14/04/2026
A strong important story. A place making a difference
Our Friendly Fridays Story
"We are passionate in our belief that holistic therapies are for everyone, regardless of socioeconomic status and culture. We deliver our service in a non-judgemental way, to enable individuals to develop safe coping skills and strategies to achieve balance within mind, body and spirit."
Friendly Fridays began about 6 months after we opened The Wellbeing Hub to allow us to offer free mini treatments to the community and also to help promote the therapists and services we provide. We subsequently launched the programme within our network of therapists, initially relying on their generosity as volunteers and our provision of the equipment, products and space needed as a business. Those events quickly turned into a valuable resource for the community. But therapists got busier over time with paid commitments, and sustaining the sessions on shifts alone became increasingly challenging. To tackle this, we partnered up with City of Glasgow College to get students involved as part of their placements. This was, however, insufficient, as their contributions remained at 14 hours per year, largely in March which only addressed a portion of the need.
In the past we held fundraising comedy nights, raffles and ladies' nights to raise funds which helped us pay the therapists while continuing to offer treatments to the community free of charge. This funding was significant in keeping Friendly Fridays running for several months and enabled us to satisfy the demand for these valued services. However, when the money from the fundraising ran out, The Wellbeing Hub continued to pay for the sessions for a while, however it wasn’t sustainable.
Friendly Fridays over the past year have continued to grow. We still have new therapists and students volunteering their time to provide mini treatments to the community and established therapists are being paid £15 per hour to provide this service on a fortnightly basis. Friendly Fridays have moved from being a free service to a suggested donation of £3 to help cover running costs to continue providing this service to the local community.
Thanks to its mission of being a welcoming space for people to connect and socialise with others in a positive and supportive environment. Participants frequently say these sessions help fight loneliness, increase mental health and create a sense of community. Most critically, they provide a low-pressure chance to try therapies that people might not normally access because of cost. Therapists providing this service have not only gained confidence and experience but also gained new clients who book into their one-to-one treatments or group sessions they deliver within the wellbeing hub outside of Friendly Fridays.
Over the past year we have supported carers from Glasgow North East Carers Centre, individuals supported by FARE and local young single parents attending with their health visitor and baby to our Friendly Friday service.
The wellbeing hub is expanding in June 2026 into another unit in Rogart street, keeping our existing venue. The new extension venue will be fully wheelchair accessible, our Friendly Fridays will be moving to the new venue, and we hope to increase this service to a weekly basis in line with demand. Friendly Fridays will become fully accessible to everyone, reaching more of the community and fully addressing our mission bringing therapies to everyone.
If we can obtain extra funding, it would really make a difference for the longevity and consistency of Friendly Fridays. It ensures we can fairly compensate therapists for their time, maintaining their continued involvement and the quality experience this community values. With the right funding we could also do more sessions, which would mean that more people could access the sessions, that we could include more varied types of treatment and that we could dramatically increase the overall effect of the programme on the mental and physical health of our community.
