We do not run programmes. We lend the room
A hall, a kitchen and two side rooms, open fourteen hours a day, used by whoever books them.
Most of the timetable was written by somebody else
The temptation for a place like this is to fill the calendar with things of its own devising, and the measure of whether it is working is how much of the timetable somebody else wrote. Almost all of ours is: a tuition group, two prayer meetings, a women’s self-help collective, a Sunday football side that changes here because the ground has no shelter. What we provide is a key, a kettle, chairs that stack and a booking that is not withdrawn when something more prestigious asks for the same evening.
Nine years of the same four rooms
The four rooms
Rates are per hour, and the first booking any group makes is free.
The main hall
Ninety chairs, a stage nobody built properly, ceiling fans that work and a floor that takes a football. Weddings, meetings, exam coaching and the Sunday side, in that order of noise.
Side room 1
Twelve people around a table. This is where the self-help collective counts its money on the first of the month, and where most first conversations about a booking happen.
Side room 2
Quiet, one window, a whiteboard. Used almost entirely for tuition between four and eight in the evening and almost never at any other time.
The kitchen
Two burners, a large pot, and cold storage that works when the power does. Free with a hall booking; on its own it is what the ration distribution runs out of every second Tuesday.
This week
A normal week. Anything marked Open needs no booking — walk in.
Monday to Friday
Saturday
Sunday
From the people who book it
We have had the same two mornings a week since 2019 and nobody has ever asked us to move for something bigger. That is the whole of why we are still here.
Eighty rupees an hour and a whiteboard. I looked at three other places and all of them wanted a deposit I could not have paid in the first year.
We do not book anything. We change here because the door is open at half past six and nobody has ever asked us what we are doing.
Before you book
The four things people ask on the phone, answered here so the call can be about the date.
Do we have to pay for the first booking?
No. The first booking any group makes is free, whichever room it is and however long it runs. It is not a discount — it exists so that a group with no money can find out whether the place suits them before finding the money.
Can our booking be moved for something bigger?
No. A recurring booking holds its slot until the group gives it up, and we have turned down three weddings on that basis. It is the single commitment that makes a weekly group possible, and it is worth more than the hall rate for one evening.
Is there anything you will not allow?
One rule: nothing booked here may exclude somebody who lives on this road. That has cost four bookings since 2016. We will say no on the phone rather than after you have printed anything, so it is worth mentioning who is coming when you call.
What is not provided?
Sound equipment, decoration, catering, and cleaning after a function. The kitchen has two burners and a large pot and that is genuinely all. Most groups bring their own tea and take their rubbish with them, and the ones that do not are the reason the Saturday clean-up exists.
The first booking is free
Ring and say what you want the room for. If it is a weekly thing, say that too — the recurring slots are the ones that hold.
Book the hall
Somebody rings back the same day, and usually within the hour between nine and six.