CAFÉ UPDATE Thank you to everyone who supported the re-opening of the café over the summer. We hope you enjoyed the new colour scheme and Covid-19 safety measures put in place by our friend Bob. We’re sad to be closed to visitors again this month, but Namdi will continue to offer a takeaway service during lockdown between 12–3pm and 5–7pm, Monday-Saturday. Please pre-order during opening hours on 07908 139244 or just turn up. Every order is appreciated.
HEARTSPACE I really appreciate the anchor in my life that you have provided during these strange times – Heartspace participant
Our other main activity since mid-April has been Heartspace, a gentle half-hour reflection at 9am every weekday which aims to strengthen our capacity to stay calm and kind during these challenging times. It’s free of charge and offers a warm welcome to everyone, whether or not you’ve meditated before. You can join the zoom sessions here and the password is Heartspace.
WORLD KINDNESS DAY This Friday 13th November is World Kindness Day 2020. You may have been one of the 100+ people who joined us for live music and a free meal in 2019. We sadly can’t get together in person this year, but we’re still celebrating.
On Tuesday Alison took part in a special Kindness edition of Frome FM’s All About Frome programme, which you can listen to here.
On Friday itself, we warmly recommend dipping into a national event called KindFest which describes itself as ‘an online celebration of kindness.’ Divided into five ‘tents’ – Kinder Lives, Kindness at Work, Thinking Kindness, Kinder Politics and Kinder Youth – it will run from 2 – 7pm and features an inspiring range of speakers ranging from Captain Tom Moore to Claudia Hammond, Jimmy Wales (co-founder of Wikipedia) and politicians such as Caroline Lucas, the Speaker Linday Hoyle and Rory Stewart. You can find the full programme at https://www.teamkind.org.uk/full-programme and sessions will also be available to download afterwards.
HELPING REFUGEES Whatever difficulties we’ve suffered personally during 2020, it’s been unimaginably harder for the families and individuals who’ve left their homeland in search of safety from violence and destitution. The team at The Good Heart is always happy to do anything we can to support displaced people, especially as Namdi was previously a refugee himself. We’re grateful to everyone who donated children’s shoes back in the Spring, and were sad to cancel the art exhibition we had planned to host in aid of RAISE (Refugee Action in Somerset East) during the 2020 Frome Festival.
If you’d like to make a direct and practical improvement to the lives of refugees, please consider making a donation to the charity Refugee Community Kitchen. Since it was founded in 2015, over 18,900 volunteers have served nearly three million hot nourishing meals to displaced persons in London and Northern France, with the work continuing in Calais even now. A gift of £5 will provide 70 portions of rice and £20 will buy 60kg of potatoes. You can make a donation via their facebook page or on www.refugeecommunitykitchen.com.
With every good wish for the health and happiness of you, your loved ones and the planet from all of us at The Good Heart.