Celestina Oniye-Thomas reflects on a successful Local Community Partnership event held on Tuesday 3 November 2026. 

Today we brought together 75 residents, professionals, business owners and community organisations for the Croydon Local Community Partnership (LCP) Community Resource Fair and Business Networking Event, hosted at Floating Community Hub in Ashburton Park Hall, Croydon.

The purpose was simple but important: to bring local organisations, professionals and residents into the same space, creating opportunities to connect, share knowledge, discover services, explore partnerships and strengthen the support available to people across Croydon.

As Co-Chair of the Croydon Central East Local Community Partnership, covering 4 wards, Woodside, Shirley, Addiscombe and Park Hill, I am passionate about ensuring that community organisations and services are visible, accessible and connected to the people they exist to support.

Today's event demonstrated exactly why this work matters.

We welcomed residents and professionals from across the community, creating opportunities for:
- Community organisations to showcase their services.
- Residents to discover support available locally.
- Professionals to build relationships and explore collaboration.
- Organisations to share knowledge, resources and ideas.
- New connections and partnerships to develop.

And the feedback? Fantastic!
Participants described the event as:
- Helpful and informative.
- Friendly and welcoming.
- Great for networking.
- A wonderful opportunity to make community connections.
- Very well organised, with a great atmosphere.

One comment that particularly stood out was: "Great community connections!"
This is what effective local partnership working should look like: not simply organisations working alongside one another, but actively creating opportunities to connect with residents and with each other.

Thank you to Croydon Council and Croydon Voluntary Action (CVA) for the Local Community Partnership initiative, to all the organisations and professionals who attended, and to every resident who came through our doors, plus Body Harmony (Keith), who gave free massages to everyone. THANK YOU!

A special thank you to Floating Counselling Community for hosting the event at our Croydon hub.

75 people attended today. Imagine what we can achieve when we continue to work together.
This is community partnership in action.

Celestina Oniye-Thomas, Co-chair of the Croydon Central East Local Community Partnership