Pub is The Hub, www.pubisthehub.org, is supporting a new national initiative from Creative Lives, an organisation that champions voluntary-led creative activity, to encourage publicans to welcome creative activities into their pubs

The ‘Pubs Welcoming Creativity’ campaign, which is also being championed by CAMRA (www.camra.org.uk), aims to encourage publicans across England to open their doors to help regularly host a variety of creative activities run by local groups – anything from knitting circles, craft and painting groups to ukulele or folk groups. 

The initiative aims to help boost trade for pubs during traditionally quieter times of the week and to help provide spaces for volunteer-led creative groups to gather, many of which lost their regular meeting spaces during the pandemic and are looking for spaces to gather.

John Longden, chief executive of Pub is The Hub, adds: 

“Many pubs are already well set up with spaces for welcoming creative groups to host their activities. These groups are often in desperate need of a warm and welcoming environment in which to get together, and meeting in a pub offers an ideal solution.”

He adds: “We are proud to see a growing number of publicans and managers at rural pubs that Pub is The Hub has supported with projects to diversify their services, helping to host creative activities such as craft groups meeting in a community café or activities being hosted at a pub’s craft cabin.”

A weekly craft group being hosted at the community café at The Blue Bell in the village of Stoke Ferry in Norfolk, is a great example of a group that is benefiting both the local creative community and this community-owned pub.

The pub opened its community café earlier this year, with the support of a Pub is The Hub Community Services Fund grant, which now hosts a weekly craft café where people bring along craft projects they are working on, including knitting, crochet, felting, needlework and whittling or take part in monthly craft workshops.

Jim McNeill, an original founder member of Stoke Ferry Community Enterprise Limited, the Community Benefit Society that owns and runs the pub-cafe, says:

“Around 15 to 20 people attend the group each week and it is still evolving. It is really benefiting The Blue Bell as attendees buy coffee and cakes and some stay on for lunch or come back to visit the pub at other times.”  

Craft group coordinator Lorna Cootes says:

“It is wonderful meeting at the pub, with a warm and friendly atmosphere on offer and people who have seen us doing activities in the café, now joining us weekly.”

She adds: “Hosting at the pub takes away all the extra organisation in running a club, such as sorting out refreshments, booking arrangements, and being responsible for the opening and closing a premises.”

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The Pub is the Hub is a member of the Rural Services Network.  You can find out more about them at this link.