By Mabel Wellman.
Award winning board game café Board In The City CIC has been blown away by the support that their GoFundMe fundraiser has received since it was opened this week. The cafe is struggling with bills built up during covid and had an extra blow when a window was smashed last week. But the local and loyal community is rallying behind it and the fundraiser to help keep it afloat has already raised more than £5,000.
Board In The City is the only community supporting board game café in the UK. It has helped tens of thousands of people of all ages and backgrounds tackle isolation, where you can either come in on your own or with a group of friends and learn how to play a board game (of which they have more than a thousand) that has caught your interest. There are plenty of games masters who are happy to suggest a game that they think you would love. As well as a huge number of board games, the café also has a large amount of food and drink which can accommodate any pallet or food allergy at fair prices. Board In The City is a extremely inclusive venue, and in a time where people are losing their third places and struggling with loneliness. The café is a perfect example of places we should be encouraging to open and support to help our whole community.
Board In The City has also supported the community, and vice versa, by inviting almost 200 people to volunteer with them or participate in a work placement. This has helped tens of people who started volunteering get into employment. 100% of participants who had completed their work experience program reported an improvement in a number of traits, including both key skills for employers such as clearer communication but also important personal traits like an improvement in confidence. Board In The City has welcomed people again from all backgrounds and abilities to volunteer with them, including myself for a short time where I might have caused more trouble instead of actually being helpful!
Board In The City has also collaborated with a number of local businesses and groups which include CAMHS, Solent NHS and Eastleigh College. The café also gives a home to Easy Tz Meals CIC and a community pantry to make use of surplus food to support the most vulnerable in the community.
For these collaborations, welcoming attitudes and the service they provide, Board In The City has been awarded and nominated for many awards. Including being awarded “Safe Space” by Rainbow (2019-2020) and being awarded “Leaders In The Field Of Disability Confident Employers” by the DWP (2020-2023).
This GoFundMe comes at a very tough time for businesses. Places all around the UK are shutting down due to a number of different and uncontrollable financial situations such as exponential increases in the price and service charges for utilities.
These closures are not just a huge loss for employees, business owners, and of course volunteers. This has also made people feel more and more lonely. According to the Office for National Statistics, 27% of people in the UK feel lonely “some or all of the time” and 7% of people in the UK feel lonely all of the time. Closing businesses has led to many people now completely lacking what is referred to as a “third place”. Third places are social venues where people find themselves when they are not at the first or second places (typically being at work or at home), the loss of these third places means it is growing hard to find somewhere to go either with friends or to have any chance of making friends whatsoever.
Board In The City has fought and flew high in the face of these tough situations for years, but the number of people through their doors has plateaued this past year. This month, which is always a tough month for the entire hospitality industry, the café has also had one of their windows broken.
Last year a number of venues closed down in Southampton. This included the social venue The Art House. Another Community Interest Company which helped the community by being a venue for the poetry event Moving Voices and serving as a third place. It was particularly painful to lose The Art House last year and it is imperative that Board In City does not meet a similar fate.
To support Board In The City you can contribute as little as £5 on their GoFundMe here, or you can donate as little as £1 on their website boardinthecity.co.uk. The GoFundMe has had already seen a huge amount of generosity, which has been a beautiful thing for the directors of the café to see in how willing so many people have been to support the café in just a few days so far. Please do consider donating to this yourself too if you are in a place to do so.
Have you been to Board In The City before? If you have, and from that you would know how amazing a venue they are, do ask yourself how long as it been since you last went there. I was shocked to realise that I had not been to the café in over 12 months when I saw their GoFundMe. If it has been a while for you too, this is the time to go their either on your own or with your friends to play games and eat out. It is an obvious fact that local businesses can only survive and serve the community the way they love to if they are being adequately used by the community. This is your sign to talk to your friends and family and see if you can start a new tradition of playing board games and catching up, either on a regularly basis or as little as once a month or so to both help a fantastic award winning CIC, and fight loneliness you might not even realise is affecting you right now. If you have never been to Board In The City, do trust me in that this is THE BEST venue in Southampton, check their opening times and go see what all the fuss is about!
Board In The City can also be hired as a space for events, so do think of this venue in the heart of Southampton for your next party or company meeting.
Other ways Board In The City can be supported is by becoming a sponsor of the café. You can also “Buy A Brick”, where with a donation of £25 and a design of 120mm x 40mm in size can buy you or your organisation a brick to fill in their donation wall at the front of the café. Co-Op members can also make Board In The City their “chosen cause” in the community section of the app to give Board In The City the chance to receive donations. Finally, Board In The City also have their very own anthology book of strange stories and poetry on Amazon, courtesy of Authors Reach Ltd where all proceeds go to the Café, find the book here.
For more information about the impact Board In The City CIC has on the community, click here boardinthecity.co.uk/our-impact.
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