Neighbourhood Supper Club

“It’s really important to remember the radical hope and intent that infused what our places came to be in the first place, because it’s those resources and that imagination that we’ll need to lean into again if we’re going to find the responses we need to update our neighbourhoods and how we work and how we live together.”

—Melissa Mean

Neighbourhood Supper Club is a quarterly, open ritual to come together and mark each changing season. It will be a welcoming, seasonal space to make yourself at home over a tasty shared meal, with room for neighbourhood updates, workshops, talks, relaxed screenings, and more centring the collective care and repair of what matters to us in our homes, streets and neighbourhoods.

This hopes to provide connectedness, ease and a grounding in changing times for neighbours near and far, offering the opportunity to belong, reflect, dream and grow together. We'll share in the knowledges, curiosities and passions of those in our neighbourhood(s), alongside what learning is emerging as we continue to organise together for the long term.

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TIMINGS

5pm — Arrivals & Welcome

On arrival, explore the exhibition space in the foyer, and make your way through to The Dining Room ready for a collective welcome. Those hosting table conversations will introduce themselves and share what you can join them to discuss throughout the evening.

5pm — Activities Open

Hosted activities begin in The Workshop and The Front Room spaces as we make, build, listen, learn, care, repair and maintain together across the Signing Tree, with a range of different sessions hosted by neighbours, peers and partners each season.

6pm — Supper Is Served

A tasty supper prepared by Signing Tree is served from The Kitchen, to be eaten together in The Dining Room.


8.30pm — Close

Activities come to an end, and we prepare to pack up for the evening, and say goodbye for now!

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SPACES

The Workshop

Signing Tree's Duffield Room will be our workshop, where you can join hands-on making activities in connection to Site As A Classroom—such as Neighbourhood Repair Club, co-builds and open enquiries including Material Matter[s]—and our Retrofit Street Demonstrator, sharing in the knowledges, curiosities and passions of those demonstrating care and repair in our homes, streets and neighbourhood(s), alongside what learning is emerging together.

The Front Room

Acting as our Front Room for the evening, the Ashton Room invites you to listen to relaxed On The Settee style conversations, lowkey Beyond Books talks, curl up for Cotch Club film screenings and more.

The Kitchen

In the open plan canteen space, our meal will be served ready for us to collect and enjoy, and the possibility for light touch activities here will connect us with ideas of home and heritage.

The Dining Room

The largest room at Signing Tree—Simister Hall—holds space to eat, discuss and reason together at the heart of every Neighbourhood Supper Club. This central space is where we will gather for a shared welcome, sit together to enjoy a collective meal, and also where table conversations are hosted by those with something to share throughout the evening.

The Courtyard
This outside space is perfect for growing, bike maintenance, and group co-builds, such as Front Garden Retrofit Kits, providing the tools to seed further connections between neighbours near and far.

The Studio

Exhibition displays and a Neighbourhood Noticeboard greet you in the entrance foyer on arrival, with space for DIY making activities celebrating neighbourhood print and publishing.

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SUMMER SUPPER CLUB—Thursday 24th July

ACTIVITIES

Sewing Our Social Fabric: Banner Making with Jane Thakoordin

Continuing our community banner, building on the phrase "All flourishing is mutual" as quoted by Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass, we ask what are the conditions we all need to flourish and thrive? Where are our just and safe spaces? How do we build spaces that enable us to grow and dream? In this intergenerational workshop, artist Jane Thakoordin invites you to create banners illustrating what matters to you most in a neighbourhood.

No experience necessary.

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Natural Pigment Painting with Henna Burney

In this workshop, you will learn about the composition and formulation of natural paints (what they’re made of and how to mix them), using different paint recipes and different base materials. This will involve common household products such as milk and yoghurt, as well as more specialised ingredients including gums, linseed oil, titanium dioxide, and alginate. By the end of this introductory workshop, and through working in small groups, you will have produced 1 or 2 recipes, experimenting to get the right mix, which can be applied onto wood to enrich the aesthetic and create physical resilience qualities to enhance wood.

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A Seat At The Table: Model-Making & Drawing with MATT+FIONA

As part of the Summer Holiday Site Takeover hosted by MATT+FIONA this August, they will be asking young people to imagine, design, and build what a thriving future neighbourhood could be. Part of these activities will include making a table for the ongoing design and construction club, which will be a space where we come together to share ideas and make things for the neighbourhood.

With this in mind, Matt, Lucy and George from the MATT+FIONA team will be inviting everyone, through drawing and model-making, to share a memorable moment or experience that happened around a table. This might be a memorable meal, your first job, the first time you met someone special, or when you fixed something, or made something new.

Look out for MATT+FIONA’s ‘Place’ Mats when you sit down for dinner too, where you’ll be invited to map spots in the neighbourhood that mean something to you, as well as imagining places you’d love to see.

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From Weed To Wonder: Bug Bite & Sting Balm Workshop with Jasdeep Sandhu, Forij

Join us for a hands-on, herbal medicine workshop where you'll learn to make your own soothing plantain balm, a natural remedy for bug bites, stings, and minor skin irritations.

Plantain (Plantago spp.) is a common backyard and hedgerow plant known for its powerful anti-inflammatory and skin-healing properties. In this class, we'll explore the traditional uses of plantain, how to ethically harvest and identify it, and walk step-by-step through the process of creating a healing balm you can take home.

Whether you're an herbal enthusiast, a nature lover, or just looking for a natural solution for summer skin woes, this workshop is a perfect introduction to plant-based first aid.

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Hemming Clothes with Niranjana

Using her sewing skills and having learnt from neighbours how to reduce the leg width of her work trousers, Niranjana would like to pass this on and invite you to think about hemming — reducing and lengthening children's and adults' clothes. As parents and carers look towards uniforms for going back to school in September, let's consider if we could get a little more use out of children's clothing, save money and respect our environment — simply by hemming. We will also look at how to reduce waist bands. So, bring an item of clothing along, and let's get stitching/hemming.

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Window Repair with Andy Nevins, GUTA

Get hands-on with a table of salvaged windows in this interactive, drop-in space, inspired by sessions Andy is hosting at Neighbourhood Repair Club. Andy will guide us to take the windows apart (and put them together again) as a way of exploring their different parts and how they are put together, and sharing tips and techniques for mending and maintaining them effectively. All ages are welcome, children must be accompanied by an adult.

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Borrow + Browse with Beyond Books

A curated bookshelf by books inspired by social and ecological care and repair for you to browse during the evening, or sign them out to borrow and keep reading at home!

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Sowing Seeds & Agony Plant with Kat, With Nature in Mind

Kat from With Nature in Mind will be leading a workshop where we will sow seasonal seeds with the hopes to the nurture them in the next few months ready for harvest at our Autumn Supper Club on Thursday 30th October.

They will also be hosting a drop in ‘Agony Plant’ where you can bring a houseplant or an image of one that might need some TLC — together we will identify the problem and brainstorm a solution.

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Bike Literacy with Cath Palgrave, The Bike Project

Bring your bike along for a check up and any simple repairs, and learn more from Cath about how to care for and repair it yourself, as well as their brilliant work with The Bike Project.

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ACCESS & FACILITIES

Neighbourhood Supper Club takes place across the ground floor at Signing Tree, 100 Ladywood Road, Birmingham, B16 8SZ.

—Signing Tree is fully wheelchair accessible, has accessible toilet facilities and accessible parking spots available.

—All food served will be vegetarian, with delicious vegan and gluten free options.

—Quiet or prayer spaces can be made available upon request.

—You can also let us know about any specific access requirements you may have during the sign up process, and where possible we will of course seek to meet these to make your visit as comfortable and supportive as possible.

If further information would support your visit, please contact Emily on emilycz@civicsquare.cc.

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ABOUT SIGNING TREE

The Signing Tree venue is a social enterprise business of BID Services, a charity supporting people with a sensory loss since 1872.

Opened in 2007, the Signing Tree venue is located within the award-winning Deaf Cultural Centre building which houses the charity’s offices, as well as supporting community and leisure projects, arts exhibitions and social events. When you book an event with them, you are helping to deliver vital services to some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people in our society.

Their staff team are passionate about customer care and are really proud of the journey they've made since we opened their doors in 2007. Their founding principles are focused around the needs of their customers and they always strive to create a warm, welcoming and positive experience, treating everyone as an individual.

For more information about BID Services and the Deaf Cultural Centre, please visit www.bid.org.uk

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THE JOURNEY SO FAR

Link Road Supper Clubs first began on a snowy day in March 2023 as a place for Link Road neighbours to convene and organise together around reimagining the retrofit of our homes, streets and neighbourhoods alongside the CIVIC SQUARE team at Midland Sailing Club. Over the next year, the space flourished into a monthly gathering for neighbours from B16 and beyond to come together to share food, ideas, and to organise.

During the first few years of Neighbourhood Supper Club, we connected and supported each other locally while also looking beyond our city with visits from inspiring speakers, practitioners and activists from around the country. It’s been brilliant to spend time with many of you here, break bread, and continue to explore ways that the evolving organising around Neighbourhood Public Square connects with wider activity and shifts in our homes and streets. A huge thank you to all those of you who have come along, co-hosted with us, and even helped takeover the kitchen to share beautiful food with people from across the neighbourhood so far.

We also know the value of spaces to eat together, celebrate, heal, reason, and mobilise particularly outside of typical working hours for many people, with the spirit of celebratory dinners, weekly potluck lunches, Food For Throught, and Open Project Night from Impact Hub Birmingham over 10+ years alive and well in spaces like Neighbourhood Supper Club, in ways we know will continue to matter to face the challenges and opportunities in our neighbourhood(s) together.

This year we are taking Neighbourhood Supper Club forward as a quarterly, open ritual, building on our end of year celebrations from the past two years to mark and come together each changing season, give space to share in the knowledges, curiosities and passions of those demonstrating care and repair in our homes, streets and neighbourhood(s), alongside what learning is emerging together.

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OTHER WAYS TO CONNECT

The Floating Front Room is open for coffee, cakes and conversation on Tuesdays 10am—4pm, and new forms of Site As A Classroom activity will be taking place regularly, building on Neighbourhood Trade School, Material Matter[s], Neighbourhood Doughnut Co-creation and lots more together over the past 5 years.

We can't wait to welcome you as we continue to find ways to make, learn, eat, connect, grow and give thanks as we take the next steps of co-building Neighbourhood Public Square together, whilst remembering all that came before us and staying grounded into the practice of reimagination and relationshipping with the land, materials and each other.

All forthcoming activities will be added onto our Eventbrite page, and you can also join our WhatsApp channel to receive regular updates about events coming up straight to you phone: bit.ly/CIVICSQUAREupdates

You can also sign up at bit.ly/CIVICSQUAREmail to receive our e-mail newsletter, which includes upcoming events, visits, progress and opportunities together on site, publications and more connected work from our neighbours near and far that we'd love to share openly with you.

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