The first Coffee & Company, which is a weekly programme of live conversations with invited guests, took place at Cockfosters and North Southgate Synagogue on Thursday the 21st February 2019. As we celebrate our seventh anniversary on the 20th February 2026 it will be 365 weeks since we started.
The group started out with audiences of 5-10 people – and has grown to 120 people coming on a regular basis.
This group gives our members a routine and structure that they can depend on. Knowing that EVERY Thursday, they can come to place to socialise and hear great guests. Plus our monthly lunches too – all for a donation of £2…or so. The age range of our audience is early 60s to 90yrs plus!
In 2018 the Chief Rabbi opened The Hub, which at the time, was the newest social space in our synagogue. Our members were all asked to come up with ideas about how best to use The Hub and Coffee & Company was born.
There was no expectation that we’d still be meeting up seven years after we started, no desire to raise money for any of the many good causes we are all so familiar with, no committee and no arguing!
We had some ideas that we thought might be popular, mainly because, as members of the Shul, we felt they’d work for us so they might work for everyone else. Looking back that feels far too organised, and far too sophisticated. It was more a question of this feels right, so let’s try it like this….
We tried to be positive by swerving the issues that seemed to be the most troublesome. We knew we couldn’t solve them, so we thought we’ll just give them a miss – and our ideas gradually became a plan.
Meeting up every week, on Thursday mornings meant that nobody needed a calendar – it’s Thursday morning so I’m going to Coffee & Company was how we wanted it to be
We asked anyone who came along to make a small donation – no tickets, no pre-booking and no worries if you can’t.
To make it interesting we asked a guest to join us for a conversation every week as well and so our series of weekly conversations began. We called it the hot seat then and we still do.
We called it a conversation because we felt that was much more informal and much more engaging than an interview. We wanted our guests to shine and they all have.
From the start we have served tea and coffee and biscuits when our members and friends arrive and that is something we still do. After Covid we have organised bridge rolls, fruit and pastries once a month as well.
Like so many clubs societies and other organisations we discovered Zoom as the pandemic started and we met online every week for two and a quarter years! That taught us like nothing else could have, about the importance of meeting up in person and being a community.
Coffee & Company depends on its volunteers and without them there would be no Coffee & Company. It’s as simple as that.
Our volunteers handle everything that happens on Thursday mornings from organising lifts, serving the food and drinks and making sure the room we use is properly laid out, to collecting donations, welcoming everyone who comes along and of course being the host. We have worked as hard as we can to make Coffee & Company a warm and welcoming place.
All of our guests who sit in the hot seat are volunteers too. They have all donated their time, a precious commodity whoever you are and whatever you do.
The members of our community (and other communities) who have sat in the hot seat will always be the backbone of what we do, but some of our guests are better known to a wider audience such as Linda Plant. She was our guest at our December Chanukah party and you can see her in the final episode of Lord Sugar’s BBC TV programme ‘The Apprentice’ as she analyses the business plans of the young men and women hoping to win the main prize
Nigel Gee, son of the famous Cecil Gee who became a household name on the high fashion end of the high street is our guest on our seventh anniversary party. Jessica Sacks the niece of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and the Austrian Ambassador to the United Kingdom are all recent guests.
No story about Coffee & Company could be complete without mentioning four people by name. Steve Trogal our long serving CST volunteer is on duty every week making sure, together with the paid security, that we are kept safe; and Linda, Wendy and Nicole at the Shul who all make a huge contribution to our weekly conversations which goes way beyond the call of duty
Last but not least our heartfelt thanks to everyone who has joined us over the years. We couldn’t do it without all of you. So thank you for wanting to spend your Thursday mornings with us and we look forward very much to seeing you next week!
11 February 2026