From homes to communities: what 40 years of doing the work can teach us
Author: Caroline Gore-Booth, Project Manager at Giroscope For me, the value of our Westminster event is the opportunity to connect policy conversations with what actually happens on the ground. Caroline Gore-Booth, Project Manager, Giroscope One of the things about my job at Giroscope is that no two days look quite the same. Some days are […]
Help turn a remarkable place into a thriving one
Business Centre Manager, St Matthew’s Community Enterprise Centre Giroscope has grown from a small West Hull collective into a bold, community-rooted organisation working across housing, enterprise, skills and neighbourhood renewal. St Matthew’s Community Enterprise Centre is the latest expression of that approach: an ambitious new space designed to help businesses, organisations and ideas take root […]
The Alec Gill and Giroscope International Photography Competition launches with a call to explore ‘HOME’
The camera is a passport into people’s lives – and into people’s homes sometimes. Alec Gill The Alec Gill and Giroscope International Photography Competition opens on 9 July 2026, inviting photographers from Hull, the UK and across the world to respond to its first-year theme: HOME. Home can mean bricks, streets, rooms and roofs. It […]
Could the UK Government trust communities like this again?
As part of our 40th anniversary celebrations, we’re exploring the big ideas, partnerships and policies that helped transform neighbourhoods with empty homes into thriving communities. For the next in the Giroscope 40: Our Origin Story series, we’re inviting two of the most influential figures in the history of community-led housing to reflect on a remarkable […]
Our 10-Week Catering Course with Kitchen 23
A hands-on course designed to help people build confidence in the kitchen, learn practical cookery skills, and develop a strong foundation for progressing into catering and hospitality. Flavour sits at the centre of everything we do. We believe healthy food should never be boring, and that good flavour inspires a lasting enjoyment of cooking. By […]
The opportunity that changed everything
Celebrating our volunteers during Volunteer Week As we celebrate Volunteers’ Week, we’re shining a light on the people who give their time, energy and commitment to Giroscope’s projects and social enterprises. People are at the heart of everything we do. That’s a message that has also been central to conversations during this year’s Humber Business […]
Innovation, social investment and community enterprise
Humber Business Week lands in HU3 St Matthew’s Community Enterprise Centre, will play a prominent role in Humber Business Week 2026, hosting two events that bring together businesses, social enterprises, charities and community leaders to explore new opportunities for collaboration, innovation and social impact. On Thursday, 4 June, ‘Social Investment – What It Is and […]
What is social enterprise and why bother?
Making and delivering positive change. Author: Richard Motley, Development and Regeneration Co-ordinator, Giroscope Social enterprise is about combining business with social justice and values, and using business and enterprise as a force for good. It enables people, whether as new start-ups at the grassroots level through to large multi-million-pound organisations with thousands of employees, to […]
Giroscope partners with University of East London on research into self-help housing
Giroscope is pleased to announce a research partnership with the University of East London (UEL), exploring how self-help housing can help people move on from long-term homelessness or unstable housing. The project brings together Giroscope’s forty years of hands-on experience with academic research led by PhD candidate Mark Sustr, supported by UEL’s supervisory team: Alan […]
From punk politics to community power
The story behind 40 years of Giroscope. In the mid-1980s, a group of young people in Hull stopped waiting for somebody else to fix their neighbourhood. Inspired by punk politics, DIY culture and a belief that housing could change lives, we began renovating empty homes in West Hull, learning trades as we went, creating affordable […]