Coffee and other bits

Just back from our second Cafe Church event, part of the Cafe Church Network, held at the Wellingborough Costa Coffee. Monthly Saturday evenings. Opens at 7pm for 7:30pm start.

Tonight the theme was debt which is highly appropriate for this time of year.

Nice to meet some new people and have a good chat over my favourite coffee (if you must know it is a Massimo, skinny latte with extra shot).

Thanks to Sam and Matt for the live music.

Sadly though my record Christmas (1st Christmas in Raunds where I have not had flu or a bad cold over Christmas) has now come to an end and I now have a horrible cold with bad cough (enough to keep me out of bed all last night). So I struggled a bit during my little bit at Cafe Church.

Fortunately tomorrow we have a joint service with St Peter's (CoE) at Raunds Methodist. They are joining us for our annual covenant service which is great - especially as Shena (the Rector) is going to lead most of the service and preside at Communion so I only have to preach. Mind you on Wednesday Shena had no voice so it may mean we have to be adaptable switching to the one with the stronger voice at random places in the service.

Comments

[Angel Shier-Jones]

Hi Dave,
what on earth do you find worth £300 a year in the Cafe Church Network?
Seems VERY steep to me!
We've been running cafe church for a year for nothing!

[Dave]

Angie,

Totally worth it.

a) They have more costa stores wanting cafe church than churches ready to go.

b) Compared to negotiating your own deal with a local coffee shop this works out so much cheaper. We only have one costa within our circuit boundaries so have looked at other options and so have other local Churches. One offer was £10 per head and included a jacket potato (but who wants to pay that much at 7pm on a Sunday night which is when they were looking at it).

c) there are lots of resources available from the cafe church network - why re-invent the wheel?

d) Cafe Church in a Church (as in replacing a normal worship service) is quite a different thing to a Cafe Church Network event. Different audiences and different purpose. So one does not replace the other (although maybe cafe church network people might be more likely to try a cafe church - just hope they won't be disappointed with the coffee).

The costa in Wellingborough is in a great location for us and has plenty of space so we were able to have full drum kit and amps etc for the live music.

[Angela Shier-Jones]

Hmm..not convinced

£300 is still a LOT of dosh when you know that you still have to pay rent to Costa for the use of their space if you dont hit the minimum spend..

So its really £300 for resources - but even with those you still have to print them off yourself! so £300 plus your ink and your paper/card costs..

ie its £300 A YEAR for cudos and ideas..

isn't a resource book cheaper?

[Dave]

Angie,

We have not had to pay any top-up so far. This time we got free sandwiches - a few hours before they went out of date :-)

So we get the best coffee shop location in Wellingborough plus the resources for £12.50 per hour (plus great coffee). Seems a good deal to me.