Coffee and Craic

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Feasger math, and welcome to my first blog post. I’ve been learning the Gaelic language for almost a year now – I’ve never experienced anything so intimidating in my life.

The first time I walked into Sgoil Ghàidhlig Ghlaschu (Glasgow Gaelic School), for my initial learning session, I saw a mix of letters that I’d never seen before. As a typical Scottish learner, I have experienced Latin based languages at School, however, Gaelic was completely different. In fact, it was so alien to begin with that when listening to words being pronounced, I had to write them down in phonetics. ‘Se Diluin a th’ann’ – (che juh-loo-in ah ha-oon) How can that possibly say ‘Today is Monday?’

When I think back to that, I can’t believe how quickly it clicks into place. I am by no means a fluent speaker, but my confidence has grown, and I can actually spell some Gaelic words now! (‘Falamh’ (fal – oov) – Empty.)

I started thinking about the idea of attempting to open a Gaelic community hub at the end of 2012, fast forward six months and I have become very involved in this expanding community. I noticed that we Gaelic learners and speakers were missing a place to socialise, learn together and where our children could meet and learn together outside of School and Nursery.

I began the first steps towards starting a business, this involved lots of market research, putting ideas together, seeing what was viable really. I now have an excellent business plan, possible premises, and a HUGE amount of support from the community. There really is so much support available for new businesses in Glasgow, I can’t express how helpful organisations such as Business Gateway, Jobs and Business Glasgow, Youth business Scotland have been to me. Invaluable.

I approached Pat to ask if it would be possible to have something about my venture on her West End guide, and she very kindly offered me a blog space. This will enable me to keep everyone up to date with my progress developing Coffee and Craig – I’m sure it will be hugely beneficial when we open too.

At the moment, you can find Coffee on Craic on Facebook and Twitter
Facebook
https://twitter.com/CoffeeAndCraic

I’ve also started a Crowdfunding appeal where people can pledge money towards funding a Gaelic Tutor to run our Gaelic learning classes, Gaelic art and craft classes as well as various Children’s classes. Crowdfunding is an innovative way of raising funds for upcoming businesses; I have already had a lot of support from it, and hope to reach my £2000 target which will allow me to pay a Tutor for the first 2 months.

Well this is the end of my first ever blog post (wow!) I am also currently looking to speak to anyone who would be interested in doing home baking for the coffee shop, Gaelic tuition/classes, local artists who would like to have their work displayed on the walls/exhibition space, and anyone with Scottish crafty bits and pieces that we could sell in the shop.

Le dùrachdan

Sarah
Coffee and Craic

Email Sarah