At our little takeaway kiosk inside the Bourne Green Pavilion, we’ve built more of a community than we could have ever thought possible when we moved our espresso machine in. It feels as though everyone who comes through the doors is a regular, ready to chat with Laura and the team about their day and have a genuine catch up and gossip whilst their coffee order is made. And if they’ve never visited before, it feels like just a matter of moments before they also feel at home and are chatting endlessly over a brew.
The Pavilion encompasses what we mean when we say we want to create a place out of a space. From the outside, the Bourne Pavilion is a really rather unassuming sports block used as a home to the Farnham Runners, footballers and cricketers. However, the people who visit us make the space SO much more than that. We have support groups for new mums, fitness classes, dog walking groups and crafters all meet regularly to use the space as a hub for the community. We’ve hosted Father Christmas, the Bourne Show, even birthdays! It really is the central part of the Lower Bourne community.
Last year, one of our groups of regulars suggested that we use a small part of the space as a book-swap because there are so many avid readers within the community. It felt like a no-brainer because most of our team are also absolute bookworms and have spent many a shift talking with customers and getting book recommendations. But on the other side, we were a bit torn…. where exactly would we put these books? On instagram we saw instances of communities taking over an old phone box, but there weren’t any of those to be found on the Green. Also, anyone who has been inside the Bourne Pavilion can tell you that we don’t have the most amount of space to work with, so whilst we were on board in theory, we weren’t really sure how we were going to make it work.
Pan to a few days later, one of our wonderful regular customers David was pottering across the green – tape measure in hand. David has been a regular at the cafe for as long as we can remember. An elderly gentlemen who happily uses his free time completing woodwork projects, he uses the trip to the cafe as a bit of exercise. David came into the cafe and unbeknownst to us measured up a small gap between where our coffee counter sits alongside the clubhouse’s bar. A few days passed, and David was spotted once again hobbling across the green, but this time with wooden panels in hand.
Proudly, David entered the cafe and presented us with a custom built bookcase to host our book-swap space. We were utterly gobsmacked, honoured, and truly beyond thankful.
So now, our cafe is proud to host the Bourne Bookcase! A space where you can drop off your finished reads and pick up something new. We encourage everyone to keep swapping, so a constant rotation of new books can be found on the shelves.
No books to swap? No worries. If there’s something you’d like to take from the shelf but you find yourself without a book to give, we just ask that you pop a small donation in the charity jar on top of the shelving.
A great read, a fantastic coffee, and a cozy sofa to sit on inside the pavilion’s clubhouse. What more could your afternoon want?