Leeds’ first community orientated sauna and plunge is coming to a woody site at Kirkstall Valley Farm in the autumn.
Leeds Community Sauna is delivering the initiate, in partnership with the Kirkstall Valley Development Trust. Amani Talheth-Fell writes about how the idea came about – and how you can get involved at an open day this weekend.
We got the idea after an experience in some natural sulphur baths whilst on holiday. We thought it didn’t make sense that we have no public bathing culture here in the UK, where are winters are so brutal.
Going to the sauna is just an add on, here in ‘old blighty’. Something you do after a particularly hard work-out at the gym. But it can be so much more than that. T
here is something about sauna-ing for the sake of sauna-ing. To get hot when times are cold, and regulate your body and your mind. I was in Mexico for three-and-a-half months and Henry came to visit at the tail-end, in January. In that time, practically all there was to do was to climb and work on the Sauna idea.
On our days away from the mountain, we’d go to the local cafe, El Buho, chat with our friends there, and research how to start a business. When we got back to Leeds, we started visiting as many saunas as we could – for research.
Never have I had such luxurious business trips. We’ve visting Warmth in Sheffield, Iglu in Hebden Bridge, Poolbridge Farm, and multiple saunas in London as part of the Community Sauna Baths.
We’ve pondered on the designs and supplemented this with reading books and articles about how to build the best possible sauna. We want to make it to the highest possible standards that the Finnish would be proud of.
We secured a site at the end of January, and it happened to be the place we asked first – Kirkstall Valley Farm.
We knew that we wanted the sauna to be there because it already has connections into the community, and their values strongly align with what we want to create. Not to mention that the farm is a beautiful plot of land sitting by the river Aire, close to the city centre and very accessible by bus, but still full of nature.
Having gotten acquainted with the farm, we are happier than ever they said yes! They are real do-ers and yes-sayers. When we propose an idea they respond ‘yes, and…’.
They’ve given us a spot that is away from the other activity like the forest school they run and the farmed fields, nestled within a sparse bit of woodland, where you can stroll over to the river and take a look.
We’ve got big plans for the site, and want it to feel cosy, connected to nature, and open to all. Eventually we want to build an outdoor dancefloor near to the river where we can host yoga, dance, and other activities.
We’ve started working with a designer/illustrator, Andy Miranda to develop our branding. We had a couple of focus groups with a wide range of people to help develop our branding, as well as our approach to our values and accessibility strategy.
Now Andy will be making a logo for us, as well as colour scheme and typography – and perhaps even some merch. Is this something you’d be interested in?
We recently onboarded our third member, Adrian. Right now it feels like there is so much work still left to do, and not all that much time left to do it in, so we are really excited for another helping hand!
In the next month or so we are going to be legally incoporating and seeking finance. One of our current forerunners for ideas is to crowdsource our start-up finance from the community in the form of a loanstock offer (you give us a loan with a competitive interest rate) or a share offer (you buy a share in the company). If this is something you would be interested in, that would be great for us to hear about!
We would release a detailed offer in the coming months inclusive, but please let us know if you’re interested in supporting us like that!
Join us for a volunteer open day on the bank holiday Sunday, 20 April (2-7pm). We need some folks to help us shift dirt, build a wood-store, and spruce up the site. In return we’ll make some food have a fire by the river – and bring some instruments.
Sign up for more information by following this link.
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The “Elephant in the room” in these plans is how will the heating be generated? Assuming they don’t have their own windfarm, and from what looks suspiciously like a chimney, surely not coal, briquettes or even wood. Don’t think lighting fires is very green either. Just sayin!!