The Hub Story
When the dream of the Hub was born in our thinking, right back when Kingston Vineyard started, and when we first launched Growbaby we always believed that we would one day need our own home. The first Kingston Vineyard events were held in people’s homes, pubs, coffee shops and anywhere we could find to meet. Growbaby started in the Farrelly’s garage and quickly expanded to two further garages located in Surbiton. We had almost outgrown ourselves from the start. Finding the venue for the Hub has been a long and painstaking process. But one morning in 2010 Noni walked into 38 Surbiton Road and knew this was the place.
Getting there was time consuming and not without complications, our solicitors were amazing (thank you Kate Slattery) and our Trustees could not have been more supportive and when Kingston Vineyard finally signed the lease, a year and half after first seeing it, on 6th September 2011 something wonderful had finally come into being. A home for the Church and a home for Growbaby was born. All the hard work, prayer and agony was finally worthwhile. As our overseers, Neil and Kate Woodward told us, it needs to be a great story of God’s work in the community or you might just have got there by yourselves. It has certainly been a great story.
We set a launch date of Monday 26th September 2011 and the intervening weeks were chaotic. We had so many local firms who gave us products, local tradesmen and women who gave us time and individuals from Kingston Vineyard who gave us support with time, energy, products and money. It was wonderful talking to local firms like Howden’s and John Lewis who were falling over themselves to support us, it really made the dream seem possible. The Kingston Vineyard family donned their painting garb, picked up their drills and set too.
The launch party was set and we decided to invite all the people who had supported us. In the end about 100 people turned up for nibbles, bucks fizz and a rousing speech by Peter. The Hub was duly launched. Our intention was always to start relatively slowly and allow the Hub to develop organically. We did not want to put on lots of events that we thought were useful but that others did not…
The Hub is the home of Kingston Vineyard and the Growbaby project. We are hoping that this space becomes a centre for the community. We will be here to have a chat over a coffee, give advice on parenting and life skills and provide all that anyone could possibly need when expecting, or having had, a baby. We hope to provide advice for young people, a place for those with disability and somewhere to come for those who simply need to be heard.
One of the lovely things about having our own space is that we can do whatever we wish and whatever we see a need for so if you have any suggestions or thoughts about events you might wish to see run here please do not hesitate to let us know.
It has always been our dream that The Hub would provide a place for local families, students, singles, married’s and anyone else you care to name. That is why on the front window of the Hub we have the following:
- Here for Everybody
- Many different events
- Supporting the local community
- Helping to meet your needs
- A place to meet
- Just drop in
However the Hub has a specific dual role with Growbaby and Kingston Vineyard, both of these roles are expanding over time.
So what’s the Growbaby part of the Story?
Growbaby is a project of Kingston Vineyard; in 2003 we were talking to various people about a service that might be useful in the Borough of Kingston for families from within the Borough. We came to the conclusion that providing good quality baby clothes and equipment for free was something we could do very easily and very well, so the concept of Growbaby was born. The more we thought about it the more we realised how stressful and expensive raising children can be. It may be a single parent family managing on their own, or grandparents or even a married couple. We decided that Growbaby could potentially become a useful resource for families, not only by providing clothes and equipment, but also offering services such as parenting talks.
Fairly quickly it became apparent that we needed to find a permanent home for Growbaby. With a home for Growbaby we will be able to allow people to make their own choices, which we feel is very important, but we would also like to provide a drop-in centre with coffee facilities, play area and access to relevant and significant information such as ‘back to college’ support. We would also like to be able to put on parenting classes, dietary advice and life skills courses to name but a few of our ideas. We would love for it to become a place where those that choose to access Growbaby can feel comfortable, enabled, and loved.
The intention is to have the ground floor as a drop in point for the Growbaby families (and anyone else who wishes) so we have a small kitchenette area, a play area and a social area. This enables us to welcome people, put on courses and give those who choose to access the project a focal point. The basement is split into two rooms and at present we are slowly sorting through the mountain of clothing donations which are in one room, the equipment is currently stored in the second room.
And what’s the Kingston Vineyard part of the Story?
Kingston Vineyard has not had a proper midweek home for as long as it has been running. We have used homes, the football stadium, the pub and many other venues for our different events. The Hub enables us to develop anything we wish or feel called to develop. W intend to start a marriage and relationship course, an H2O course, a student group, a youth group as well as a number of other midweek training evenings. We currently have a book club up and running and more events due to start in January. We have the space and we can use it as we wish, the trick is not to fill it too full too soon. But remember if you wish to see something up and running just let us know.