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August Bank Holiday Monday, 25th August 2014, saw the launch of a brand new café in Ashton Hayes. The logo and the name of the Café were chosen from entries in a local competition. The winner, Gillian Forgrave, and her family were the first official customers of the café.
The Pavilion Café was the brainchild of a group of local people who saw it as a way of not only providing a community resource for a village which had lost its pub but also of contributing to the upkeep and improvement of the recreation field on which it is based,
It has succeeded on both counts since first opening its doors in 2014 with grant aid from the Rural Support Fund, Ashton Hayes Parish Council and the Ward Councillor at the time Eleanor Johnson
In 2017 we were delighted to be nominated for a Countryside Alliance Award which honour the skills and produce, tradition, enterprise and people who go the extra mile for their communities. Our Café’s guiding aim is to be accessible to local people of all ages.
The Café is completely staffed by a team of volunteers, some of whom form the café committee to oversee its running. The Committee works closely with the AHSRA trustees in working to continuously improve the facility.
ANNUAL PARISH MEETING REPORT – MARCH 2023
The café based at the Pavilion and intended to have appeal to all the local community continues to run although, as always, we struggle to maintain the rota at times due to a shortage of volunteers. A lot of effort has been put in recently to increasing the publicity around the playing field and the facilities including the café and the need for volunteer support and this does seem to have a slow but positive effect. Apart from opening on Saturday and Sunday afternoons we are open when early morning football matches are played and we also continue to run a lunch club for a group of older people supported by Timebank volunteers. In addition, and in terms of us continuing to try to reach out to the whole local community we continue to run an annual Macmillan fundraiser in late Summer and we host the bi annual Community Clean Up events. We are this year hosting the village coronation celebration and the café will play an important part in this. Income from the café supports the Playing field in providing a steady stream of income. The Café space and facilities, together with the playing field and its equipment are attractive to many looking to book children’s parties and events. Finally, I’d like to offer a very big thank you to all our volunteers including our amazing bakers. I also would like to thank the community shop for their support and a special thank you to Heather who has for the whole time the café has been operating made our well-loved tray bakes and done so whilst charging us a discount rate ….so very sorry you are leaving Heather!