Cassi McAllister - Roundhouse centre manager - video Dailymotion

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00:00Hi, I'm Cassie McAlister and I am the centre manager here at the Roundhouse.

00:03And Cassie, we're up at the Roundhouse today because there's an initiative you guys are doing

00:07to make sure that no food gets wasted at the end of the day. Can you tell us a bit about it?

00:10So we've started a very small interim coffee shop service, just basically providing hot and cold

00:17drinks, sandwiches and salads and cakes to the visitors who are already coming here at the

00:23centre and it was very much in demand. So with catering, we obviously try to meet demand,

00:32but sometimes that's a little bit tricky. I said that in the post that I put out. So at the end of

00:38the day, sometimes we'll have a couple of bits of cake left or a couple of sandwiches or the odd

00:42salad. It has been quite low level what we've had left, but we also have really strict quality

00:48guidelines. So we only really keep our products out for a day to provide the best, freshest

00:57produce for people visiting our centre. So there was one morning and I was kind of like

01:02emptying a couple of sandwiches into a bin and I was just like, this feels so wrong in this day

01:07and age. There are people struggling. It's not always necessarily the people who you'd most

01:14expect are struggling. There are people in employment poverty. We've already done something

01:20with period products that are available free at the roundhouse throughout the centre and all the

01:25accessible toilets. And I kind of felt like with the food thing, we could do a little something.

01:30So that day I just thought we're going to have a no food wasted policy or initiative. And what

01:37we've been doing is our cafe closes at about six, seven o'clock, depending on what bookings are on

01:42that evening. And we just leave the food out in an area, in the welcome area where people

01:49pass by and they can just take it. If nobody takes it, we've been, we've dropped over to Palatine a

01:55couple of times. The other night we dropped over to A&E. Someone suggested that was a really good

02:00place to deliver to because they have no food provision or nowhere to access food late at night.

02:06And obviously we want to support doctors and nurses and maybe even, I don't know, people in

02:12the waiting area, who knows what it could turn into. But the initiative isn't limited to people

02:20who maybe only need it. It's just no food wasted. We don't care who it goes to. We just don't want

02:26to throw food in the bin. Absolutely. And we've seen some of the public already commenting on

02:30your post saying how great it is. Have you had good feedback? Yeah, we have had good feedback.

02:34Lots of people commented about it. And like I say, someone was giving us praise for it. And that's

02:38where the suggestion for A&E came from. The person in particular had had experience of working in A&E

02:44and being on shift without food or, you know, being extended on shift or whatever had happened.

02:49And that's where the recommendation came from. And we welcome those. If there's anyone nearby

02:54who wants to swing by at half eight at night and pick something up, you know, feel free to drop in.

02:58Absolutely. And just finally then, people will be wondering when the cafe is going to be completed

03:03and when there's going to be more options. Have you got any idea of when that will be? Do you know,

03:06it's a daily question sometimes, several times a day. At the minute, we are just running this small

03:11service. We're running it ourselves. It was just like an interim thing until we get a secure

03:20tenant. Obviously, we're not looking for that just yet. We're looking at that from

03:24the 1st of January. So if anyone is interested, they need to come in and have a chat about it.