Hi all, I've just received my daily digest from the group, and thought it would be a great time to jump in and say hello. We're Coworking Bath, and we're working hard on opening a coworking space here in beautiful Bath in the UK. If you've ever visited the UK from aboard then you may well have visited for the day, if not then I highly recommend it, if you come to the UK for work or a holiday then it's a great way to get out of London for a day or longer and visit a world heritage site (and you can visit Stonehenge on the same day!)
Anyway, when I arrived in this city 2 years ago I didn't know a single person, and I thought that the best way to get to know interesting people was by starting a networking group. After ignoring all the usual naysayers telling me that it wouldn't work/ there were already networks here/I didn't know what I was doing, I got together with someone and we threw our first evening event- we put 100 tickets on meetup and they sold out within minutes. Fast forward 2 years and we've just hit 500 members (see http://www.bathspark.co.uk/), and we've now grown to include breakfast meetings, and an annual awards ceremony which was attended by no less than Peter Gabriel! So, Bath has another great community to go with the existing ones devoted to creatives, and other tech groups too, and as I've always wanted to create a place where these groups come together, it was only logical to seek out a place where we could create a coworking hub. I thought it would be easy, but given the unique nature of this city (it's very old and very small, and the buildings are owned by a very small elite), it has been tough. But I've refused to give up and refused to take no for an answer, and I've now won a £500,000 grant to redevelop part of the town hall into an amazing series of spaces for these communities. It's a historic building right in the centre of the city, and in total is around 4000 sq feet (350 sqm). I've taken on help, and now have a team of 3, and together we are currently designing the space, engaging the communities, and mobilising for the launch of what is already a huge story for the city- right now we're aiming for March 1st 2013, and the building has already been vacated ahead of the developers moving in. I've personally met with almost 100 potential members, one on one (and I've bought each one a coffee), I've asked what they want to see, and how they see the space working for them. I've been to see dozens of hubs in the UK, and spoken to hub owners all over the world. We've poured over our figures, reached out for help now and again from people like Alex and Tony (thanks for your patience guys), and I think we've got a great business model, we're engaged with all the communities here in Bath, they all eagerly await our next email update, we're in the local paper regularly, all eyes are on what we can do (no pressure). We're using Pinterest to great effect as mood boards for our various rooms (see http://pinterest.com/coworkingbath/) and we're engaging with people who don't have time to meet or chat on the phone via our forum at https://getsatisfaction.com/coworkingbath. We also have around 100 people already pre registered for the space, and over 200 others on the mailing list who are interested. So that's us, we're Coworking Bath, we're building something amazing that will change this city forever, we're creating a physical beacon for all the incredibly diverse tech and creative groups down here, and we'd love to welcome you as our guest if you ever visit Bath for the day. I'm happy to share any of my experiences, answer any questions, or help the cause any way I can. Take care Tom -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com
