Vibrant Health Advocates – Sirius is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation based in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire. We exist because menopause is a universal experience that has, for too long, been treated as something to be endured quietly rather than understood clearly.
Our name carries intention: Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky, and we believe that accurate, accessible information acts in exactly that way for women navigating one of the most significant transitions of their lives — it does not remove the journey, but it makes it possible to see where you are going.
Our core work is the delivery of free, regular information evenings for women in Coatbridge and the surrounding Monklands communities. These are not clinical appointments or therapy sessions; they are community gatherings where women can hear from educators and practitioners, ask questions without embarrassment, pick up clear written resources, and sit alongside other local women who are at the same stage of life.
The atmosphere at our events is deliberately warm, the venues are familiar and accessible, and the information is drawn from current, evidence-based sources including NICE guidelines, the British Menopause Society, and NHS Scotland guidance.
We are governed by a committed board of volunteer trustees who bring personal experience and professional expertise to our work. As a SCIO, we operate with full transparency: our accounts are filed with OSCR, our policies are reviewed annually, and every decision about how we spend donated funds is made with our beneficiaries — the women of Monklands — front and centre.
We are proud to be a genuinely local organisation, built by women from this community for women in this community.
Vibrant Health Advocates – Sirius grew out of a conversation that will be familiar to many women in Coatbridge: a chance exchange between friends in their mid-forties who had been separately struggling — with disrupted sleep, with anxiety that seemed to come from nowhere, with a creeping sense that their bodies had become unreliable — and who discovered, in talking to each other, that no one had ever clearly explained to either of them what perimenopause actually was.
The founding principle has never shifted: every woman in this town deserves the same quality of information regardless of whether she has a confident relationship with her GP, access to a private clinic, or the time and resources to research for herself. Coatbridge is a working community, and our events are designed around real lives — held in the evenings, free of charge, in venues women already know and trust.
We have always believed that when women are given the facts and the space to ask questions, they become far more effective advocates for their own health. That belief is what keeps us going.
Vibrant Health Advocates – Sirius exists to ensure that every woman in Coatbridge and the wider Monklands area has access to clear, accurate, and judgement-free information about perimenopause, menopause, and midlife health.
We deliver free community information evenings that equip women with the knowledge they need to understand their own bodies, navigate the healthcare system with confidence, and support the women around them.
We are committed to reaching women who might not seek formal medical advice — through circumstance, habit, or a lifetime of having their symptoms minimised — and to creating spaces where no question is too basic, no symptom too embarrassing, and no woman is made to feel that what she is experiencing is simply something she must put up with in silence.
Vibrant Health Advocates – Sirius is led by a board of volunteer trustees who give their time freely because they believe, without reservation, in the importance of this work. Our trustees bring a range of professional backgrounds — including healthcare, community development, finance, and adult education — alongside lived experience of the menopause transition.
They set the strategic direction of the charity, maintain our governance standards as required by OSCR, and work shoulder-to-shoulder with our volunteers to deliver events that women across Coatbridge can rely on year after year.