a Success

Ordsall Café Project - A Community Success

A burnt out building at the end of Tatton St, in Ordsall, a dream for local residents, who formed a committee, a lot of arduous work and negotiating with Salford Council and of course the Fund Raising; is what it took to make the Ordsall Community Café Project the success it is today…

The café 1^st opened its café doors in June 2005, and all the hard work continued until the building was completed this year. The rooms are beautiful, and range from a meeting room to a counselling/quiet room at the top of the building. The food is low priced and tasty, with the focus being healthy eating.

The Community Centre now has meeting rooms available for hire, a salon; local Community Services use the café and their rooms. A computer suite with wireless internet access for free use, from which a Community Reporters group has been set up, using the skills they have gained from the free training it holds; from basic skills using a computer to making films and pod casts for blogs. There are Parents and Toddlers groups on a Thursday afternoons, Weaning Classes run by the P.C.T., help and advice on healthy living and even a refugee link permanently based in one of its rooms. Table top sales and fairs are held there and the Bingo sessions on a Friday afternoon are fun too.

With a Manager, 2 part-time staff and dedicated volunteers this centre has become a hub of the Community of Ordsall, which is in great need of the services the Café provides. Such as the forthcoming Health and Well-being Event being held in June, to which anyone from the Community can attend.

A web site has been set up, that has lots of useful news, information and links; newsletters are produced bi-monthly and distributed throughout the area.

In the last year the Café has had its hard work recognised by two organisations, by the presentation of awards: Towards Excellence in Volunteering for 2 recommendations in Monitoring and Development of Policies in Volunteering and its work towards Expansion of the group of volunteers. The second prestigious Award won this year, which was presented to the Café’ and accepted by its Manager Alison Cordingley, was the Co-Operative Foundation Award for Outstanding Contributions in the Community, under the category of: Community Facilities.

Along side this the centre has featured on the BBC’s program “The Life of Grime”, showing the building in the beginning, when it was burnt out and the only thing in it were hundreds of pigeons; and more recently it was included in a Channel 4 program being aired later this year.

The whole project which relies on funding and volunteers has come along way in such a short time, it provides venues for local people, includes the schools and forums for other projects in the area, such as the Regeneration of Ordsall, which is a huge part of the areas development into the 21^st century.

For further information you can visit their up to the minute website on www.occ.colsal.org.uk