The Friends of Bishopstone Station (FoBS) have celebrated one year of Meet-Up Monday events at the newly refurbished Bishopstone Station Community Hub.

The dedicated FoBS volunteers welcomed a full house of guests for the celebrations on Monday 20 November, providing a warm space for members of the local community to get together for a hot drink and a chat.

After five years of fundraising by FoBS (and with additional grant and project support from Community Rail Network, Railway Heritage Trust, Lewes District Council and Sussex Community Foundation), the neglected and unused parcels office was brought back to life and reopened as the new community hub last November.

The warm and welcoming space, with activity, kitchen, and storage areas, and fully accessible for wheelchair users, has hosted regular Meet-Up Monday events ever since. These sessions include local history talks, arts and crafts classes, French language tuition and yoga practice – and the space is also used as a meeting space for other local community organisations, putting the station back into the heart of community life. 

Barbara Mine, Chair of FoBS, said: “We have now got amazing Meet-Up Mondays. It’s been really well received and a great joy to see all the different events that happen here now.”

Jim Stanford, Vice Chair of FoBS, said: “We’ve managed to keep this lovely warm space for Meet-Up Mondays going for the last year and we know we will into the future. The events we have run this year have given us a good reputation, which means that funders see that we can deliver good quality work and are happy to fund us further.”

Keep up to date with future news, projects, and events from the Friends of Bishopstone Station via their website.