Last summer we carried out a survey asking our community what they wanted to see in Ransoms Rec and one of the things that emerged as very popular was a cafe. We then did a further survey in the autumn to drill down into what people actually wanted when it came to a cafe, and how often they thought they’d use it. The results of this second survey were overwhelmingly positive and gave us great optimism for moving forward with a park coffee hatch at the Pavilion. We saw several potential benefits for us and our community:
- greater community engagement and community benefit
- greater positive use of the Rec with the potential to displace some of the more anti-social park activities
- an opportunity for members of our disadvantaged groups to be involved in cafe training and work experience
- a further income stream to support our work
We then secured a small amount of funding from the HCC Locality Pot to carry out a feasibility study on converting the north end of the Pavilion into a kiosk.
In the time between us consulting the community and completing the feasibility study, several things happened:
- Global coffee prices rose by over 80% across 2024-25 mainly due to climate change and supply chain issues
- The government raised Employers National Insurance to 15% and charities were not exempted from this
- The minimum wage rose by 6.3% from £11.44 to £12.21. We actually pay the Real Living Wage which rose to £12.60
- We started our Man Made Meals project in the spring and soon realised that converting the north part of the Pavilion into a profitable coffee hatch would conflict quite heavily with our use of the pavilion for this Friday morning cookery project.
All these things would not be insurmountable if we were looking at an indoor venue, especially one with space for people to work as well as socialise. But our indoor space is small, and currently fully in use by our various projects and workshops, so we are at the mercy of the elements for cafe seating.
We haven’t dropped the idea altogether however, but this is a project that would involve a huge capital outlay for what now seems to be a very insecure and potentially diminishing income stream, and will involve a lot of careful thought and effort to make it happen. Right now we want to focus on the projects we have already running, like Growing Ability, Branching Out, Man Made Meals, New Shoots for Carers, Space to Grow and Ransoms Meadows, (that’s four more than we had last year!) and see what the future holds …
Many thanks to Dulcie Buckenham and Louise Whipp for their help with the Feasibility Study and to Cllrs Keith Hoskins and Ian Albert for agreeing to fund it.