Introduction

 

Although much of the Centre’s activities have a focus on the future it would be wrong of us to forget our past. The existence of the Downham Community Centre as it is now, is thanks to voluntary hard work given by people of vision and energy who realised the need for the Centre and its potential. It took those determined people nearly 5 years of protracted negotiations to persuade Lewisham Borough Council to buy the site and use the buildings on it as a community facility.

 

For 21 years the Centre has now served its local community providing educational, social and leisure programmes seven days a week – up to 12 hours a day. It offers people space for employment, occupation and education from cradle to grave e.g. mother & toddler groups, adult education classes, private sports and dance classes, youth club, pensioners club, people with learning disabilities project, women’s group, weddings, parties, prize giving functions and many others.

 

The Centre’s existing 20-year lease has this year expired and the Centre’s Management Committee members are in the process of re-negotiating a new lease with Council officers, so that the Organisation can serve its local community for many years to come.

 

I hope that you enjoy reading this site and that you find the information within it informative and inspiring. The following may give you an idea of the historical perspective of the local environment within which the Centre had developed, as well as the working life of the Centre and the people within it.

 

 

 

Kristina Green

Chair of the Management Committee