Live demo — five different builds
Text Columns 5
Live demo of the SF Text Columns 5 section — five expertly-customized variations on one page.
Three rules we have not bent
Written on the wall behind the tills the week we opened, and unchanged since.
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Bring your own
Any container, any size, weighed empty at the door. We will not sell you a jar you already own.
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Price by weight
Every bin is priced per hundred grams so you can compare it honestly against a supermarket shelf.
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No minimum
Twenty grams of saffron or four kilos of oats. Both are fine and neither gets a look.
Free, staffed by volunteers, every second Saturday
Bring one broken thing. We will try to fix it with you rather than for you.
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Electricals
Kettles, lamps, toasters. Anything with a plug gets a PAT test before it goes home.
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Textiles
Two machines and four people who can turn a cuff. Bring thread if you want a colour match.
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Bikes and wheels
Punctures, brakes and gears in the yard. Buckled wheels take longer than you think.
Owned by the people who live in it
Forty-one homes, one member one vote, and no landlord anywhere in the structure.
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Rents set by us
Agreed at the November general meeting and pegged to a third of local median income, not to the market.
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Repairs in-house
Two maintenance workers on the payroll. No contractor has ever been paid a call-out fee here.
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Nobody profits
Any surplus goes to the sinking fund. There are no shares to sell and no equity to take out.
Where the money went last year
£18,400 raised, all of it spent. The full accounts are pinned by the school office door.
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Library, £7,200
Nine hundred new books and the shelving to put them on. Chosen by the children, which shows.
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Trips, £6,900
Every year group went somewhere, and no family was asked for a voluntary contribution.
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Playground, £4,300
Resurfacing the top yard. Dull, expensive, and the thing the children voted for first.
Still free, still quiet, still open
Nine sessions a week that have nothing to do with borrowing a book.
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Rhyme time
Tuesdays and Fridays, 10.30am. Loud, chaotic, and the busiest thing in the building.
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Warm room
Every weekday until four. Tea, a plug socket and nobody asking what you are here for.
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Form filling
Thursdays, 1–4pm. A volunteer who knows the forms sits with you while you do them.