A real community café offers great volunteering opportunities!
The Marcham Community Café Ltd, better known as the Thirsty Café was created by a group of local volunteers who shared a vision of opening an independent community coffee shop in Marcham. Since March 2020 when they were officially registered as a Community Benefits Society, the volunteers have been running a pop up café twice a week at Marcham Centre in Barrow Close. They are however working towards having a permanent base.
The Thirsty Café is open from 9 until 11:30 am on Wednesdays and Saturdays for hot and cold drinks, homemade cakes, packaged snacks and on Saturdays delicious bacon butties! Not only can you be assured of good quality, affordable coffee, tea and refreshments but you will also receive a warm welcome from all of those involved. The Café provides the perfect informal and safe environment for members of the local community to meet and make new friends.
The rewarding and constructive volunteering programme the Thirsty Café provides makes it a wonderful place to be part of. On Wednesdays, there can be two to five volunteers working to cover a variety of roles in addition to serving and clearing tables. Duties include helping to set up and pack away the tables and chairs before and after the café session, making drinks and topping up the cakes on the serving desk and helping at the Stay and Play sessions held on the first Wednesday each month. Other regular pop up events are held throughout the year for both adults and children to be part of.
A community lunch is held on the third Wednesday each month from 12 noon until 1.15pm where you can enjoy a roast dinner, puddings and hot or cold drinks. Every fourth Wednesday is when the board games come out so you can spend an hour or two having fun as you get competitive with other people who share an enjoyment of this pastime.
Each Saturday, there are between six and nine volunteers who get involved with cooking all the hot food, calling orders to the right team member, prepping trays, plates and food, clearing tables and ensuring customers have everything they need. Volunteers also double up as front of house team, with two volunteers working on the service desk.
In addition to hands on volunteering working within the café, you can help out by baking cakes and making savoury snacks, be available to help out at ad hoc events such as parties and funerals to help serve food and drinks or getting involved in the general background tasks such as ordering stock, updating volunteers and the community via email, social media and MAD news and helping to organise various events.
For young people embarking on a Duke of Edinburgh Award, the Thirsty Café would love to hear from you and spend time working with them as a volunteer. They have lots of experience working with young volunteers and you would be most welcome to join the team.
Volunteers are asked to commit between 30 minutes up to 4 hours, signing up for any shifts you want to do – there is no fixed commitment. The café’s volunteers are from secondary school age and older. There are also employer-sponsored volunteering opportunities available for anyone working for an organisation which offers their staff paid time off to volunteer during work hours. The Management Committee can support you with any documentation you may require.
If you are interested in finding out more about volunteering with the Thirsty Café, contact them at hello@thirstycafemarcham.co.uk
As a true community café, which exists to benefit the local community, the Management Committee from the Thirsty Café (Marcham Community Café Ltd) aim to distribute their profits back to the local community in the form of small grants. Since July 2023, the Committee will now consider grant applications of up to £300 from any organisation or individual with the requirement that the money is used to benefit the community in Marcham or surrounding district. Applications need to be received early to maximise your chance of receiving grant funding. Further information can be found at thirstycafemarcham.co.uk/page/community-grants.
To find out what is happening at the Thirsty Café visit their Facebook page thirstycafemarcham
Thirsty Café, Barrow Cl, Marcham, Abingdon OX13 6TY
