How it began...
The scheme was created in the UK in 2017 on a wet and windy day when Alex Hoskyn was in a supermarket café with her four month old son. He wasn’t great company and she was feeling fed up.She looked round the café and saw an elderly lady who looked just as down as she did and on another table sat a young guy with additional needs and his support worker both looking like they had run out of conversation!Alex started to think about the positive impact they could all have had on each other if they had sat together.
Alex knew from experience that when you are feeling lonely, a short conversation with another human can really brighten your day and she realised that you can be out of the house all day yet have no interaction with another person. It was right there and then that the ‘Chatter & Natter’ table began (in her head and dreams to start!) but now it’s a reality. Alexandra Hoskyn (Founder)
The Scheme has already expanded to Australia, Canada, Poland and Gibraltar - all supporting the mission of getting people chatting in a range of social venues such as cafes, restaurants, pubs, clubs, community groups etc. Venues sign up to join the Scheme on the UK website and make a Chatter & Natter (C&N) Table available at a time and day/s that it suits their business. People sitting at that C&N Table are happy to chat to other customers that sit there too. The venue gets designated on a World Map and they can provide photos of their C&N Table and customers to be posted on the UK website or the relevant country page. The UK has over 1900 cafes signed up - We are now looking to spread the word across Australia and get C&N Tables set up across Australia to “get people chatting”!
