Open for Business

The Turl Street Kitchen opened its doors to the public yesterday, and, in true Hub fashion, went off with a very definite Bang. Any
first day fears about empty space were allayed: from the word go, our beautiful new restaurant was buzzing with customers sipping speciality tea & coffee, sampling local lager and, of course, savouring meals from the first of TSK’s inspired daily menus.

A busy first day for the TSK

Every one of the items on the menu was ordered, and we nearly sold out of most of them: roast pork belly roll and Irish stew went down particularly well. As part of our opening celebrations, customers were invited to pay what they wished, which proved an excellent way to gather feedback, as well as a significant ego boost: almost everyone paid close to, or at full menu price, our soup and homemade breads receiving the most glowing reviews, as the visitors’ book bears witness.

Soup-er

We hope you’ll be penning us a note in the book: we’d love your thoughts and suggestions so that we can make TSK even better, every day, according to your input. You can get in touch, send feedback and check out the daily menu on our flash new website: click here to take a look. This week we’ll be open for lunch and dinner (breakfast is due to start on Thursday) until midnight each evening. From next week we’ll be trying out even later openings on Fridays and Saturdays: we think you’ll appreciate those extra few hours to sit back with a concoction from the bar, manned by a host of lovely Hublies and stocked with a range of unique spirits.

Where the magic happens

We look forward to welcoming you inside soon. Bon appétit!

Photographs courtesy of Sonali Campion

Hubbub…

We’ve only bloody gone and done it!?

Entrance Hall Doodles...

So…apologies for the radio silence. The last 5 days have been something of a blur (the good kind) at 16-17 Turl Street with the VIP Launch on Thursday and frantic preparation for the official opening of the Turl Street Kitchen today!! (More on this later) But we at Oxford Hub are officially back on top and ready for a new year in the new home of social action and student volunteering.

(Photo: Jaani Riordan) Josh does love to dress up...

First things first, the launch was a fantastic event. After days of preparation and planning in and around more cardboard boxes than any of us ever wish to see again, by the time the first guests walked (excited and early) through the door, the place was utterly spotless. Within minutes the conversation was flowing, the sparkling was pouring, the canapes were…tumbling?

(Photo: Jaani Riordan) Look at all the important people who came to see what we're doing!

Now, you want to see some pictures of some ribbons being cut don’t you? Well Thursday was a bit more metaphorical than that, but no less special to us or anyone involved with the project. Tired of heading over to Wellington Square every time we wanted to see the Vice Chancellor, we thought it was about time we had somewhere for him to come for meetings. After the intensive (and emotional) oratorical stylings of our esteemed Mr. O’Boyle we welcome the VC to the stage for what couldn’t have been kinder words.

(Photo: Jaani Riordan) Come on in.

Guests enjoyed tours of our new space from the offices on the top two floors through the Library, Living Room and Conference Space and down into the Turl Street Kitchen itself. If one word was used to some up the reactions of our guests during these tours it would have to disbelief. There was a genuine feeling that we were doing something in this building which people just haven’t seen before. But we don’t want to waste virtual words here. The Oxford Hub is not to be read or tweeted or talked about. It is fundamentally a space to experience for real; to meet people from students to organisations to local partners to local people; to work with them; to achieve change with them.

Hublies enjoy a cheeky schweppes bitter lemon after hours

Welcome to the Oxford Hub – we hope you enjoy.

Good Food Doing Good…

Cooking up a Storm in the TSK

We’ve got our bread baking; we’ve got our (state-of-the-art) coffee machine whirring; we’ve got our beer…drafting? Anyway, welcome to the TURL STREET KITCHEN!

Launched: Turl Street Kitchen's brand new logo

Tomorrow is opening day and TSK, occupying the entire ground floor of 16-17 Turl Street, is prepped and ready for business. The Kitchen, however, is in no way separate from the rest of the building. Visitors will be able to move freely between the eatery and the Hub’s other rooms (library, living room, events space…), making group meeting munchies a thing of the past. More importantly, TSK’s ethos is in keeping with Hub culture in every conceivable way. We’ve reclaimed our essential items, of course, from furniture right down to crockery, while our wines, beers and spirits have been specially selected according to their minimal carbon footprint.

Sipsmith gin and vodka are our latest addition to the bar

On the subject of drinks, we have great ones. TSK, open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, will also transform into a bar in the evenings, giving customers the chance to sample artisanal new-school gin and vodka. Our pride and joy thus far is Sipsmith’s Gin and Vodka to be served from beautiful custom jars (above) and made lovingly in small batches by the wonderful people at Sipsmith (credited last year for ‘the gin of the moment’, we’ll have you know). Our lager, like our food, is locally sourced: you won’t find any branded beers here.

New and exciting local lagers are the order of the day

The menu at TSK will be short and sweet (and savoury…), changing daily to minimise waste and to accommodate our commitment to fresh, seasonal produce. You don’t need to think twice about what’s on your plate here – a community effort goes into every mouthful. The kitchen itself is equipped with everything our new Chef Carl (a highly experienced hand on the Oxford scene) and his team could possibly need to create delicious dishes with a conscience.

In less than 24 hours, such major players as the Vice-Chancellor, Mayor of Oxford and Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire will be treading the distinctive green and blue tiles of the TSK at our formal opening event (pictures to follow). Soon afterwards, we hope you will too. Because TSK is aimed at students and non-students alike, finally, there’s a place in Oxford where town and gown can come to eat and drink; teach and learn; make community plans…together. Cheers!

3 Days to Go: Walls that Talk

With opening day just around the corner, Hublies have been turning their minds to decoration – always a sign of near-completion in a new home. Final preparations are going into a mode of high creativity all over the building, but the staircase – a space too gorgeous and too sizeable not to be doused liberally in Hub spirit – is home to a particularly inspired artistic
venture: the installation of our long-anticipated frames project.

From this...

Far from a last minute act of beautification, the project has been brewing for months and is the result of long hours, careful planning and a huge host of participants.

It all began with our design partnership with T.I.L.T., which sparked the idea for a permanent exhibition on the walls of the staircase, built from salvaged picture frames to be filled by Hub groups, friends and volunteers. In June, we held ‘In the Frame’ to kickstart the process in University Parks. Member groups found countless ways to represent causes, events and points of view on paper from collage to cartoon and the process has been continuing ever since.

...To this!

The result, though we say it ourselves, is stunning. We have 30 frames and counting, and the walls of the staircase are already awash with colour, Hub memories and inspiration. A triumph of collaboration, the reclaimed frames reflect the building’s Georgian style (as well as our ethos of sustainability), while their varied and colourful contents bring that style up
to date and make it our own. We’ve even continued the theme with framed signposts to direct our visitors:

Writing ourselves in, we’ve given 16-17 Turl Street instant warmth, and created a chain of continuity between Hub past, present, and, of course, future: there’s plenty of room for more!

It's up to you!

4 Days To Go: Introducing…

The Library and Living Room.

On Thursday we introduced you to our offices, where Hublies are already working hard. Today, take a look at the place where much of that work will be set in motion.

Sandwiched above the Turl Street Kitchen and below the offices, two gloriously high-ceilinged, newly painted rooms form our living room and its accompanying library. It’s quiet in there now, but come term-time, it looks to be the heart-centre of new and continuing Hub activity: a space for reflection, research and discussion. This is where participating students and newcomers alike can cook up their best ideas with the best resources at their fingertips (they can just sit and admire the view with a cuppa, too).

So let’s start with the causes library. You may be reading this and wondering whether what Oxford really needs is yet more books. There are over 100 libraries in Oxford and the Bodleian alone contains more than 11million books. But the reality is that what we’re doing here is unique. Our library may be small, but it focusses carefully on engaging students in the world around them in a real way. All libraries are a little bit about learning, but in true Hub fashion, our library is really about doing. Also, thanks to the loverly people at Blackwell’s, its going to have a proper electronic lending system and everything. So the shelves are being carefully stocked and catalogued with books both new and donated, and there will be information packs on everything from starting a social enterprise to sustainable cooking to development studies (and actually Where’s Wally – a special request from the boss).

The Hub library will the the first and only one in Oxford solely geared towards social change.

What’s more, the space forms an invaluable resource for our many member groups, opening up opportunities for growth. Not only will our in-house groups have easy access to the library (representatives from Keen, People & Planet, SHRH and Jacari are all  upstairs), and the room will be available to all our members.

Just along the hall is ‘The Living Room’ (or ‘The Lounge’ if that’s what you’re into). This room will be a bit more social – a place for sitting and chatting and drinking tea and peeking into the Jesus Warden’s back garden (if that’s what you’re into). As you can see its all a bit posh in there at the moment but we’re looking into ways of making it a bit more homey so that we can all have somewhere to take a break from saving the world and relax.

All that's left is to finish unpacking.

So, connecting students with causes just got easier, and thanks to our collaborative co-design initiative, the space is actually
designed to inspire thought and action. TILT helped us to envisage and then conceptually design the style and character of the rooms according to their functionality: so our unique combination of reclaimed furniture (see Bargain Hunt for more details) and ergonomic, custom designed BOOK CHAIRS are actually engineered around making the most of that enterprising student spirit:

Bookishness to a whole new level

Here’s the opportunity to curl up with a Turl Street Kitchen coffee, brainstorm, fill a gap in your knowledge or follow up on that series talk, in a chair that’s actually made of books and in a room full of light and ideas. See you there!

7 Days To Go: The Final Countdown

A roving Hub reporter wanders around on the second floor…

On Tuesday, Hub moved into its new house. One dedicated team and their filing cabinets battled the stairs to the newly refurbished offices, complete with fresh licks of paint, computer stations, desks, chairs and…SPACE!  Well, a bit more than we had before anyway.
The offices, on the second floor of the new building, now form the base for our Oxford Hub and Student Hubs teams, as well as several of our member groups’ representatives: more details on these to follow. In a week, we open, and after just 2 days, it is already starting to feel like a home. We even have internet!

Looking official in the office

In fact, supplied by the Phone Co-op, our internet at the Hub is ethically sourced, just like our cleaning service (The Cleaning Co-op)
and our building management (The Ethical Property Company), not to mention our environmentally friendly bathroom supplies. We’ve made a point of giving the Home Hub an ethical focus from the inside out, and now we’re watching it being put together all around us, like a great big community jigsaw. The building has been buzzing with activity as preparations continue apace, but amid the chaos, something very special is taking shape: it’s nice to know that already the Hub building is, right from its roots, a people place, and our happy atmosphere during the teething period bodes well for the hectic term ahead.

Awkward Hannahs at the new Hub offices

More aesthetically, curtains, carpets and cups of tea (though still a bit dusty) are making the space seem less like a work in
progress and there are some exciting decorations plans in the pipeline.  It really is beginning to look and feel fabulous up here – and it’s all topped off by our sublime toilet-top view of Jesus College gardens.

I won't be blank for long!

We can’t wait for you to see the finished job. Until then, watch this space for a day-by-day account of the finishing touches.

10 Days To Go: in pictures

Ahead of our official launch in 10 days time, we thought we’d show you how the space is shaping up ahead of moving in:

 

Testing out the new office

Student Hubs office complete with fancy new carpet

The first batch of office supplies

The first of the frames for 'In The Frame'

Oxford Hubs Office

The living room

Books for the new library

The Turl Street Kitchen Bar

Reclaimed floorboards in the restaurant

Adding some colour to TSK

Fight for your right to paaarty

Party times-a-coming!

So Oxford Hub is moving, and we’re moving real soon. This will bring with it a number of exciting things: a sustainable cafe, a library full of socially-aware books, and wondrous events to campaign, fundraise and generally make the world better through the energy and muscle of student changemakers.

But, obviously, the most exciting of these exciting things is our upcoming house party! Everyone knows that when you move house, you have to house-warm. And this party is going to be Oxford’s biggest, bestest house warming party EVER! Probably.

Sit tight for the deets:

*It’s set for 12th October (which for students is Wednesday of 1st Week).

*There will be fun things going on all day, but the party stuff will get going in the evening.

*There will be music, drinks, dancing, comedy, and a big ol’ townhouse to explore and get to know…

But what this party is lacking right now is you with YOUR ideas: who do you want to see? who should we invite? what music do you like? what drinks?

So far, we love the idea of house ale, chilled local musicians and student bands and we’ve tweet-invited (twinvited?) our favourite Ox alum (probably of all time) Josie Long to come and do some funny-ing.

Suggestions by postcard, tweet, facebook post, comment (below) or carrier pigeon….

 

29 days until the launch: The building in pictures

29 days until our VIP launch and the building is starting to look less like a construction site cum death trap and more like a house, although there is definitely still quite a bit of work to do. Here are the highlights in photos from the progress these past couple weeks:

These rather imposing doors will enable us to separate our events space into two meeting rooms and will double as massive noticeboards. The only downside is that unless bodybuilders join the Hub we will never be able to take them down.

The counter for Turl St Kitchen is now in place, although the floor leading to it is still a work in progress

We now have a (pretty much) complete kitchen filled with all sorts of interesting gismos, from massive mixers to deep fryers that are making me extremely excited about what the new chef is going to whip up

The doors to all of the rooms on the upper floors have each been painted in a different fun and appropriate colour: The door to People and Planet's office is green, the door to the living room (big Hub space) is orange, and the door to the restrooms is black

The toilets for Turl St Kitchen now have walls, floors, and a sink. Now all they need is to be made to feel less like a creepy subterranean dungeon

A helpful railing ensures no Hublies fall into the cafe patio below our terrace

A kitchenette for office users is taking shape and even has a dishwasher!

Matting is in place for carpeting in the offices. Some of the carpeting in the building will be made using donated unwanted scraps from other projects: Hello recycling!

Our upstairs toilets are complete and potentially even already in use (?)

Fun-raising meets fundraising

We are now dizzyingly close to the building launch and so excitement, nervous nausea, and some stress can be sensed from the team. But mostly excitement. We now have a full kitchen, complete with a deep fryer that has the interns and staff fantasising about deep fried Mars bars and making our own vegetable chips. Although the former is better suited to Atomic Burger then to Turl St Kitchen, we are definitely going to push for crispy courgette and sweet potato goodness. Mmmmm.

Our events space is also taking shape. Thanks to a GIANT set of doors (which can now never come down because I think the construction workers would riot) we can now have two meeting rooms by day and one big events space by night.

Already on the cards for the events space are the Series every Wednesday in term time, RAG’s Choose a Challenge Fair on the 22^nd of October, and an Art is Just a Word lecture series on the 29^th of October. And although all of this is very fun and exciting, it is not quite as fun or exciting as a fuller calendar with a spot reserved for amazing, snack-filled, laughter-inducing, boredom-eradicating events every week. So we’re going to make that happen.

Every Friday evening will be Fun(d)raising Friday in the events space (which really needs a name, so if you have any suggestions…). The purpose of Fun(d)raising Fridays will be:

1. Raise the level of fun in the building
2. Raise money for amazing causes

There are two rough ideas for how this could work. Way number one is that our events team will plan something amazing and will charge attendees a small fee. At the end of the night, groups who are interested in getting some of that money can sell themselves to the audience à la Dragon’s Den in the hopes of being chosen to receive the money.

Way number two is that a member group will plan something amazing in order to raise money for themselves.

Just imagine yourself heading to an art workshop, a film night, karaoke, a life drawing lesson, or whatever else you fancy, grabbing a drink from our upstairs bar (made out of a piano!), munching on some sweet potato chips, having unparalled amounts of fun and raising money for a good cause. It’s like a really good dream.

No matter what form Fun(d)raising Fridays end up taking, there will be a fusion of amazing events with amazing causes, which everyone should find extremely exciting. Do you?

*Photos to come! (Rebellious internet…)