The Friendship Cafe
a project of GymNation - registered charity no. 1098562
GymNation • Friendship Cafe • St James City Farm
About Us
Friendship Cafe and GymNation provides mainly youth & community based activities, focusing
mainly but not exclusively on young people, children and families in the Barton & Tredworth areas of Gloucester City, although our users come from many different backgrounds and from all over the City and County, which means that we are used by hundreds of different people each week. Since April 2011, we also manage the St. James City Farm. (www.stjamescityfarm.co.uk)
We also work with a number of other organisations, to help improve our neighbourhood. These include other voluntary organisations such as the Polish Community and Bangladeshi Women's Group, to statutory agencies such as the Gloucestershire Constabulary and the City and County councils.
Youth centre - community centre - Gym - City farm - Archery - Girls activities - multi-faith meetings - swimming - mountain biking - rock-climbing - camping - Fundays - self-defence - volunteering - BBQs - Displays - Horse riding - local, national trips, help with forms, interpreting/advice and referall to other organisations....the list of activities we are involved in goes on and on!
From activities for young people to getting people from different faiths to meet regularly, we arrange a whole range of activities and services, using Friendship Cafe and GymNation as a base.
We are a registered charity since 2000. However, our origins go back to the late eighties when the Gym was a very small group of young people training in various venues ranging from garages to old church halls until we set up the our current base at City Works in Alfred St in 1998.
Visit the following links to read more:
www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/untold_stories/asian/gymnation.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/voices/2003/05/friendship_cafe.shtml
GymNation History
Back in the 1988 a group of lads put some money together so that they could buy some weights and train in their parents garages. This avoided going to the over priced local gyms with their lycra clad customers. And so the Gym was formed.
As the number of participants grew the garage got cramped and new a new venue had to be found. Moving locations as the Gym grew became a regular event. We moved from empty shops to empty houses. From Community halls to Schools. Our previous venues include Bismillah Butchers in Upton St, the site of the Masjid-e-Omar (Mosque) in Conduit St, changing rooms in Colwell Community Centre (Derby Rd), the Anglo-Asian Centre in Charles St (opposite GL1), and the old Widden School in Sinope St, now the Islamic Girls Secondary School. We finally settled in City Works on Alfred Street.
With so many location changes came name changes as well. 'Sunni Gym' was what the original gym was known as in the 80s, followed by 'Gymkhana', and then 'GymnAsian' to our present name since 2000, 'GymNation'.
