A brand new community club has been set up by Brecon local Izaak Duffy in a bid to combat isolation and loneliness.

Izaak decided to set up the community hub after a close friend of his died by suicide. “That ignited a fire in me to try to help as many people as I can. I know it is too late to help him, but it is not too late to try to prevent the next person from reaching that point.”

Izaak, who started the ARSE Running Club (Average Runners Stupidly Early), in February of this year, found that many people felt isolated within their community. “I started a running club because I wanted to find a community of like-minded people and create something where everybody felt welcome,” Izaak, who has a social media following under the title Duffs does stuff, says. “As the club grew, I spoke to a lot of people who worked from home. Many of them talked about feeling isolated, never really leaving the house and sometimes going through an entire day without properly speaking to anyone. That made me want to create a “third space”. Somewhere that isn’t home or work, where people can simply turn up, have a coffee and feel part of something without any pressure or expectation.”

Enter The Clubhouse, which offers milkshakes, snacks and coffee and is open from 6am until 6pm, seven days a week. “Anyone can visit the Clubhouse during the day. There is a large communal seating area where people can meet friends, eat their lunch, work for a while, people-watch or just sit somewhere that doesn’t feel lonely. There is no requirement to be part of one of the clubs. People are welcome to simply come in and use the space. The running and cycling clubs also start and finish there, and we’ll soon have weekly community walks leaving from the Clubhouse as well.”

There are also two treatment rooms available to book by the day, along with six remote-working desks for people who want to get out of the house and work around others.

“It has been received incredibly well so far. People have really understood what I’m trying to create, and the support from the local community has been brilliant,” Izaak says. “It has confirmed to me that there is a real need for places like this. My plans are to keep building on it, introduce more regular activities and give more local people a reason to leave the house, meet somebody new and feel connected.

“Loneliness is a huge problem in the modern world. We are supposedly more connected than ever, yet people can still feel completely isolated. I just want the Clubhouse to be somewhere people know they can go and feel part of a community.”

The community hub can be found in Morrison’s carpark in Brecon.