The Role Of Alverstoke Parish Centre
St Mary's Parish Centre in Alverstoke was built in 1968 with funds raised by the church and community. It was built to provide meeting rooms and community space for the parish residents and an administration centre for the Parish.
Over the past 60 years, it has become the centre of community life in this ever-growing area. It is home to a wide range of community groups as well as allowing space for church–led community support groups. Housing development since the parish centre was built has placed an increasing demand on letting rooms.
It has been well used by many different groups and individuals over the years for regular meetings, occasional meetings, charity fund-raising events, community events, and to mark life events for individuals and families in the area.
Prior to Covid 19 more than thirty community groups, representing a full range of age and needs, used the centre on a regular basis, including Parent, Baby & Toddlers, the Multiple Sclerosis Society, Cardio Vascular Rehabilitation, Youth Club, three Womens' Institutes, the Guiding Association.
It has been used for monthly coffee mornings, birthday parties, dances, quizzes, tea parties, strawberry lunches, beetle drives, Bridge drives, Sea Shanty suppers, wedding receptions, wakes, railway exhibitions, floral demonstrations, social events, choirs, quilting and Model Railway exhibitions and the annual Gosport horticultural show.
It acts as a changing room for concerts in the church, a refreshment room for the annual Michaelmas Fayre and the Garden Walkabout, a meeting place and social space for three Women's Institutes, a play-space for toddlers, a dancing space for Ballet, an exercise space for Zumba, and an event space for charities to raise much-needed funds.
This is the administrative centre for the Parish of St Mary's and it is here that the pastoral staff hold wedding preparation classes, pre–Christening meetings with parents and God–parents, funeral service arrangements, Alpha courses, bereavement and fellowship meetings. The parish centre is the emergency evacuation site for a number of local nursing homes in the area – as there is plenty of room, and easy access for residents in wheelchairs.
There are anecdotes from users of the centre that contacts made at the centre have become long friendships, loneliness has been reduced, and those who have lost partners have found new friends, gained new interests, and feel comfortable attending social events on their own.
Strategies for overcoming increasing levels of poor mental health during the Pandemic have become the focus for local and national government. It has now been officially recognised that community spaces, conversations, social interaction are essential to maintain a healthy mind and life. The Parish Centre has been delivering on these objectives for over 50 years, and will continue to build on this performance when we build a new, safe, fully accessible, energy–efficient building for use by all sectors of the community.
Gosport Borough Council are committed to the cause of providing good quality community spaces as stated in their Local Plan 2011–2029: adopted October 2015. This plan sets out the Gosport Borough Council's commitment to provide and promote a range of quality community and leisure facilities in easily accessible locations for residents, workers and visitors. Such facilities include ... Community Halls
https://www.gosport.gov.uk/article/1292/Local-Plan-2011-2029-Adopted-October-2015
This extract is from Paragraph LP32 – Community Spaces – Key local issues are – '... to help alleviate health deprivation issues.' '... need to increase participation in leisure and cultural activities to improve physical and mental well–being.'
The UK government has appointed Baroness Barran as the Loneliness Minister, and in June 2021 she warned that many of those who felt lonely before the pandemic will continue to do so as lockdown restrictions are eased and some people will have lost their confidence. "We are still in a 'critical stage' of tackling loneliness."