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The Palmers Greenery Community Café in Broomfield Park will be celebrating its tenth anniversary in early June with a series of free events: a Wellbeing Wander, a dog show and a Community Fun Day - something for everyone! But the Palmers Greenery is much more than just - to coin a phrase - an "ace café".

The PGC newsletter will be taking a short break between now and the Palmers Greenery's anniversary, so I'm taking this last chance to publicise the events (see the list further down the page) and say a little about this quite remarkable project.

So what's remarkable about a café in a park? There are hundreds of them across the country. But most parks don't have a community café. And it's the idea of creating "somewhere for community-minded people to coalesce around" that gave Sarah Cotton the idea of converting a nondescript disused toilet block near the tennis courts into what it has now become: not just a place to buy coffee and cake (however excellent they both are), but a true community hub whose benefits radiate out throughout the whole of the park.

From the outset the Palmers Greenery has been based around the principles of volunteer operation and environmental sustainability. Sarah sees it as a "vehicle for opportunity" - for instance, giving volunteers a way of working for their community and learning new skills. Those benefiting include Year 11 and 12 students from Enfield's SEN school, West Lea, who gain life skills operating the café once a week.

The latest project aimed at improving wellbeing is Make Space for Girls Broomfield Park, working with a national campaign aimed at making public spaces such as parks somewhere where teenage girls are happy just to "hang out" in. We can expect some positive outcomes from the weekly workshops that are currently in progress.

What do I mean by "benefits that radiate out throughout the whole of the park"? Well, there's scarcely a square foot of Broomfield Park that these days doesn't bear witness to the hard work of those busy bees, the Friends of Broomfield Park. As well as lots of elbow grease and volunteer power, many of those projects require money, and one of the things that the Palmers Greenery does is distribute its surplus takings to other projects in the park.

I've only mentioned a few of the benefits that the Palmers Greenery brings to the park and to the wider community. To find out much more, download the Palmers Greenery Community Café Social Impact Report 2023. And for some personal benefits, drop by for a coffee and cake, go for a Wellbeing Wander and enjoy the Community Fun Day on Sunday 9th June.