As announced previously, The Machine Zone will be winding down in 2025.
Over almost eight yearrs we have enjoyed taking part in training events and in community centres. Our last such event was a seminar with medical students at Glasgow University on 30 January 2025.
Throughout 2025 our websites and social media will continue.
At the heart of much of our work has been the film One Last Spin which will continue to be freely available to individuals and organisations.
We have been energised by witnessing the growth of very high quality organisations driven by lived experience of gambling related harms in England, and significant work from the NHS. In Scotland we have seen deveopment of work in such sectors as health and social care, housing and homelessness, youth education, Citizens Advice, and in the voluntary sector.
In Glasgow we believe that the City Council’s collaboartion with Public Health Scotland to lead a multi-agency group will soon bring about strategies to reduce gambling harms in the city. We hope that this will help towards placing the issue on the political and NHS Scotland agenda, while at the same time deveoping community interactions and continuing cross-sectoral awareness, skills and knowledge.
We have been particularly pleased to see the deep inclusion of gambling harms in the Glasgow Recovery Communities, traditionally focused upon substance harms.
Further updates about the company’s closure will follow.
It has been a privilege to encounter and work with the energy of so many individuals and organisations. For ourselves as individuals we shall continue citizen activism in the area of gambling related harms, and in other areas.
The Machine Zone 