I’ve been working as a Community Development Officer (CDO) for Abri since 2020, before that I was a housing officer, but for 7 years now I’ve been proud to do my work in amongst the brilliant community of Mansbridge, Southampton.
There’s no such thing as an average day being a Community Development Officer for Abri. My work, and that of my fellow officers across the rest of Abri’s geography, focuses on empowering our customers to make our communities stronger. The work is amazingly varied but always based around what the community tell us they’re interested in and what the area may need.
Mansbridge is a significant place for Abri, it’s where we started way back on 26 November 1925!
To feel that sense of community spirit in Mansbridge, there is no better place to visit than the Roundabout Café, located just by the roundabout near Swaythling station, it’s become a hive of community activity since its inception in 2013. Nigel, the cafe supervisor employed by Abri, is often the first face you see, but everyone else that works there volunteers, and we really couldn’t run the cafe without them. They don’t just help out with the everyday tasks of café life, they bring so much more to it, with many customers visiting on particular days just to catch up with their favourite volunteers, which is lovely to see.
What makes it a community café is the sheer amount of events and initiatives we hold for the local people, always hoping to have a positive impact on their lives. In recent times that positive impact has been felt most keenly by the creation and delivery of our Community Pantry.
When the pandemic hit, we worked with Southampton City Council and other local organisations to transform the café into a food distribution hub. We knew the community needed our support, so we sourced food deliveries from FareShare and others, and would bag up these parcels, delivering food to people in need all across Southampton.
When the cost of living crisis hit, it was clear that food provision was needed more than ever. So the idea of the community pantry was born, providing access to quality food at a fraction of the cost of supermarkets. It’s a membership scheme, anyone with an SO postcode can join for just £1 a year, and that allows you to shop here once a week. Then, on the day, you either pay £3.50 for up to 10 items or £5 for up to 15 items with all the food coming from FareShare.
To date we’ve got 210 members, saved over 10,940 kilograms of food from going to waste and saved more than £27,800 for our members!
Even the food that isn’t purchased by pantry members is never wasted. This is given to Swaythling Station to share from their free food shop on Saturdays. Our community pantry model has been so successful that Abri have recreated it in Bordon at Café 1759 and in Crewkerne, Yeovil, with the creation of a mobile pantry to reach customers in rural areas.
Our longest running project at the café, and one of my absolute favourites, has to be The Mansbridge Melody Makers Singing Group. We started this in April 2022 and it’s still going strong today. This group is a lovely example of reacting to the needs of the community, as it was a suggestion from a volunteer. He loves to sing and enjoys karaoke but felt there was nothing like that locally. We partnered up with SOCO Music Project, a local organisation that runs music projects all over the city, and came up with our Melody Makers Singing Group.
Sessions run weekly at the café on Monday evenings, and it’s such a fun way to explore music together. It’s very informal and it’s not a choir. Instead we get together, sit in a semi-circle and call out songs to sing, the lyrics are projected onto the wall and we just do our best to sing along together. It sounds chaotic but it really works. There is such a mix of ages in the group so we could be singing anything from the 1940s up to modern day and it’s lovely to see people mix inter-generationally and learn about the music of the past and of today. You don’t necessarily think of music as a tool to improving health, but getting people out of their homes and meeting people reduces social isolation which in turn improves mental health. And once someone’s out of the house, they’re improving their physical health too. We’ve seen people’s confidence grow by taking part in these projects, their increased confidence leading to a more positive outlook and a desire to keep being involved. I find once we’ve got someone enjoying a session or project in the café, they want to know what else is happening, what other fun and useful things can they get involved in? In essence the project has provided a gateway of sorts, to other exciting opportunities the café has to offer. I love the idea that we’ve inspired that feeling in someone and I’m always pleased to see faces old and new here.
All this really is just the tip of the iceberg. Many more events have taken place and even more are planned; coming up we’ve got household budgeting courses, growing & gardening sessions, Barista (coffee) training, mental health awareness sessions, a Level 2 Food Safety & Hygiene training course, energy efficient cooking courses, Christmas wreath-making crafts sessions, and a digital skills course to help build confidence on the internet. We want to reach as many people as possible, so we try to put things on at different times and on different days to make things as accessible as possible.
To find out about everything going on, check out the Roundabout Cafe Facebook page, our website roundaboutcafe.org, or pay us a visit! Drop in for a hot mug of coffee or cup of tea, maybe a delicious slice of cake is in order, or even one of Nigel’s famous sausage rolls, chat to the locals, speak to the volunteers and have a natter with the community, because more often than not, they know what’s best.
Or, if you’re there on a Tuesday or Friday you might even see me! After seven years of working in the community of Mansbridge, my favourite part of the job is the people. I love being in the café and meeting the customers. We’ve built up some amazing relationships, and as I’ve been in the area for so long now, I just feel part of the community, and that’s something that’s really special to me. So, if you see me in the café, why not come and say hello? In the meantime, here’s to the next 10 years of the Roundabout Café!
Cara Headon
Community Development Officer
