The Big Lunch is a very simple idea from the Eden Project. The aim is to get as many people as possible across the whole of the UK to have lunch with their neighbours in a simple act of community, friendship and fun.

The Eden Project started The Big Lunch in the belief that we, as a society, are better equipped to tackle the challenges that we face when we face them together

In 2012 The Big Lunch falls on the same weekend as The Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations on Sunday 3rd June and as announced by Buckingham Palace The Big Jubilee Lunch will be a part of the main programme of events over the central weekend of the Diamond Jubilee.

A Big Lunch can be anything from a few neighbours getting together in the garden or on the street, to a full-blown street party with food, music and decoration that quite literally stops the traffic.

Since starting in 2009, thousands of Big Lunches have taken place in all kinds of communities across the UK and the best part of a million people get involved each year.

Having a Big Lunch with your neighbours can be great fun! Here are just a few reasons why the Eden Project thinks it's good to sit down and eat with your community:

• To stoke up community spirit – we call it ‘human warming’.
• To make the third of us who live alone feel happier, closer and friendlier.
• To show how local people can change a neighbourhood for good, forever.
• To conquer our natural shyness by opening our curtains, doors and minds and looking out for one another.
• To share stories, skills and tools, so we all end up richer in every sense.
• To discover common ground across age, class, faith, race and the garden fence, and to remind ourselves that charity begins at home, or at most, a couple of doors away.