Introducing... "The Lounge"

The Lounge is a Community Internet Cafe located in the heart of the village of Alvechurch, Worcestershire, run by Alvechurch Communities Together, a Not-For-Profit organisation. It provides free Internet access via it's dedicated pc's, as well as serving freshly made refreshments, to all members of the public. However, as it is a Non-profit organisation, it is able to provide other facilities and events to the local community. For a few evenings during the week, it is used by the dedicated ACT youth club, known as Youth@TheLounge. This provides a safe and warm venue for the local teenagers to meet their friends, take part in activities and to use the Internet in a controlled environment. At other times when the youth group is not running, or the cafe is closed for business, the venue is available to be booked for other functions, with local community groups getting a discounted rate.

Alvechurch Communities Together

Alvechurch Communities Together is a registered Non Profit organisation, run by a dedicated team of volunteers. ACT secured funding and support from the Parish, District and County Councils to cover the premises lease and the part time salaries of the youth workers. We have been extremely fortunate that a great many local residents, businesses and groups have come together and donated goods, services, money and time to help ACT with the extensive refurbishment and development of The Lounge venue. We thank these people for the amount of work they have done so far and continue to provide on a daily basis.

History of ACT and The Lounge 

Following a local PACT (Police And Communities Together) meeting, where a group of local residents left the meeting feeling really concerned and saddened about the tensions across the different generations in our community. Concerns about anti social behaviour by some of the younger residents were raised, but equally, they seemed to be sometimes criticised unfairly.  It was apparent that nothing was being done to address the fact, that in a relatively rural area, there is little for young people to do and nowhere for them to go in the evenings. We therefore set up a group to try and do something about it. At first we began informally and the first 6 months or so were spent 'fact finding' where we talked to different stakeholders, including young people, residents, the police, the Parish, District and County Councils, the village school and some of the local businesses.

The Beginning

In March 2010 we hired a room at the Working Men's Club and started a weekly youth club. We set this up as a pilot scheme to give us a forum to engage further with young people, while we tried to find further funding. On average between 40 and 50 young people attended each week. Very quickly it became apparent that this was not an ideal venue, so began the search and funding for a dedicated location. As the project progressed, it was decided that it would be a greater benefit to the wider community to expand the project beyond it's initial scope and so the idea of a community Internet cafe was born.

In November 2010, after securing funding from both the Parish and District Councils, as well as a successful charity bid, we were able to take on the lease of our own venue. The premises, previously a well established hair dressers, is in the centre of Alvechurch and we completed an extensive makeover, largely done by volunteers from the community, allowing us to open on Friday the 14th January 2011 as a smart new place to go.

The young people have been involved in every stage of planning this project. They came up with the name 'The Lounge', they designed the logo, the colour  schemes for the interior and helped with some of the decoration. They also helped interview the youth workers and take an active role in planning what activities they do in the evenings and what trips they go on.

Since this project started, Sergeant Ben Hembry, from our local policing team, has reported a 60% drop in anti-social behaviour and concerns about young people 'hanging about' is no longer the main issue reported at the quarterly village PACT  meetings.

As the project cannot rely on donations alone, this is the primary reason The Lounge acts as a business during the day, with any profits from the cafe providing additional revenue to help fund local projects and events, which will be provided by ACT, via The Lounge, as well as utilising other locations as and when required. We are always looking at other methods of fundraising, such as the Amazon links and the PayPal donate button on the website, hosting special events and the hiring of the venue. You could also use http://thelounge.easysearch.org.uk/ as your default search engine. Then every search you do raise funding for The Lounge, yes it's that easy. Alternatively, use the "Search and Support" link in the left hand menu.

Projects and Events

Now that youth@thelounge is established, this is starting to free up resources to look at other ways of giving back to the community, as well as fun and empowering one off events.

Local Radio station BRMB had two of their presenters host a feature called "Community Service" at the venue, where they served drinks and fresh food to the local "Silver Threads" community group. Photos of the event can be found in the gallery section on this site and on BRMB's "Community Service" Pages.

When the Census dropped on everyone's doormat, a local member of the community put himself forward to help people out using the facilities and with his efforts, hosted a Census Workshop to assist people with filling out their applications online. It is this sort of community help we really want to expand.

If you have ideas for a project, or one off event, feel free to contact us with your idea and we'll take a look to see if it is feasible.

Safety

We take your safety at the venue very seriously and it is for that reason, where pratically possible, all our volunteers and workers have had CRB checks and have had the correct training for their roles within the venture. In addition we have the same relevant policies and procedures in place, that you would expect from any other business serving the general public.

The website

The website is setup and maintained by a member of ACT and he is always looking for ideas and features that could benefit the local community. So if you have an idea on what content you would like to see on the site (or what you would like less of!), then feel free to get in touch using the contact page. While not everything will be possible or practical, it will certainly be considered.

Once again we would like to say a big thank you to everyone involved directly or indirectly supporting ACT and The Lounge