St Sidwell's Community Centre holds a seed-saving talk and supper on 15 October, starts an autumn menu on 6 October and runs a free weekly BSL café.
St Sidwell’s Community Centre on Sidwell Street is inviting Exeter to an evening of seed saving and a shared supper on Thursday 15 October, the next in a monthly series of talks and community meals. Before then, its café starts a new autumn menu on Tuesday 6 October, and every Wednesday afternoon it now runs a free British Sign Language conversation café.
The centre describes itself as “an independent community centre in the heart of Exeter giving a warm welcome regardless of background, ability or circumstance”. Ruth, writing to us for the centre, said: “I wanted to shout about some fantastic things that are happening here.”
Save your seeds and share a meal, 15 October
The event page calls it “a seasonal meal and talk connecting people, nature, and our community garden”, and part of “our new series of evening talks and meals, bringing together the community garden, the natural world, and the kitchen.”
Doors open at 6pm. In the centre’s words: “come early to meet fellow guests and settle in, we’ll be offering some ad-hoc tomato seed saving with seeds for you to take home while people arrive.”
At 6.30pm Garden Manager Julie Smith gives a talk on seed saving for food growers. “We’ll talk about why saving seeds matters, plant biology, how to save seeds and a clear plan on how you can get started in your garden,” the centre says. “We’ll also have an update from Wonderful Exeter Seed Bank’s Mandy and Martyn about what’s going on seed wise in Exeter, what to do next, and some live seed sharing.”
Supper follows at 7.30pm: “sit down to a delicious home-cooked seasonal meal including some delicious seasonal veg (it’ll be seedy in the best way!).” The evening closes at 8.30pm.
“These evenings are a chance to learn something new, connect with the nature on our doorsteps, share a table with new (and old!) friends, and enjoy some delicious food,” the centre says. Later talks in the series will cover fungi, fruit trees, and pruning and hedging.
Tickets come at three prices “so everyone can join us”: £10 low or unwaged, £15 standard, and £20 as a supporter ticket that helps subsidise a place for someone else. When we checked the booking page on 30 September, 30 tickets remained at each price. Anyone for whom £10 is still a barrier is asked to email gardening@stsidwells.org.uk.
A zero-waste autumn menu from 6 October
The café’s new autumn menu launches on Tuesday 6 October and features a zero-waste bubble and squeak. The centre says the dish continues “our focus on food waste reduction, as we utilise produce that would have otherwise gone to waste, from Exeter Food Action and local supermarkets.”
Its community fridge, the centre says, “has saved 4.75 tonnes of food waste so far this year!”
The café page says the kitchen turns donated produce from the centre’s own greenhouse, Exeter Food Action and some local supermarkets into meals cooked from scratch, and that dogs on leads are welcome. The café is open Tuesday to Friday.
A free BSL café every Wednesday
Since the start of August the centre has run a British Sign Language (BSL) Conversation Café, weekly in the café space on Wednesdays from 2.30pm to 3.30pm. It is free. “Deaf and Hearing are welcome, and it is about having relaxed conversation, coffee and BSL practice,” the centre says.
Ruth explained where it came from: “We launched this after I attended 2 brilliant free short courses run by Exeter Community College Learning at St David’s Community Centre, in an aid to become more inclusive and provide a safe welcoming space to the Deaf community.”
What else the centre does
Alongside the café, the centre says it runs a bakery, grows vegetables and looks after “one of the few large green spaces in the city centre”. It offers affordable meeting rooms and venue hire, free ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) classes, and volunteering and work-experience placements across all its work, and it acts as a local heritage hub for the eastern quarter of Exeter city centre.
Its stated values are “Inclusion, Empowerment, Respect, Equity, Sustainability and Compassion”.
What it means for you
- Seed evening: Thursday 15 October, doors 6pm, talk 6.30pm, meal 7.30pm, ends 8.30pm. Book on the centre’s event page: £10, £15 or £20.
- BSL Conversation Café: every Wednesday, 2.30pm to 3.30pm, free, no booking mentioned.
- Autumn menu: from Tuesday 6 October in the café.
- Where: St Sidwell’s Community Centre, Sidwell Street, Exeter EX4 6NN. The centre’s contact page gives its phone number as 01392 666 222.
For more across the city, see what’s on in Exeter this month and things to do in Exeter.
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