A Barnard Castle venue is making extra efforts to encourage people to be sociable as it gets involved in the Chatty Café scheme.
The national initiative is intended to create welcoming spaces where people can rely on finding someone to chat with over a coffee.
Moments, at the Butter Market end of Market Place, already has a couple of volunteers preparing to bring the idea to Barney and café owner Carly Payne is hoping to have it up and running by the end of April.
“We’ll set a table aside on Tuesdays, 2pm to 4pm,” she said. “Anybody can come and there will be somebody to talk to.”
One prospective volunteer, Katie, highlighted the training that comes as part of the project.
“It’s good that they offer this kind of training,” she said. “When I’ve volunteered on things like this before, we sometimes had people dropping in and they would raise something that could be a bigger concern.
“This scheme gives safeguarding training so people know what to do if that happens.”
Fellow chatty volunteer Joanne added: “I just think it’s a lovely thing to do. And I find that volunteering is a good way to increase my circle. Recently I’ve got involved with a choir at Startforth Community Centre and it’s been a good way to meet people.”
The Chatty Café scheme started in 2017 and has more than 700 participating venues across the UK. However, up to now Teesdale’s closest options have been in Darlington, Newton Aycliffe and Bishop Auckland.
And with well-documented concerns about loneliness and social isolation, it’s time to change that.
“It can be hard when you live alone, or even if you live with somebody but you find yourself on your own during the day,” Carly said.
“There’s a danger that when you feel there’s nobody you can meet for a coffee, you just stay at home and then it becomes a habit that’s hard to break.”
The volunteers at Moments are currently doing some training before the scheme starts in Barney on April 21.
Meanwhile, more volunteers are always welcome and can ask in the café for more details.
