Our Work
Octopus supports independently run community centres to grow their skills, confidence, and long-term resilience. We do this by convening communities of practice where centre teams come together to learn from one another, exchange ideas, and develop effective approaches that strengthen their work. These peer-led spaces create a powerful culture of shared learning, practical upskilling, and continuous improvement.
We also help centres build strong, accountable governance, offering guidance and support that enables boards and leadership teams to make informed, confident decisions. This ensures each organisation has the structures it needs to thrive and deliver meaningful impact in its neighbourhood.
Alongside this, we strengthen partnership working across the borough, connecting community centres with each other, with local organisations, and with wider systems. By building networks rooted in trust and mutual benefit, we help create collaborative relationships that unlock resources, amplify local strengths, and support more coordinated action for communities.
Our role is to bring people together, create the conditions for shared learning, and help community centres grow into even stronger anchors for the places they serve.
Network Members
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Brickworks Community Centre
We are a multi-purpose Community Association operating in the north of the borough. Our Association was set up originally in 1972 by a group of local parents who needed somewhere for their children to play.
Over the last forty years we have had and will continue to have a major influence for the good in our community, providing a stable base in a rapidly changing environment.
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Caxton House Community Centre
Caxton House is a vibrant community hub based near Archway. We host a number of weekly services and activities across a wide range of themes, including health and wellbeing, employability and training, environment and advice.
We are committed to the goals of community development, in which the people of the neighbourhood are responsibly involved in solving problems, rather than as recipients of services provided by others.
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Elizabeth House Community Centre
Elizabeth House Community Centre is a modern, warm, welcoming Community Centre in Arsenal Ward. It is open to the local community and is used for leisure classes and education, food aid, lunch clubs, womens support groups, after school activities, holiday playscheme, you clubs and much more.
The Centre is run for the community and encourages community-led groups to run and hold their own activities.
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Highbury Roundhouse Community Centre
Highbury Roundhouse meets the needs of children, young people, adults and the elderly in Highbury & Islington.
It has grown and developed into a thriving community centre, which provides facilities for people of all ages and backgrounds. Our ultimate goal is to the change the lives of people from all walks of life.
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Hilldrop Community Centre
Hilldrop Area Community Association aims to enhance the wellbeing of our diverse local community with a focus on employment and health.
We are the community hub for the Tufnell Park Ward, Islington and are based at the Hilldrop Community Centre: a large, multi-purpose facility offering a wide programme of activities and services. We are committed to involving the community in the shaping of our programme, and proudly work in partnership with many other local groups and organisations..
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Holloway Neighbourhood Group
In the early 1970’s a group of local people who were concerned about the lack of facilities for local families and people experiencing mental health issues got together to see how they could change this. As a result of their hard work and community activity, HNG was established.
The Old Fire Station is a warm and welcoming community centre just off Holloway Road, providing support and services and build connections to empower people to lead fulfilled lives as part of their community.
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Hornsey Lane Estate Community Association
Hornsey Lane Estate Community Centre is based on Hazellville Road, within the Hornsey Lane Estate.
It serves people from all areas of London and offers support, advice and referrals on a variety of subjects, such as benefits, debt and housing.
We also have a fully staffed nursery and after school facilities, a lunch club and befriending service for older people, coffee mornings, and Zumba classes.
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Light Project Pro International
Light Project Pro International (LPPI) is an educational charity established in 2004. Our mission is to create educational opportunities that empower individuals and foster social inclusion. We operate an education centre in Islington, offering a variety of projects for people of all ages.
Our work brings together families and volunteers from Islington and surrounding boroughs, with a particular focus on supporting individuals at risk of social marginalisation.
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Mildmay Community Centre
In the 1970s, residents Ron Lang and Vince Camilleri fought to keep The Mildmay (or The Mayville Community Centre, as we were then known) open for local children, young people and families to come together.
We’re proud to continue this work by providing a Foodbank and Community Kitchen, services for Families and Young People, a Community Garden, and Arts events.
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Muslim Welfare House
Muslim Welfare House aims to provide best practice social, educational and training centres, to fulfil the needs of marginalised and ethnic communities in line with our dedication to serving the community across the UK.
We work positively for the Muslim community’s participation in society – by particularly encouraging socially excluded communities to improve their quality of life by accessing mainstream opportunities in education, employment and training.
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The ARC
ARC Collective is Islington’s home of communal wellness. We are a not-for-profit community space shaped by the local neighbourhood and built by local people, for the benefit of all. Designed with generosity at its core, we bring people together, offering connection and a chance to belong, right here on your doorstep.
Our aim is to create an environment that supports people to make positive shifts in their lives, encouraging them to live healthy, balanced, creative, connected and happier lives.
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The Peel
The Peel has been building a connected community in Clerkenwell since 1898. We run activities for adults, children and young people and mental health awareness projects.
Our vision is a connected community where everyone benefits from living here.
We provide opportunities for all residents of Clerkenwell to participate in activities through which they can make acquaintances across divides, for mutual benefit.
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St Luke's Community Centre
Community is at the heart of everything we do, and our spacious Community Centre on Central Street in south Islington enables us and other organisations to offer services and activities for those who need them at little or no cost.
Our aim is to improve the quality of lives for people living in our area of benefit and break down barriers, particularly for the most vulnerable.
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Whittington Park Community Association
Whittington Park Community Association (WPCA) is a community centre that was established by local people in 1972. One of its first projects was to build an adventure playground in Whittington Park.
Today, our services include an Early Years Hub, a Childminders' Drop In and Stay and Play sessions, a Youth Club for 13-19s, a social club for 55+ and a men's social club, many classes and hall hire.
Our mission is to provide a welcoming and well-run centre for individuals and groups in Islington to sustain and develop a vibrant community.
Network-Wide Projects
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Pay Discrepancy Report
In 2025, Octopus Community Network and students from London Metropolitan University completed a research project to explore pay, benefit and responsibility discrepancies between the local statutory and voluntary sector.
The report focuses on a comparison between local authority-run and independently run community centres within Islington, primarily exploring differences in the roles of Centre Managers/CEOs who are responsible for running the buildings and the activities within them.
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Community Centre Week
Community Centre Week is a yearly celebration of what we love about community centres. Launched in 2014, we’re now on our eleventh year, and it just keeps getting bigger and better!
With a different theme each year, we aim to involve community centres across the UK, and encourage them to take this time to really celebrate what makes them great. Our previous themes have included pop-up parks, community centre histories and neighbourliness.
Run mostly on social media, #loveyourcc provides uplifting reading each year as stories are shared and new connections made.
Community Centre Week 2026 takes place between the 19th and 25th July. More updates coming soon! Click the link below to explore 2025’s resources.
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Network Map
Thanks to funding from City Bridge Trust we collaborated with developers pioneering how network mapping can be used as a powerful community development tool. Primarily developed to understand and communicate local food provision during the pandemic, the map was a dynamic tool for organisations to build connections.
From 2020 - 2026, the map was used across the borough as a tool for understanding relationships, building partnerships and signposting to services.
Although you can no longer join the map, click the link below to explore the map.
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Food Aid Providers Capacity Building Programme
Islington’s Cost of Living Summit highlighted the need for a capacity building pilot project to join up and build the resilience of those providing crisis food aid and community food hubs so that they can better able support individuals in crisis by wrapping around them the support that they need.
In response, a partnership was formed between Help on Your Doorstep, Manor Gardens Welfare Trust, Octopus Community Network, and Voluntary Action Islington.
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Cost of Living Events
In partnership with Help on Your Doorstep and Age UK Islington, Octopus have run regular Cost of Living Events since 2023, where residents can access on average five types of health, welfare and advice support as well as a hot meal and pop-up food bank.
Over 700 residents have attended the events, with many reporting the benefits of having a range of services in one place, being able to speak to someone immediately and engage in follow up advice where required.
Keep an eye on the latest Network News to find out more about the events.
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Winter Warm Places
Community Centres across the Octopus Network are providing Warm Places to their local communities, where residents can access advice information, warm drinks and someone to talk to.
All of the warm places are welcoming to all, will be flexible to the needs of the local community, and all those who use them will be treated with respect and dignity.
Head to our Warm Places news page for the latest information from network members.
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Islington Food Partnership
Octopus is represented at a strategic and operational level to deliver the ambitions to ensure that Islington is a sustainable food place.
The Islington Food Partnership is a broad coalition of local organisations and individuals working together to develop an ambitious and sustainable food network for Islington.
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Unlocking Networks
Octopus Community Network was one of the 13 Community Business Peer Networks in England that took part in the Peer Network Programme or People’s Community of Practice, which was funded through Power to Change.
The Network then went on to review our vision, purpose and values and changed the way that meetings were run and decisions made to ensure that there is shared ownership of the Network and a more equal power-base.
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Sustainable Community Buildings
As a result of Network member Caxton House Community Centre collaborating with Power Up North London to transform their building to achieve greater energy savings, we are currently exploring how we can widen out the opportunity to the wider Network.
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Relish Embellish Cafe
Funded by North London Waste Authority, Relish Embellish Café is a Network collaboration project between St Luke’s Community Centre, Caxton House Community Centre, Hilldrop Area Community Association, and Hornsey Lane Community Association.
It provided an eclectic mix of replicable community-based participatory workshops to raise awareness of textile waste and the resulting critical environmental issues, and encourage reflection and action on consumption, textile use and disposal habits.
Watch this video about Caxton House’s workshops.
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Cool Spaces
During warmer months, Network community centres offer spaces to escape the heat and keep comfortable.
The centres commit to provide a safe, welcoming and comfortable space for residents during periods of hot weather, recognising that extreme heat can put vulnerable people at risk. We are here to help our community stay cool, healthy and connected.
