Would be great to revive discussion here?

[Ian M]

What's happening with co-working in Manchester?

The hackspace in the northern quarter is really starting to sound
promising, and is in advanced stages of negotiation with the buildings
landlord. The building itself is a great location, and offers a
variety of spaces over 3 floors.

Fly The Coop is working out the potential interest from those who have
previously expressed an interest in co-working in Manchester, and is
finding ways that it can be part of hackspace - potentially taking up
the majority of a floor in hackspace's building.

I believe there is also a hackspace coming together in Stockport. Not
really sure of the details of that though.

Not heard much from the Manchester Met's similar to co-working
offering, nor the Wilmslow shared office space guys lately. It sounds
like the Hulme mixed-sector co-working co-op is doing well - I wonder
how they are doing with the plans for a mezzanaine level ?

Events wise, the Stockport hackspace guys seem to be having regular
meets. Anyone got the details ? What other events are related? I guess
the http://tyoc.co.uk hack day? That _should_ have its next event
around the end of September. There's also a bigger hack day planned
in Leeds at the beginning of October- 2nd? And BarCamp's being
organised in Blackpool (Oct 18th) and Manchester (Nov 7th). (I'll be
at the tyoc one, and hope to make the Blackpool Barcamp). Geekup's
are still going. NWRUG is getting more and more popular. What else are
people attending at the moment? When's the next Girl Geek Dinner?

Cheers,

Ian.

[Ciaran]

I'm regurlarly attending the stockport hackspace, we've got the tech, we've got the people but we're trying to sort out a
decent permanent location.  I did suggest liasing with the manchester hackspace folks, but I get the impression one
side or the other isn't keen on the idea (frankly I don't give a damn) :)

http://stockport.hackspace.org.uk/

-cj.


 

Cheers,

Ian.

[Jon Spriggs]

Hi Ian (and others),

I wanted to drop in to bring you all up to speed with what's going on in the Stockport Hackspace. I know it's been a while since this e-mail was created and I joined the list weeks ago with the intention of writing this very e-mail. Sadly life, or more accurately, a distinct lack of time-in-the-day kept putting the writing of this e-mail to the background.

Stockport Hackspace isn't looking to be a co-working space, or at least, not yet. Those who are involved in the group tend to be employed by small-to-medium companies where they are benefiting from working with their peers inside the company - or at least, that's how it came across in the very early meetings. We're more pitching our needs as follows: "We're an arts, science and technology club located in Stockport. The Club intends to form a workspace in which we will create projects and develop communal skills. We're looking for a non-residential, reasonably accessible space with secure storage, ventilation, power and access to toilet facilities. Initially, access to the space would only be required two or three times a month - preferably in one weekend night and one week night rotation."

This has provided us with some interesting issues - predominantly around space-required versus budget - which, yes, I know would be solved by being a co-working space :)

All of the above has meant that the Stockport Hackspace is more of a theoretical group than practical... but we are working on it.  Current meetings occur by democratic election of dates, using Doodle.com - although we are trying to encourage the members to start considering following a set pattern of dates - a Wednesday and a Thursday each month, with a floating Saturday for those who are really keen. If you want to come along and get involved, either join the mailing list (http://stockport.hackspace.org.uk/list), the irc channel (irc://irc.freenode.net/#StockportHackspace) or at the very least, take a look around the blog (http://stockport.hackspace.org.uk).

Manchester Hackspace (AKA MadLab) are aiming for a grand-unveiling (I believe) on 23rd October including a shared event with Manchester Science & Industry Museum, but I'm not certain whether that's a "Building work all complete, doors open" date or a "we want hands on deck to make this place ROCK!". Both are good places to be, for a hackspace, although obviously, as a co-working space, the first is preferable!

Upcoming events were supposed to include HackNorth, sadly now cancelled, due to a lack of venue (the site had last-minute delays in construction, which meant that the primary sponsor and premises owner had to pull out). I believe they are planning to reschedule it, but I have no firm details there. There's http://wheresthegeeks.co.uk - which is a crowd-sourced event list that should include most of the forthcoming events all over the UK, and is broken down by venue, thus events in Manchester and Stockport appear on different pages - shouldn't be a problem, but just something to be aware of.

I hope I've given a reasonable update on a few of the things going on in-and-around-Manchester, and I'll be sticking around on the list for now incase there are any questions :)

Regards,

Jon "The Nice Guy" Spriggs

2009/9/3 Ian M <em...@ianmoss.com>