GOALD Project

The GOALD project was my side hustle from 2021 to 2024. In a nutshell, it looked at the ways in which off the shelf technology could be used in settings where people were living with dementia, whether it was a care home or a social setting such as a library group or a sports club.

Originally, I had spoken to the grown ups leading the project about working with people and going over old TV shows , specifically one called Scotch & Wry which used to be on every Hogmanay before the countdown to the bells. From there I was going to talk about performers, films, theatre, you name it, I had IDEAS!

Problem was that by the time the project came to be, the focus had changed to sports, specifically football. Now, I don’t like football (sorry America, soccer is football) really. I’ve never actually been to a game. Up until 2021 I had only been in three football grounds in my whole life. One to see a game of rugby (Falkirk FC in central Scotland, U20s 6 Nations game), one to see AC/DC (Hampden Park, Glasgow, which I had previously been in working as a role player for Dental Nurse exams) and one to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers (PSG’s ground in Paris in 2004, I had an old college mate who lived in Paris and needed someone to go to the gig with) so finding out that I was about to spend three years working on a subject I knew nothing about, and was not really interested in was a bit of thing to wrap my mind around.

Anyway, I got on with it and actually had quite a good time doing it. I spent a lot of time working with a community group in a place called Stranraer, in the south west of Scotland. Now, Stranraer is, simply, bloody miles away.

See? Miles away. The group met on the second and fourth Fridays of a month and they were absolutely brilliant. I mean, the first meeting was difficult. They didn’t really want to be involved, they were unsure of using technology, one of them asked me if there was going to be homework (really, I found that quite tickling) and it took a few visits to get them fully on side.

Once they were on side, they were brilliant. A really good group of guys who watched out for each other and who knew each other and in some cases had known each other for decades. They were a proper gang, y’know? Once you were accepted, you were in and that was that.

We actually made a film about what we were trying to achieve with the project and the group were happy to be featured in it, and here it is for you if you want to watch it. It’s ten minutes long and it lets you see a very different side of me and my life.