Meetings

Frazzled Cafe moved online from Spring 2020. Since then we have a seven-day a week programme and offer three types of meetings almost every day. All of our meetings provide the same safe space to share, talk and listen. We suggest you try each type of meeting, so you can find one that’s right for you.

Our different Frazzled Cafe meeting types:

A large Frazzled Cafe meeting with Ruby Wax, held twice a week for around 100 people, and which lasts for an hour.
Facilitator meetings are held every day and are for around 17 people, and last for an hour.
Host meetings are held every day and are for around 15 people, and last for 45 minutes.

Facilitators have had full Frazzled Cafe training. Most have been with the charity for a number of years and have a professional background in mental wellbeing support. Hosts joined the charity in Spring 2020 when our meetings first went online. They too have had Frazzled Cafe training and Mental Health First Aid training. Many of our Hosts also volunteer for other mental wellbeing initiatives.

Frazzled Cafe Guidelines

To help ensure that our meetings run smoothly and in line with the values of Frazzled Cafe, we ask that all participants agree to follow these guidelines:

• To act with integrity. Please respect one another’s confidentiality and anonymity. Please do not name anyone or discuss anything you may hear in a meeting with others who have not attended.

• To treat everyone, including our volunteers, with respect, consideration, and kindness. Any threatening or abusive behaviour will not be tolerated and result in automatic removal from the meeting/platform.

• To let everyone have a voice. Please respect one another by giving everybody the chance to contribute without interruption and by not dominating or disrupting the conversation. The facilitator may show a white card after 3 minutes to signal the end of a speaker’s turn.

• To listen without offering solutions. Please focus your contribution on personal experiences and not political/thematic concepts. When speaking please focus on what resonates with you personally, not on providing answers or solutions to others.

• To be kind to ourselves and each other. This is NOT group therapy and no- one should feel under pressure to say anything. We do hope that in hearing others’ experiences you will feel encouraged to share your own. Whether you speak or not, please treat each other in a supportive and considerate way.

• To welcome people from all backgrounds and points of view. We have no religious, political or commercial affiliations and ask that participants refrain from promoting any that they might have.

• To be present. To benefit fully from the session and stay present in the room, please try to avoid distractions from phones or other devices.

• To agree to access the meeting in a confidential, quiet space that is not available to the public or other non-attendees. Your Facilitator or Host may ask you to leave the meeting if they deem you to be in an inappropriate venue.

  • Please note that this is not a space for those under 18 years old, although please do let your Facilitator or Host know if you are struggling with alternative childcare.

You can see our meetings schedule and book to attend here

Go to the Meeting page, and follow the ‘Book a Frazzled Meeting’ button. Find a meeting that is at a time and date that suits you. Book onto the meeting, or add yourself to the waiting list if it is fully booked.

When you have booked your space, you’ll receive a confirmation email with a link to the zoom meeting. Please ensure your camera and microphone are working ahead of joining the meeting.

We use the web based meeting platform Zoom to host our online meetings. This is free to download and can be used on mobile, tablet or computer.

On the day of the meeting, click on the link in your confirmation and reminder email. This link will open Zoom and you will be placed in a virtual waiting room until the meeting is started by the host.

We are very excited to confirm our partnership with Harpenden Trust to provide face-to-face Frazzled Cafe sessions for residents of Harpenden / AL5 postcode only commencing from January 31st, 2022.

About The Wellbeing Hub

The Trust has partnered with MIND in Mid Herts and the local PCN (the Primary Care Network of our 3 GP surgeries) to create a Wellbeing Hub. Its aim is to support Harpenden residents who have concerns about their mental wellbeing at an early stage before they become unwell and need counselling or cognitive behavioural therapy. 

The Trust is contributing funding and volunteers to the Hub, helping to connect people with existing groups and activities; funding a MIND outreach project in Harpenden and researching ‘gold standard’ initiatives that might be of benefit to our town’s wellbeing. An in-person Frazzled cafe will be a fantastic addition to our town and will run at Thompson’s Cafe in the center of town.

We have fully trained local facilitators to the high Frazzled Cafe standards of our online meetings. There is limited availability for spaces which can be booked following the booking page link below.

https://bookwhen.com/harpendentrustxfrazzledcafe

Frazzled Cafe Facilitated meetings run for 45 minutes to an hour and  start with a run-through of our guidelines. This is to ensure confidentiality is respected and that there is safe environment for those that would like to share.

Each meeting opens and closes with a short mindfulness exercise. You don’t need to ever have tried mindfulness before, and your participation in these exercises is completely optional.

After the mindfulness exercise, if you would like to speak, all attendees can unmute themselves and talk about how they are feeling, or to borrow one of Ruby’s expressions, ‘explain what the weather conditions are like in your head’.

Attendees usually speak for 1-2 minutes to ensure everyone that would like to has the opportunity to speak. You can of course speak more than once. Speaking is optional. If you would just like to listen, that is perfectly OK. In all meetings, and in between people speaking, we expect some silences and those are normal.

The Facilitator’s role is to ensure everyone that would like to speak gets a chance to, that the topics of conversation are appropriate for the space and that attendees are both present and respectful of the space and one another.

After the closing mindfulness exercise and the end of the meeting, we recommend attendees take a few minutes to reflect and decompress before returning to their usual routine.

Yes – but not too much!

We open in the same way with the host welcoming everyone, running through the meeting settings and guidelines, popping a short poll onto your screen and introducing Ruby who leads the mindfulness exercise, bringing everyone together.

Ruby then opens the floor to anyone who would like to share – letting the group know about the ‘weather conditions in their head’. The host will call upon those with their virtual hands up that would like to speak (we cannot guarantee everyone will be called upon, but we do our best to get through as many as we can in the time we have).

After a few people have shared, we then breakout into smaller groups, still in Zoom. Here you’ll have the opportunity to talk in a smaller group with up to 8 people.

After around 15 minutes we re-group into the main room and reopen the floor for anyone that would like to share. To end, we close the meeting with Ruby leading her mindfulness exercise and a second poll to get some feedback and helpful information.

You are welcome to book one Host or Facilitator meeting per day, plus the Frazzled Cafe meeting with Ruby Wax on days that she runs them. Please do not try to book into more than one meeting a day (aside from the Ruby meeting). This is to make sure that as many people as possible can access our meetings as and when they need them. It is also so that you have time to properly decompress after each meeting.