Chatty Café started out as an idea its founder had while sitting alone in a café in Oldham one day in 2017, when she noticed the many others around her who were also sitting by themselves. After getting in touch with some local cafes to see if they would organise ‘chatter and natter tables’ for adults to come in and sit down and interact with each other, the idea soon blossomed and developed into a UK-wide organisation (and beyond)!
At Great Places, we’ve been striving to tackle social isolation and loneliness in our communities particularly since the pandemic, when this issue became more common among our customers of all ages. It was at this point when we reached out to Chatty Café for assistance, and since then we’ve done some great work with providing an offer to our customers who can benefit from the scheme and also volunteer to be a part of it.
We headed over to House of Books and Friends, one of their host cafes in Central Manchester, and grabbed a coffee with our Contract Performance Specialist, Rebecca Cremin and Chatty Café’s Volunteer Manager, Jenny Bimpson. We chatted about the scheme, the variety of services they offer and our partnership with them at Great Places. Tune in below!
If you’re a Great Places customer and would like to get involved with Chatty Café through us, either as a volunteer or customer, just contact Rebecca.Cremin@greatplaces.org.uk and you will be put through.
