May the coming Year of the Rabbit bring you plenty of fresh vegetables! Peace, joy, good health and creative energy with renewed strength and resilience to meet life’s challenges and to share the treasures of life’s living.

On behalf of BCCAs growing Membership, the Trustees, in-house team and extended support network look forward to sharing a vibrant and productive local community focussed New Year with arms and hearts outstretched to all-comers.

Our program of personal and social wellbeing activities continues to grow in answer to the declared and sometimes unknown needs, preferences and aspirations of local people. If you have ideas, suggestions, aspirations or established activities that you would like to introduce as a one-off, occasional or regular programmed event on the BCCA calendar, please let us know. We are appointed to serve, and committed to encourage and facilitate projects that aim to enhance the good health and wellbeing of our community. We strongly encourage and support intergenerational projects and initiatives that involve the participation of any vulnerable members of our community.

Current Regular Centre Activities

Activities have different charges including concessions (please enquire). BCCA Members are given priority when booking.

Please remember to state what group/session you are donating for when you donate

Monday
C.A. (Cocaine Anonymous) 7pm to 8pm Attendance by donation
Death Cafe 10.30am to 12.00am on alternate Mondays by donation www.gofundme.com/f/24xar-community

Tuesday
Pilates 6pm to 7pm private classes contact lalondedenise@gmail.com
Tango Dance 7.30pm to 10pm private classes contact le-tango@zen.co.uk

Wednesday
Community Pilates 10am to 11am contact lalondedenise@gmail.com Attendance by donation www.gofundme.com/f/24xar-community

Friday
Community Iyengar Yoga 5.30pm to 7pm. There is a waiting list for this session contact jakemac@gmx.co.uk
Attendance by donation www.gofundme.com/f/24xar-community

Saturday
C.A. (Cocaine Anonymous) 10.30am to 12pm Attendance by donation

If you are interested in starting-up, discussing or exploring ideas toward any kind of new activities using BCCAs available spaces, contact Maria, Centre Admin at bcca@btinternet.com for further information. BCCA is committed to encouraging and facilitating local community initiatives, access and involvement in personal and shared activities that promote inclusive intergenerational connections, creative community, good health and general wellbeing.

Regular groups, meetings, rehearsals, workshops, classes, concerts, exhibitions and one-off events that are BCCA sponsored must be not-for-profit and are intended to encourage, benefit and strengthen the local community and build personal and social resilience and wellbeing. We ask attendees to make an affordable donation of their choice for attending and to support BCAA’s ongoing work at: www.gofundme.com/f/24xar-community

“For thirty years, Bonnington Square/Vauxhall Grove have been blighted by the Vauxhall Manor School Extension Plan. This was abandoned in 1983, and the Vauxhall Housing Co-operative, anticipating this, obtained a grant from the Inner City Partnership to carry out this study.

“Vauxhall Housing Co-operative was formed in 1981 by squatters in the area in an attempt to secure their homes and to save the houses, many of which at that point were empty and decaying rapidly. During the previous decade the ILEA had bought 79 of the 116 houses in the area and by 1981 were systematically rehousing tenants and boarding up or bricking up the houses.

“With such a high proportion of the housing in its ownership, the ILEA needs to give careful consideration to the best means of withdrawing from the area, taking into consideration its own political and practical interests and those of the local community. This Feasibility Study in the Vauxhall Housing Co-operative’s case for the retention of all the housing as fair or council rented accommodation. It sets out to demonstrate the feasibility of this argument, and draws on successful initiatives to improve the environment and establish a permanent co-operative in order to argue that the only promise of the area’s full restoration lies in support for community-based initiatives.”

Next meetings will resume Monday 9th and 23rd January 2023

This group is sponsored by BCCA after being suggested by local people. It has developed gradually out of a series of well-attended exploratory meetings into a regular warm and welcoming group.

Our Death Café is a place to meet face-to-face and freely share any topic around death & dying. It is informal, lightly facilitated and in BCCA’s lovely Community Café. No week or conversation is the same. Everyone is encouraged to join the Community Centre (£1 per annum), and to donate tea, coffee, biscuits, cake or money to cover basic costs. The Café meeting space is wheelchair accessible. There is a toilet, but it is not wheelchair-accessible.

About Jeff, Susan, Bernard and Nicky (rotating facilitators)

We are all people who want to make the topic of death a part of our everyday lives. We have experienced complex lives, illnesses and bereavement and are fascinated by the different experiences people share. We have to face and prepare for our own deaths.

Contact the organiser of this Death Café via bcca@btinternet.com

Click here for general information about what is a Death Café

BCCA is working in partnership with Phd researcher Xiuzheng Li of the UCL, Bartlett School of Architecture, to gather and compile a comprehensive digitised Archive of BCCA-related material including photographs, videos, audio, textual and other data that documents the long, rich and dynamic historical narrative of the Bonnington Centre and Café and its colourful relationship with the local and extended community.

If you have any potential archival material or if you might be interested in sharing your personal memories and recollections, please contact the Archive team at BCCA_Archive@outlook.com

The Archive will be available to BCCA members and will support funding bids towards the upkeep, improvement and ongoing sustainability of our historic building as a local community recreational meeting and eating place, wellbeing resource and haven.

Please share this notice with anyone you know who might like to contribute.

On 21st December 2022 the Bonnington Centre and Community Café will co-host its regular annual winter solstice ‘BIG COMMUNITY PARTY’ with ‘Bring Food (Vegan and Vegetarian only) and Drinks to share”. As usual the event will be enthusiastically organised and hosted by Marie and Sandra. 

Celebrations will start at 4pm with communal dancing at St Anne’s Hall on the corner of Vauxhall Grove and Harleyford Road, two minutes walk from the Centre. Fleet of foot regulars will no doubt weave a tight core for others to swing, clap and laugh around. Dancing will be followed by traditional pagan carol singing outside ITALO, with mulled wine courtesy of Charlie, and seasonal address from David our local resident Druid.

There will also be a community screening of films in the Top Room at the Bonnington Centre, featuring a selection of interesting and diverse films made by young local filmmakers Dom Henderson, Charlie Usher, Sam Riley, Sabrina Jones, Patrick Bradley, Milo Anani and Juliet Hager.

It will no doubt be a special day. Please bring as many friends as you can bear to share with! 

Celebrations are FREE and everyone is welcome to join and participate in the fun.