You’re invited to our launch co-working day on Wednesday 10th March 2010 from 9am – 5pm at MadLab/FlyThe.Coop (36-40 Edge Street, Manchester, M4 1HN).

Come along to meet other interesting freelancers and entrepreneurs, discover co-working, share what you’re working on, help and be helped, learn about collaboration opportunities and see the FlyThe.Coop space.

Celebrate the launch of FlyThe.Coop with us and learn what FlyThe.Coop can offer you – hot-desks, project room, community, etc.

To book your place (30 available) visit http://fly-the-coop.eventwax.com/co-working-day–flythecoop-launch

See you there!

We have a new regular event aimed at building community and trust among FlyThe.Coop members, and to encourage collaboration: Collaboration Meetups, every other Wednesday, 5-6pm.

FlyThe.Coop’s Collaboration Meetups are for members to share what they are working on, and problems/issues they are having with their work, and any ideas they want to collaborate on. 2 of us will share for a max of 15 mins each, then discussion will ensue. At 6pm we will finish the “formalities” and pop on over to Common to continue chatting.

The first Meetup is on Wednesday 24th February, as you can see on our new Events page: http://flythe.coop/events

You can also subscribe to our Events calendar using this link:
http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/go53b7uoji9isgt6cd8q7vf170%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Over the last few days the global Co-Working community have pitched in to buy the domain http://coworking.com so check it out!

It has a great minimal look and briefly explains what Co-Working is and where to find out more – just what it needs to do, and nothing more. Here’s a snapshot:

This morning we hosted a meeting between a handful of Co-Working spaces across the North of the UK to discuss a roaming agreement between the spaces.

Old Broadcasting House in Leeds, The Media Center in Huddersfield, OpenSpace in Hulme (Manchester) and FlyThe.Coop (us) met and agreed that we want to encourage co-workers to co-work between cities across the North. Professionals in London wouldn’t think twice about travelling across the city for an hour to meet a client, so why doesn’t that happen in the North West where the travel times are the same or less?

A Co-Working Roaming Visa would mean that members of one space could work from another co-working space in a different city or area for free.

There is an informal international Co-Working Visa, but we wanted to connect more closely and cross-pollinate more actively so we decided to form some principles to govern our arrangements over the next few weeks to begin the Roaming Visa in April 2010.

If you’re interested in adding your space to this Visa, get in touch: ben@flythe.coop

We celebrated our existence last night, and it’s been a long road to get here.

Around 5 years ago, Co-Working days started happening once a month at MDDA, some of which were organised by Paul Robinson (our chariperson!). They were very well attended and showed the desire for a co-working space in Manchester. We then set-up FlyThe.Coop as a co-operative in October 2008 and it took a year to find a space which would work: MadLab.

So now were here and settled, we decided to celebraste the fact in-house with a couple of bottles of wine and a trip to Cord.

Watch this space for our Public Launch Co-Working Day!

Well, our first week has been very cold! The heaters in the building were not on over Christmas since no-one was using it so it has taken a few days for the building to warm up properly. But we’re nice and toasty now, so feel free to pop by and say hello!

Spirits have been high as we’re starting to get to know each other and find out what we each do. A couple of people have become members this week with the intention of using our co-working-hot-desks. Working in the City Centre, and the Northern Quarter in particular is exciting too, with plenty of places to grab lunch (if you’ve forgotten to pack one!) and have drinks in the evenings.

All the permanent-desk users have started using their desks except the Opera guys, so we’re looking forward to them coming in next week, then we’ll be a full house, permanent-desk-wise. Of course we have our co-working-hot-desks available too, so if you’d like to book one, call Ben on 07811197374 – we’re working on out online booking system, should be up soon.

FlyThe.Coop’s first day is here!

We’re now open for you to come and share our space with us! We have 2 co-working desks available for you to use as hot-desks. Until we get the online booking sorted (which should be less than 2 weeks), please phone Ben on 07811197374 to book a desk. You will need to come with payment for the desk – £17.50 per day for members (membership is £1 per year), £20 per day for non-members. Cash or cheques accepted.

We hope our space will be useful for you to meet new people with different skill sets and interests, as well as a place to get some work done! We’d love to see new and exciting products/services/ideas emerge from the co-working and collaboration which will happen here, and we’d love you to be a part. Feel free to come and visit us to check our space out, see our Location page to find us.

Watch this space for news about an upcoming co-working day here on Edge Street!

Many thanks to everyone who helped paint and strip wallpaper in the weeks running up to Christmas. Also thanks to FlyThe.Coop member Guy Dickinson for loaning the money to pay a professional decorator to work his magic in the meeting room and on the floorboards just before Christmas. The results look like a massive improvement!

This coming weekend (19th & 20th) will be the last weekend we have to get the FlyThe.Coop space looking lovely before everyone is on holiday. So basically, whatever it looks like on Sunday evening, that is what we will be moving into on Jan 4th.

And there is still alot to do, here’s is a list:

• Strip wallpaper from partition Walls in meeting room
• Paint non-partition Walls in light room
• Paint second coat on ex-green Walls
• Paint skirting boards
• Sand down plaster where wall was and polyfiller
• Wallpaper back wall of meeting room
• Paint non-wallpapered meeting room Walls
• Remove ceiling paper from meeting room
• Paint all ceilings
• Buy, transport and build desks and chairs

If you think you can help with one of the above items, please, please, please try to come along to 36-40 Edge Street, Manchester, M4 1HN on Saturday 19th between 11am – 6pm and Sunday 20th between 11am – 6pm. We really need to make a big push this weekend so any help is appreciated, even if it’s an hour in-between Christmas shopping!

Please bring friends, lunch, paint rollers & trays, steam strippers, wallpapering equipment and anything else you think will help. We promise you won’t get as messy as these people:

Now that we’ve got a lock on the door and knocked down a wall, it doesn’t mean there’s not hard work yet to do!

This Sunday (13th) from 11am onwards, we will be painting and stripping wallpaper in the FlyThe.Coop space, 36-40 Edge Street, M4 1HN.

Please come along to help out and bring any paint trays, rollers, paint brushes, steam strippers, overalls, packed lunch, etc. that you have. We will supply the paint, one of our permanent deskers is able to source some trade price paints which is handy. Also, it’s important to bring friends!

It will be a great opportunity to meet other FlyThe.Coop’ers, see the space and have fun. Feel free to come and leave at any point, even if you’re only able to help for 15 mins, it would be great to see you! When we’ve finished, or done as much as we can, we’ll all pop to Common for a thirst quenching drink.