The Year Of Collaboration, which last year set-up MPTweets and worked on a TheyWorkForYou type thing for Manchester City Council, is starting up again with a hack day this Saturday (12th June) from 11am at FlyThe.Coop (36-40 Edge Street, M4 1HN).

Come along with any ideas for things you’d like to collaborate on. You’re welcome whatever your skill level and experience. Some of us will be updating the MPTweets project with new accounts for the new North West MP’s. Some of us will be getting the website working again – tyoc.co.uk is down! But the general plan is to hack / build / create whatever people decide to do on the day.

Feel free to reply with any ideas you’d like attendees to consider building and feel even free-er to come along on Saturday!

But it strikes me that these workstations are designed to keep you in them for long periods of time. This would limit the physical social interaction with the people working around you. One of the things I love about working in a shared co-working space is the random bursts of conversation now and then which either inform or amuse! I also like getting up from my desk to “re-boot” my brain and make a brew for everyone.

If these workstations are the future, then it will be a lonely one. No, co-working is far better! Work for yourself, not by yourself – come and work with us at FlyThe.Coop!

We’re offering a free desk each month.

Just tweet “I’d like to win a free Manchester hot-desk day at @fly_the_coop” and we’ll pick a winner at the start of every month. Follow us on Twitter @fly_the_coop and get tweeting!

Terms: The hot-desk day must be booked in advance, and be available. The day must be taken within a month

For only £200 per month you could have a desk in a vibrant space in the Northern Quarter with other freelancers and webby/techie folk. See our Members page to see who else works here. Don’t worry if you don’t do web design or are technical, co-working and collaborating with us could really help you out!

Becoming a member of FlyThe.Coop gives you ownership of our co-operative, exclusive events where we share what we’re doing and help each other out, cheaper desk hire (it’s £250 per month if you’re not a member) and a big smile on your face!

FlyThe.Coop shares our building with MadLab where loads of interesting and exciting events take place during the daytimes and evenings, check out their calendar. Working in the MadLab building will expose you to many different groups, people, skills and education opportunities.

If you’re interested, act quick and call Ben on 07811197374 or email him at ben@flythe.coop

Work for yourself, not by yourself!

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!

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

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:

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

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!

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.