I’ve had to take a day off from our building to visit Greenham Community Centre in Newbury today but it was well worth-while:

Overall, the area of their building is similar to ours, but of course the layout is different (and they don’t have our fabulous Alvar Aalto portals)  but their community is making a real success of their newly-refurbished centre.

The main hall is about the same size as ours, and is ideal for hosting training events such as today’s excellent session mounted by Sovereign.

They have a cafe which doubles as a youth room:

Three different age groups meet here on three different evenings a week, and with young people paying £1 per session, plus an average of £1 each per evening for refreshments, the rent is pretty much covered. And because the room opens on the the street, it makes an ideal drop-in cafe for parents between midday and school closing time:

There is a computer room for community use and for job seekers:

And centre manager Jenny waxes lyrical about the instant boiling water from their Zip gizmo in the kitchen:

We are definitely going to need one of those!

Tomorrow I’ll be showing a potential user group around our building, and if you’d like to visit with a view to renting space for your group, get in touch and we’ll try to arrange it with Gordon.  All it takes is a bit of grovelling to G-Man 1 and a batch of home-made shortbread for Nick and Dave.

I can promise you, Dean Court Community Centre is going to be a Very Important Place before long!