2025 was another busy year in our Community Hub at 82 Grimsby Road. Whilst it’s also the VANEL office, it’s mainly a friendly, welcoming space for members of the community to visit, perhaps get support, but certainly get connecting to others. Some of our groups have been meeting for a long time now, but also this year we’ve started a few new ventures from the space.
The hub was developed through the Big Local North Cleethopes programme which made the investments to develop the building and the shed at the rear (our ‘red shed’ or ‘Brocklebank Hall’). VANEL now manages the building which we still refer to as the Big Local hub.
For the most up to date news from our hub just follow our Facebook page here.
At our core we continue to run our weekly groups from the hub. Some of the members of these groups have now been coming for years, but we continued to welcome new members throughout the year. All are welcome.
The Ancestry group runs on a Monday. The Model group (now known as the Hobbies Group) meets Monday, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The Craft group (now known as the Handicrafts Group) is on Tuesdays and on Thursdays we have our newest group for chair based exercise.
Quite a few members of these groups enjoy a bit of fun and games. So throughout the year they’ve run their own monthly Quiz events. There were 8 of these sessions this year – some on themes such as Pointless, Crystal Maze and Out Smarted. These culminated in a crazy Christmas Capers fun and games session in December!
Also this year we continued with our Camerados group. This is an international initiative with these social sessions being run in venues across the world. There’s been essentially none of these groups in North East Lincolnshire so we thought we’d open our doors for a monthly social Camerados group and see what happens.
We’re now part of the movement and have an official session on our monthly calendar now. Camerados groups have no agenda and no real ‘leader’. They are just a safe space for people to meet, chat and get support. We’ve made our space welcoming and invite people in.
What has happened is that these casual, welcoming conversations are taking place at any time rather than just during the monthly two hour slot. People drop in, have a chat and a drink and generally socialise. Our group ‘sessions’ come to an end but people remain to chat, and new people occasionally visit and just join in.
This ties in too with our concept of being a Warmspace. We open our doors during the winter to support those who might need a warmspace, and the Camerados ethos fits in nicely with this.
During 2025 we also hosted monthly Community Safety drop-ins– often alongside members of the Sidney Sussex Neighbourhood Policing Team. Residents can pop in to chat to the Police or to Karl who leads on Neighbourhood Watch and Community Safety matters.
The hub is officially the base for the North Cleethorpes Neighbourhood Watch Group (led by Karl and Peter), and part of this is that we share our community safety materials (such as our Stay Safe guides), and offer these monthly drop-ins to help residents have a safe space to talk about their safety concerns and to get advice.
So we hosted 6 drop-ins during 2025 but now have a new commitment for 2026 to run 10 sessions over the year alongside our Police team partners. (All the details about session here).
As part of this Community Safety approach we also delivered a Community Safety event at the hub in November. This was funded by the local Sidney Sussex Ward Councillors and supported by partners including Police and Victim Support. Essentially a larger version of our community safety drop-ins this was a great event – but just one of many.
Our monthly events are all very different but we try to arrange something pretty much every month as ‘one-offs’ to get residents to pop in.
In February we celebrated the end of the 10+ year Big Local North Cleethorpes programme. This was a follow up event to a larger celebration in January at the Sidney Sussex Pavilion. So much had been achieved through the life of the Big Local project and had been closely connected to VANEL and to the building at 82 Grimsby Road and this was a chance to invite people in to share the story.
Aprils event was around a guest speaker – Graham Day who spoke about his book “In the cover of darkness” and the tales of war time from his father than he was sharing. This successful event had people visiting from even outside North East Lincs to hear him speak.
May was a session about Hedgehog care with a visit by a volunteer from Charlies Hedgehog Care.
In June we hosted a Jo Cox Great Get Together social event.
July was the VANEL AGM and a chance for member organisations to visit the hub and speak to staff and to network with each other.
August focused on games and activities for young children at a “Fairy Fun” session in the hub garden.
September there was another community safety focus by us offering to host a live dial-in to the national Neighbourhood Watch Conference online.
October during half-term we hosted a Witches Brew Halloween event – again for young people with a lot of fun and activities, crafts, stories in the garden, slime and potion making in the ‘witch’s lab’ and cauldron decorating.
November was the Community Safety event and finally we rounded off 2025 with the Christmas Capers extraveganza – indoor bowling(!), target shooting, reindeer hoopla, battle of the bands (with everything mostly involving inflatables), topped off with a side order of refreshments and laughter!
Keep an eye on our Facebook page for more monthly events in 2026.
And as well as all these organised activities, the Hub itself is open Mon-Thur for members of the public to pop in. We’re always welcoming and never know what questions people have or what reasons they have to visit. Over the year some have joined in with our groups, or have asked about volunteering, perhaps needed some signposting or advice or simply come to say hello.
We’re also now a collection point for dog poo bags! (Part of a Council initiative), and we started up a Book Shelf where people can come and swap a book. We also host a community shredder as part of our community safety initiative. Local partners – especially the Police – pop in from time to time to chat, and we’re a base for managing the GRIP (Grimsby Retailers in Partnership) secure radio system in Cleethorpes.
A busy year and lots of positive feedback from everyone who visits us – whether thats a single visit or to come back time and time again for a visit.
See you soon.
