begin, letting you shape your own baking journey.
Would you like to get involved?
Keep an eye on our events page for the next Doughlicious session, held at The Stove.
Open Hoose is a project at the heart of the Stove’s community venue. Ideas are given the space, time, resources and support of the Stove Network to launch ambitious projects to galvanise and gather our communities together.
From climate cafes to bread clubs, jam nights and creative writing groups, Open Hoose offers an eclectic mix of different activities for everyone to take part in.
This year, the famous Coo was sprayed golden and gets a great view of the Suspension Bridge!
On 13th August 2022, we welcomed teams of sailors, coastal rowers, canoes and kayaks to the River Nith as they battled it out for the fastest time from Glencaple to Dumfries and back.
Competitors get warmed up at the starting line down in Glencaple
It was a bright, warm and sunny day which made for perfect conditions for those who joined us to watch the race at Mill Green, or taking part in the activities we had running across the day.
Some spectators took to the shade while watching the race – a smart move!
Produced by The Stove Network and supported by Dumfries & Galloway Council and Historic Environment Scotland, we were pleased that this year’s event attracted a record number of race participants not only from the local area, but from across Scotland too!
The teams get ready to launch into the river at Glencaple
This year, the boats transported a signal flag, each created by young people during EcoArt’s flag making workshops in the weeks preceding the race.
One of the colourful flags waves in the breeze as the boat makes its way along the Nith
As the boats arrived the flags were raised over the town’s iconic Suspension Bridge, proudly welcoming the racing vessels and signalling the halfway point of the race.
Rows of bold flags lining the Suspension Bridge, Dumfries
(EcoArt is a grassroots charity connecting community, art & sustainability. Find out more about the LAND project and EcoArt here.) Good spirits as the race preparations get underway at Glencaple
“For me a real highlight of this year’s Nithraid was to see more boats in the middle of town than ever, including spectators on the river, taking part in a celebration of the Nith in the heart of Dumfries. It was the largest entry to date for the event with huge increases in the Coastal Rowing and the Racing Kayak elements.”
Mark Zygadlo, Race Organiser
Nithraid is an event for the community, not just those who take part in the race itself.
Two cheerful competitors stand proudly with their vessel before making their way down the Nith
“We were thrilled with this year’s race entry list, it is testament to the hard work the Nithraid team have put in over the years to build a following for the event. Nithraid has faced a few challenges over the years, with bad weather, COVID, etc, but this year really did feel special and we’re so happy that the event attracted people to Dumfries from all over Scotland, some visiting the town for the first time. Nithraid is a real celebration of the Nith and of Dumfries and we hope that we develop the event for next year and attract more people to our beautiful town.”
Sal Cuddihy, Nithraid Project Manager and Head of Production at The Stove Network
Boats pass under Suspension Bridge, by Mill Green
This year in addition to the annual River Race, the Stove Network led a series of family-friendly activities throughout the day, all free of charge and accessible along the banks of the River Nith, including:
EcoArt Flags – Land: Signals to the World – Signal flag designing workshop
‘Migratory Trails’ – A stamp sheet treasure hunt at Dock Park
‘Find the Coo’ – Treasure hunt from Dumfries to Kingholm Quay
Simon Lidwell’s Viking Cluaran
‘Source to Sea’ – A pre-recorded QR audio performance by Hugh McMillan
Mill Green revellers learn how to row just like the Vikings didA kayaker unloads to take a well-deserved rest at the finish lineSimon Lidwell of Wordsmith Crafts provides immersive storytelling down at Mill Green
In addition, many of the town’s pubs joined in with the festivities, offering live music and special Nithraid-themed hospitality. We had The Dougie Arms, Coach and Horses Inn and The Riverside Bar all joining in on the fun!
But, let’s get back to the race…
A rowing team pushes on up the River Nith
Though conditions were grand for all those enjoying the race more comfortably on dry land, the warm weather added an extra challenge to our incredible competitors who all did extremely well to endure the heat and complete the race!
Some competitors make hard work look easy!Give us a wave!Team effort is needed to get these rowers moving quickly upstreamThe bright yellow vessel was hard to miss on the River Nith!
We can’t thank you enough for all the hard work you put in to giving us another brilliant race this year, you’re all winners in our eyes.
A cause for celebration as the results are announced at Barbour Hall in Glencaple
However, we think it’s important to give credit to those who battled it out for the fastest time and we know how integral the competitive element of the race is to those who take part, so here are this year’s winners!
Category
Team
Number
Coastal Rowing
Firth of Clyde Rowing Club
#12
Sailing
Gareth Jones
#14
Racing Kayak
Will Stevely*
#28
Miscellaneous
Dave Golding
#25
We would like to take this opportunity to apologise for an error we made earlier in our announcing of the winner of the racing kayak category. The correct winner has been shown above*, and we’d like to give thanks to the competitors for your brilliant sportsmanship and camaraderie for bringing this to our attention.
Nithraid 2022 wouldn’t be Nithraid without the race, so we want to say a HUGE thank you and well done! to all who took part this year and gave us a wonderfully memorable and exciting race.
A team of rowers give the photographer a cheery wave
Thank you also to EcoArt, Simon Lidwell & the Cluaran Heritage Project clan and Hugh McMillan for the wonderful entertainment and activity at Mill Green; the safety boats who were out on the Nith all day to keep the competitors safe; Nith Inshore Rescue, who do the vital work of keeping our waters safe all year-round; all those who volunteered at this year’s event to help us set up and facilitate the race; and the businesses around Dumfries who set up special live entertainment around the town to help us celebrate Nithraid more widely this year – The Dougie Arms, Coach and Horses Inn and The Riverside Bar.
A view of Mill Green from Suspension Bridge, above the River Nith
We’re thrilled at the success of Nithraid 2022 and are grateful for all the help and support we’ve received to help make it happen.
This glorious day in the sunshine is one we will remember for some time…
– The Stove Network
For more information on Nithraid, visit our webpagehere.
The Stove Network launch kNOw One Place, Creative Placemaking Forum – an ambitious, future-thinking discussion on creative placemaking. The Forum will take place from 22-23 September 2022 at Loreburn Hall in Dumfries and will draw over 100 people from public, private, independent and charitable sectors across the two days. Through a mixture of open space discussion and expert reflection, exhibition and original artworks, the forum is set to be a participatory space to think about and develop grass-roots and community-led approaches to placemaking for the future – both nationally and internationally.
We define Creative Placemaking as: a community led approach that uses creative activity to support collective decision-making and positive change for people and the places they live
More about Creative Placemaking
The idea for the forum stems from the work that The Stove Network has led on over the past 10 years. The Stove Network has been working with a Creative Placemaking approach at its core since its inception to stimulate conversations, change, art, and renewed ownership across communities in Dumfries. This was then formalised, scaled and piloted as a network approach to working from within communities in the recent project, What We Do Now. What We Do Now helped inform and was part of Scotland’s Culture Collective Programme, a major Scottish initiative for culture and creativity to play a role in the nation’s recovery from the pandemic.
We have also published our approach to Creative Placemaking in our most recent publication, Embers. Now it’s time to dig into the core principles of this work with others, to contribute to our evolving understanding of this way of working in Scotland.
Hear from Katharine Wheeler, Partnerships and Project Development at The Stove Network, as she talks about Creative Placemaking and ‘What We Do Now’:
Join the conversation
Throughout the month of September and in the lead-up to the kNOw One Place forum, The Stove Network will host a series of online activities and events that will take a closer look at creative placemaking.
These events will bring together the public, private, independent, and charitable sectors through open space discussion, expert reflection, an exhibition, and original artworks.
Across two weeks five digital events will explore the key creative placemaking themes of:
All events take place online from 6pm- 7pm and are open to anyone interested in disusing, contributing to or finding out more about the concept of Creative Placemaking.
What We Do Now (WWDN) is a pilot for a Creative Placemaking Network for Dumfries and Galloway which sees The Stove Network support a community anchor group (place hub) in each of five towns in Dumfries & Galloway to host creative practitioners for an extended period to work with sections of the community in that place to co-create new future visions and practical projects.
WWDN supports artists to explore bold new ideas with communities to give voices to those under-represented in local decision making.
For more information on The Stove Networks approach to creative placemaking and to find out more about the pilot project visit: whatwedonow.scot
The Stove is delighted to launch the Open Hoose once again.
After a successful pilot between January to March 2022, where we worked with our community to realise 10 new projects and events ran with, for, by and about Doonhamers.
Open Hoose is a project at the very heart of the Stove’s community venue work. Working with us, new (and established) community-led, grassroots projects are given the space, support, resource, and training to take even the most radical of ideas to the next level. From bread-making groups, to LGBTQIA spaces, Climate activism and creative writing, Open Hoose is a supported project, tailored exactly to fit the individual (or group’s) aims.
Working with the Stove’s creative, production, café and technical teams, new initiatives are trialled and developed through our community venue programme. We have been able to provide free meals and drinks service, technical support, creative development and partnerships to help give ambitious ideas the space, time, support and encouragement they need to develop.
It’s pretty vital to what we do. We believe wholeheartedly that our culture is nourished from the grassroots, not from the top down. That’s why our motto ‘Grow your own culture’ is intrinsic to just about everything we do here, and Open Hoose is at the core of this.
Absolutely! We want to hear from as many people as possible. So whether you’ve never been to a Stove event or consider yourself a true Stovie, it doesn’t matter. We’re interested in you, your idea and why this opportunity is right for you.
Can a group that’s already established apply?
Yes. It doesn’t have to be a new idea. Established groups that are already working are encouraged to apply. So whether you’d like to have your activity in the town centre or could do with some support to try out something new, we’re all ears.
How many projects will be taken forward?
We want to be as flexible as possible with the type of support we might be able to offer. With our current cohort, we have identified spaces within our monthly programme for new Open Hoose projects to be considered, but we’re also open to hearing ideas that may not require the space, from podcasts to street art.
How do you consider proposals?
We take a broad and open view of the type of project we’re able to support. Though some key considerations are worth bearing in mind before submitting:
How does the project seek to engage with the community?
Is there a cause or activist drive behind the idea?
How realistically to support something given our current capacity and resources.
On Saturday 13th August 2022, teams of intrepid sailors and coastal rowers are invited to take to the Nith in their vessels to race from Glencaple to Dumfries and back, battling it out for the best time.
Where did it all begin?
Our River Nith connects us all in Nithsdale. Nithraid Festival celebrates and explores our town’s long relationship with the river and its importance to the people and communities it connects – be that the past, present or communities of the future.
Nithraid 2018
The Nith is a tidal river that runs through the historic market town of Dumfries, connecting the town to the sea. In the 18th century, the town and its neighbouring villages of Glencaple and Kingholm Quay became Scotland’s largest and busiest trading ports.
To celebrate this rich history, we hold an annual River Race, which sees teams of coastal rowers, sailing boats and various person-powered vessels race the river, battling for the best time as they make their way to the finish line.
Nithraid 2021
Why take part?
Nithraid is a fun-filled and action-packed event with great memories to be made for those who take part as well as those who watch the race unfold. After all, the race itself isn’t always straight forward!
Sal Cuddihy, Head of Production for The Stove Network explains what makes Nithraid special:
“It’s great to see the diverse range of boats involved in the race… we’ve got four different categories of race entry, from sailboats, coastal rowing skiffs, rowing skulls and miscellaneous vessels too. Because of the mix of all the different types of boats, they all come in at different times which is so exciting to watch as they battle against each other to move up the river on the tide…
Nithraid 2015
…it’s especially fun to watch them move with the tidal bore as it adds that extra element of challenge. Sometimes, if they don’t get up the river quick enough, it gets harder for them to move with the water as the tide moves back up towards the sea. All these components make the river race a really fun and engaging spectacle – and there’s always an unexpected event, which usually provides some great entertainment!”
Nithraid 2015
If you like a challenge, fancy a day of fun on the Nith and want to get involved, enter the race!
“The River Nith is a defining natural dynamic of our area, and Nithraid is a wonderful celebration of it. The race, over the navigable length of the tidal reach from Glencaple to Dumfries, is open to any non-motorised craft and makes a great spectacle especially from the bridges, and is excellent fun for participants.” – River Race Producer, Mark Zygadlo
Nithraid 2016
Applications to enter this year’s Nithraid River Race are now open. Whether you’re a team of coastal rowers, a sailing crew or a single skiff, this is your opportunity to join the Nithraid community and take part in Nithraid 2022!
An open letter from the Progressive Seagull Alliance
Gulls, vagabonds vindicators, lend me yer chips ears!
The Gull. To a Doonhamer, the seagull or ‘largus paininthearsus’ (in Latin) is as welcome as a fart in a phone box. Their reputation precedes them. And rightly so. Who hasn’t been tormented by the kamikaze swoop of a mother gull protecting its hard-won nest? Or been unwittingly stalked pons’t the purchase of a steak bake? These psychopaths of the sky are to Dumfries as Shania Twain is to a Slipknot concert, incompatible, and not all that welcome. Like Jackson Pollock at a warehouse rave, their excrement paints the town in an abstract canvas of anarchy, leaving a trail of empty Greggs bags and traumatised playgrounds in their wake.
So in light of all that, you might be wondering to yourself why exactly the Stove decided to dawn masks, costumes, banners and flags in celebration of these aerial dementors at this year’s Guid Nychburris. I know because I saw you, yes you, looking more than a little confused, in-between the saltire flag and Currie’s lorry, beside the swaying fella with the lime green afro wig and the trumpet. (Side note: imagine having to explain Guid Nychburris to an alien).
Meet the Progressive Seagull Alliance, a vigilante group dedicated to progressive and positive change for the town.
Yes, like Batman (yes I did just compere this to the Dark Knight himself), the Progressive Seagull Alliance (PSA) are here to tackle the negative perceptions of a town on the cusp of something quite extraordinary. Using the winged fiends as an archetype for the town, the PSA are here to challenge negativity, platform the amazing work that’s happening throughout our town and get active!
Riding on the mighty success of their winning entry to the Guid Nychburris Parade (get in!), the Progressive Seagull Alliance are now recruiting for members!
Think of it like Anonymous, only without the scary ‘V’ masks, encyclopaedic knowledge of cryptocurrency, global financial markets and hacking, the Progressive Seagull Alliance are a new wave of positivity swooping into the town.
So how do you get involved?
Stay on the lookout for the Progressive Seagull Alliance pop-ups happening through August and September! Sign up, contribute to our manifesto and get making!
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