After living around, travelling through and observing the life that happens in and around Heavitree park, three local families saw a need for people to have a place they could go to eat, drink and meet together. A place that could bring people from all walks of life together, a place that could help facilitate local change and be in touch with what people need. Hopefully, a place that could one day, be the heart of the community. As we have talked about the idea, other local people have got on board with us and have helped make this idea become more of a reality. Our journey has evolved over many years and the vision of building a cafe and hub was introduced a decade ago!
Since 2010 we have been putting on various community events centred around the park. In this time we have received a great deal of support locally for our ideas. This has led to us forming various groups to try and help local people as well as progress towards making the community facility a reality.
Park Life Setup:
Our structure is constantly evolving as more people get on board and as we hear more about local need and have ideas to help people to get together. Currently, our organisation looks like this:
Trustees:
Park Life Heavitree is a charitable company. We have a team of trustees who all have different roles within the team. At the moment we are learning a great deal about what it means to run a charity to as high a standard as possible in order to benefit as many people as possible.
Events and volunteers team:
The primary aim of the events team is to set up events in and around Heavitree park for all age groups to meet up at. Anyone locally can be involved in this group. This could involve practical voluntary help by setting up one of our regular pop up cafes or serving drinks at our annual carol concert on the basketball courts. If you want to be a volunteer, want to get involved with planning events or even have your own idea that you would just like support with, please contact us.
Charity Staff team :
We have an amazing team of part time staff who work out of the hub.
They are employed by the charity mainly through grants we still receive. (We are working towards self sufficiency ) This team oversee the running of the cafe and hub, our volunteers and projects, the administration of the hub, the grounds and building and Human Resources.
Cafe Staff Team :
Those people who turn up day in and day out to make your coffee and food! Many of these staff are paid but are supported by volunteers.
Fundraising team :
This team has very experienced fund raisers scouring various funding sources for anything from small grants to support our events, through to putting together bids for larger sums of money that could pay for the cafe. Other bigger projects like our successful Health and Wellbeing project could also come through this team.
In need of a Meal?
The meals team provides free (usually) frozen meals made by people locally for anyone Park Life hears needs one. They may have just had a baby, moved house or are ill and a free meal will just make life that little bit easier. We would encourage others to make meals for their own neighbours but if you hear of families or individuals who need a few more than you can provide, we hope we can help.
