Kent and London-based corporate team building and events company, Team Tactics is on the lookout for a London venue to hire to host its ‘biggest yet’ cooking for the homeless event. The venue needs to be big enough to be able to host 50-80 guests and transportable cooking appliances to allow the group to prepare up to 190 meals for the homeless in one day.

Team Tactics currently works with organisations to deliver cooking for the homeless team building sessions for groups of around 10-12 people in purpose-built kitchen facilities. It is now searching for a venue it can pay to hire so it can host large businesses and departments to cater for more homeless people and in one go and drive a wider positive impact.

The ideal venue would be located in the Clapham region so the meals can be quickly delivered to nearby charity, Ace of Clubs, however they are willing to consider options further afield. Team Tactics will supply all of the cooking appliances and equipment but require access to plug sockets and enough indoor space and tables to accommodate 50-80 guests. The venue needs to be accessible from 7am on the day so the food preparation, cooking, packaging and delivery can take place before the charity’s 12pm lunch sitting.

The right venue would enable Team Tactics to cover an entire meal service for Ace of Clubs, a charity serving those in the community who are experiencing homelessness, including those sleeping rough or living in temporary of insecure housing. It provides for the immediate needs of those in desperate circumstances from its centre in Clapham and provides a lunch service from 12pm – 2:15pm each weekday, catering from around 150-190 individuals.

The homelessness crisis in the capital and demand on charities like Ace of Clubs continues to worsen, with the latest figures from the Combined Homelessness and Information Network showing that the number of people sleeping rough in London between October and December 2023 was 34% higher than the same period the year before.

Managing director at Team Tactics, Tina Benson, commented: “Homelessness is a growing problem in London and across the UK, and charities like Ace of Clubs rely wholly on donations and activities like this to be able to deliver the fantastic services they do. If we’re able to find a venue and pull this event off on a larger scale, it would be our biggest cooking for the homeless event – and to my knowledge – the biggest by any corporate events company yet. We’re on the lookout for a spacious, flexible venue that we can hire to make this happen, and to potentially host more events of this kind and scale with them in future.

“Cooking for the homeless is a great alternative to traditional team building exercises or corporate events and a great way to give back to the community. With many organisations adopting hybrid or even remote working, team building has become more important than ever to bring colleagues together, but budgets are increasingly being stretched. At the same time, more companies are striving to achieve B-Corp status or demonstrate charitable commitments, and putting on this type of event can be multi-pronged and drive positive impacts for business and the wider community.”

Charlie Glynn, senior support worker at Ace of Clubs, commented: “The ongoing cost-of-living crisis has undoubtedly exacerbated the homelessness crisis, we’ve seen a huge increase in demand for services and support both here at Ace of Clubs and across other services we work alongside. We’re only able to offer our lunch service because of donations from the community, but if Team Tactics was able to find a suitable venue for its larger cooking event, the meals produced would likely cater for all our service users for a day – and possibly on more occasions moving forwards.”

For further information please visit https://www.teamtactics.co.uk/blog/cooking-for-the-homeless-team-building-event/ or make contact with Team Tactics to discuss suitability and hire rates.