Explore Beyond Your Door was a competition organised by the Union and was open all UWS students.

We put out the call that we wanted to know about useful, fun, exciting, interesting, beautiful places, causes or activities that excite you, in order to share them with everyone!

First Place - David Laffan

Winner of the Oculus Quest 2, an All-In-One Virtual Reality Headset and Controllers

David went above and beyond to put together a vlog which documents his visit to the Waterfront in Erskine, Renfrewshire. Fantastic work David, it looks like you had a lovely day out and congratulations on winning the VR Headset.

Second Place - Lauren McNeill

Winner of a years’ supply of Domino’s pizza

Lauren submitted a cheerful poem about her local park she’s called ‘Just Doon The Road’. The panel loved the way she presented the poem on a background of a photo of the park, which really helps to envisage how special the park is to her local community. Thank you to Domino’s for sponsoring this prize and very well done, Lauren!

Joint third place - Ben Graham, Taliana Rontard, Ingrid Holt

Winners of 3 Fitbits

Ben shared a fantastic blog post (see below) and photograph for the categories ‘Good Sites’ and ‘Good Health’. His post covered Chatelherault Country Park - a country park roughly 12 minutes’ drive from the UWS Lanarkshire campus in Hamilton; and the range of fun activities available at Strathclyde Loch.

Chatelherault Country Park

Chatelherault is the name of a country park roughly 12 minutes drive from the UWS Lanarkshire campus in Hamilton. The park is centered on a former hunting lodge with views across hamilton focusing across the old hamilton palace grounds which today, includes a view of the old campus building, which can be seen on a clear day, even at 2.5 miles away from the park you can see a bit of Motherwell the neighboring town to hamilton and can also catch a glimpse of the Strathclyde loch down at the Strathclyde country park. On the grounds of Chatelherault, there is a bridge which crosses the Avon water named "The Dukes Bridge", after crossing the bridge there is remains that lie of a castle called Cazdow castle though there isn't much to see of it it's still insane to see what was there years ago. Throughout the year Chatelherault is a good visit from summer to walk around and enjoy the sun to winter for the hill which is often full of people sledding in the snow or even seeing the trees with the falling orange leaves that surround the old hunting lodge.

Strathclyde Loch

Strathclyde Loch is a really good walk in Hamilton as it's easily accessible from Motherwell or hamilton with car parks all around, the edge of the loch has a path which runs all the way around with different things to see as you go wherever you start your always going to bump into something which may catch your eye. The loch even sometimes hosts big watersports events having hosted the commonwealth games, and several rowing championships along its waters. the actual loch itself was created in the early 1970s and involved a rather unusual construction after it being the flooding of an old mining village "Bothwellhaugh". Along the shores, it has a deep history of its past even containing ruins of houses many years ago as well as having easy access to MnD's one of Scotland's only theme parks. If you want something faster-paced around the loch every Sunday it hosts a parkrun event at 9:30 am (pre coronavirus) and has hosted an inflatable 5k.

Taliana submitted these photographs under the ‘Good Sites’ category from her visit to Craigie Linn and Glen Burn in Paisley – looks like they’re well worth a visit!

Ingrid submitted these photographs under the ‘Good Sites’ and ‘Good Fun’ category from her visit to Dawson Park, Broughty Ferry Beach and Barry Buddon, in Dundee. It looks like her little dog had lots of fun for sure!

Well done to Ben, Taliana and Ingrid – your brand new Fitbits are waiting for you!

Fourth place - Prashanthi Pillelli

Winner of a £50 shopping voucher

Prashanthi shared her love for crafting and upcycling as activities which supports health and wellbeing under the category ‘Good Health’. The panel loved her beautiful upcycled bottles in particular and was very impressed with her creativity! Congratulations Prashanthi!