Fly The Coop has a new home

[Paul Robinson]

Hi all,

Apologies for the cross-post if you're both on GeekUp and Co-Working Manchester.

Thought you would all love to hear about the fact Fly The Coop today signed the license to share the space at MadLab. At about 2pm - and after agreement from other members, we're a co-operative, after all - myself and Ben Gibbs committed the members to at least a year in our new home.

That means as of 1st January, we will be offering on the middle floor of the building on Edge Street in the Northern Quarter:

- Permanent desks

- Hot desks bookable for a day at a time

- A meeting room bookable ad-hoc for you to meet clients in

- I'm going to sneak a small library in somewhere to get rid of the mountain of O'Reilly books I have but don't want/need any more, and I expect that to only grow

AND we can make occasional use of the huge Madlab space from time to time providing it doesn't conflict with their activities. Already in the FTC communal mindset we've been discussing next year having:

- Regular co-working days for the occasional co-worker

- Startup Weekend: build a web startup from concept on Friday evening to deployed product on Sunday evening

- Regular hack days for us software geeks

- Whatever else our members (that means you, if you want) dream up that encourages collaboration and co-operation with a commercial objective

- Maybe, *maybe* even a small BarCamp

- And of course, we hope to be getting stuck in with all the MadLab stuff which includes Geek Girls afternoon tea, the AR Devcamp, Rocket Stove Workshop and the other awesome things they've been telling us about planned for next year

We love MadLab because they're not just techs and geeks - they're going to be introducing us to all their artist friends, so personally I'm itching to play with them using Processing.org and OpenFrameworks with the hardware guys.

We're about to start the work of renovating the space which will mean destroying walls (done by a builder, not a huge laser-equipped robot, alas), ripping up carpet, sanding floors, painting, installing desks and meeting tables. If you wish to join in with the fun (no, really, we will make this fun), let us know.

We are all incredibly excited by the future of FTC, and we hope you will be too. In the next few weeks a waiting list will open for permanent desks (we're fully subscribed right now), and to book hot desks if you want to join us for a day or so. I hope you'll all spend a little time with us at some point in 2010.

I am confident that in the first week of January we will be holding some kind of welcoming event where you can meet the permies and suss out the space. You might want to check out MadLab as a whole at some of their events too.

I can't believe how we've finally got here some several years after I looked at a derelict building* on Sackville Street and thought "wouldn't it be great if the local tech community could all use that?", then attended Matt Lee's co-working day at MDDA and decided to share my thoughts with whoever would listen. 

Can I just say we would be nowhere right now if it weren't for the herculean effort of kicking the less active directors (i.e. me), up the bum on a regular basis conducted by Ben Gibbs. He pushed this into existence. Give him a hug next time you see him. Also, next time you see Guy Dickinson do the same, but don't explain why: he's made this possible too, but I want him to suffer - specifically random - huggings because it will entertain us all. :-)

[*] That building is now the home of MAG International, a charity that clears landmines - couldn't think of a better second use for it. :-)

--

Paul Robinson

http://vagueware.com :: pa...@vagueware.com :: +44 (0) 7740 465746

Vagueware Limited is registered in England/Wales, number 05700421

Registered Office: 3 Tivoli Place, Ilkley, W. Yorkshire, LS29 8SU

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[Dominic Hodgson]

Happy to help with any graft needed Paul

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[Guy Dickinson]

On 25 Nov 2009, at 21:05, Dominic Hodgson wrote:

> Happy to help with any graft needed Paul

You're willing to bribe people, Dom? :-)

[Dominic Hodgson]

I'll work the long con if its needed...