23rd September 2024
GBPA 2024: Best Community Pub, sponsored by CCEP – the Swan, Windsor, Berkshire.
23-Sep-2024 Last updated on 23-Sep-2024 at 09:18 GMT
The Swan in Clewer, near Windsor in Berkshire, is so much more than a pub to local people – it’s a wonderful community hub that is making a real social impact in its local area.
Among the many ways the pub helps support local people is through its innovative partnership with The Green Room School, which sees a sixth form college for autistic students operated from the pub.
This partnership, which makes the Swan the only pub in the UK with an on-site school, sees pupils helping with back and front of house service at a weekly ‘Epic Thursdays’ night, as well as a monthly ‘Green Canteen’ night.Community ownership
Students also have a shop selling items they have made, build things needed for the pub (such as its outside bar) and grow plants for its garden.
This 18th century pub reopened under community ownership five years ago, with a team of volunteers helping to run It alongside talented general manager Micky-Foden Andrews.
It hosts around 20 regular events and groups including a thriving weekly Chatty Café session, monthly charity coffee morning, craft groups, cribbage, book club, foreign language groups, ukulele classes and a Warhammer group.The Swan is also home of Windsor Cycle Hub, who run a regular repair café at the pub, as well as regular bike rides to and from it.
Quizzes, bingo, board game nights, live music, dress up and sing-along movie nights, Christmas in July weekend, Breakfast With Santa, an annual ‘SwanFest’ for all the family, a craft skills workshop fair and monthly mini markets are among the other great events that help bring locals together.
A book exchange shelf, featuring the work of local artists on the pub’s walls and having a defibrillator outside the pub are also ways the pub helps support locals.
As well as fundraising for its own ongoing renovations of the pub, it also supports fundraising for other projects/charities, including its current charity of the year – a seniors’ lunch and social club in the same village.
By The Morning Advertiser