The Coffee Beam

Aim

To provide a warm and welcoming place for the local community to meet and chat over a coffee and cake.

Even though we are a successful gymnastics and cheerleading club in Caldicot we are always aiming to achieve more!

We aim to inspire healthy communities by creating exceptional experiences.

As well as this, we strive to inspire our community to live happy healthy lifestyles.

In 2011 we acquired an industrial unit on Severnbridge Industrial Estate that we refurbished to become our permanent home. We operate a full gymnastics and cheerleading programme at the facility 7 days a week for people of all ages and abilities. Our athletes train from 1 to 20 hours per week. And in January this year we will start our seated gymnastics programme for people aged 65+ and for those living with dementia.

The Plan

After the generous donation of a portacabin from a local business we are hoping to transform this into a wonderful community café – The Coffee Beam!

The transformation of the area will create a clean, fresh, welcoming space for members of the local community to utilise and those working on the industrial estate.

Each week we welcome over 900 members to the centre. Our classes are incredibly popular, however, we have nowhere for their parent/guardians to view the sessions following a recent refurbishment. The refurbishment included a new accessible toilet and ramp. Some of our members travel for over 30 minutes to get to training and parents/guardians currently wait for sessions to finish in the carpark. We need to look after these parents/guardians welfare as, without their transportation, these children and young people would not have access to our sport.  With the addition of The Coffee Beam parents will be able to view the sessions via a live stream whilst enjoying a coffee.

The Coffee Beam will provide workplace opportunities for people with widely ranging skills and life experiences. In particular, it offers people with learning disabilities and autism the chance to develop workplace skills and engage with the community in an inclusive, safe and supportive environment. We provide both pre-employment work placements, traineeships and an apprenticeship scheme.

A ‘Pay if forward’ scheme will also be introduced where you can pay in advance for someone else's meal / hot drink so that someone who is in need – whether they are down on their luck, lost their purse, out of work or even homeless then they can access a meal, a drink and some comfort for a while.

During school holidays we will partner with local organisations to provide fit and fed sessions to children that are normally eligible to free school meals to ensure that children don’t go hungry during the holidays but also that they have access to our fun holiday camps.

We care about everyone in our community and in January 2022 we will be launching Love to Move our seated gymnastics programme for people aged 65+ and for those living with dementia. The programme will not only improve the physical health of the participants but will reduce social isolation. We would like to hold a dementia café at The Coffee Beam where carers and people with dementia can come to socialise in a friendly welcoming environment.

In line with the charities eco code we will aim to minimise our carbon footprint by using as many local suppliers as possible for our produce. We will also link closely with the community fridge and utilise food items that are intended for landfill in daily specials.

Every penny generated through sales will go back into the charity and will fund our inclusion programmes at the charity.

How can you help make a difference?

Good things come to those that work hard! At WGGC our team put their heart and soul into all the activities that happen at the charity. Our angel donator believes in our vision and with the kind donation of the portacabin it will allow us to create more opportunities for those in our local community. 

However, following our recent refurbishment and the COVID pandemic our reserves to complete such a project are significantly depleted. If you could make a small, medium or large donation or buy one of our rewards it will go along way into helping make Coffee Beam happen!

Every single penny we receive through this crowdfunding page will go towards getting The Coffee Beam fully refurbished and fully functioning.

Everyone at Wye Gymnastics and Galaxy Cheerleading would like to Thank You from the bottom of our hearts and we hope you will continue to support us moving forward to our new venture.

This project successfully funded on 10th February 2022