More Than Brunch
co-created with: Beatrix, Catherine, Liza, Lori, Lynn, Maggie, Marilyn, Roger

Once upon a lockdown, a table disappeared.

Before COVID, there was a singles’ table at the Community Centre … a place where people could turn up, eat, talk, catch up on what was happening around Findhorn, and enjoy one another’s company.

Then, in March 2020, the Community Centre closed and the table vanished with it.

But the people hadn’t.

By August, Marilyn had an idea. Why not find some of the people who used to gather around that table and invite them to brunch …on Zoom?

And so Zrunch … Zoom Brunch … was born.

It was simple enough: bring your own coffee, bring your own food, turn on your computer and see who appeared. But underneath that simple arrangement was something people had been missing … the opportunity to reconnect and have a conversation that went somewhere.

Eventually lockdown loosened, Zoom screens gave way to real tables again, and the gathering migrated to the Phoenix Café.

Zrunch needed a new name.

And what else could it possibly be?

PHRUNCH.
Phoenix Brunch.

A little ridiculous, perhaps. But it stuck.

And more than five years later, every Sunday at 11 a.m., the Phrunchers still gather.

People have come and gone over the years, but every Sunday at 11 a.m. the Phrunchers still gather. And when we recently asked ourselves, “why?” the answers revealed that somewhere along the way something rather special had happened.

Phrunch has become one of those small places where community gets made.

There is no agenda. Nobody arrives with this week’s approved topic. Conversation emerges after we do a Findhorn-style check-in, from whomever happens to be sitting around the table and what they bring with them.

And they bring a lot.

Pottery may enter the conversation. Ecology might follow it. Arts experiments emerge. Someone has heard a radio sermon worth thinking about. Politics inevitably makes an appearance. Community news travels around the table. Books, history and art exhibits might be invited to make more frequent visits in future.

People bring different professions, passions, experiences and ways of seeing the world.

Which means we don’t always agree.

That may be part of the point.

Over five years, something more valuable than agreement has developed: trust.

People described Phrunch as a safe space … somewhere it is possible to say what you actually think, share something personal, ask a difficult question, challenge someone else’s perspective and still remain around the same table.

There is intelligence in the conversation, but there is also affection.

There is information … the invaluable “Have you heard what’s happening…?” that helps people stay connected to the wider Community. But there is also something deeper.

We know one another.

Not perfectly. Not always easily. But well enough that differences do not have to become divisions.

Perhaps that is why Phrunch has survived.

It began because a pandemic took away a table.

Five years later, we have discovered that the table was never really the important part.

The important part was making a place for one another.

And at 11 o’clock next Sunday, we’ll do it again.