Is your business suffering from a severe case of H.O.M.E?

If you find yourself staring blankly out of the window from your desk at home, or balancing your laptop on your knees in a coffee shop, then FunkBunk is perfect for you.

Set up by like-minded home workers, freelancers and independent entrepreneurs, FunkBunk has been designed as a cure to the ailments caused by working from home or on the road.

Nestled in the Buckinghamshire / Bedfordshire countryside, our open plan working environment and private meeting spaces are the ideal place to bring focus back to your business and imagination back to your mind.

We serve the local community Village of Wing, Cublington, Stewkley, Mentmore, Wingrave and many more, as well as supporting businesses and freelancers in Milton Keynes, Leighton Buzzard and Aylesbury.

Our flexible desks for rent and meeting room hire packages are available to help give your enterprise the boost it needs, not only in terms of a location, but also socially as well. Every FunkBunker shares one thing in common – a desire to succeed in their business, and here you will find the support you need to make that happen.

We may be a Shelter for Stray Creatives, but the FunkBunk environment suits all types of businesses from consultants to engineers – all are welcome.

Come and work at FunkBunk. Try us out for a half day for free!

With 13% of people in the UK now working from home and 60% of employees forecasted to join them in a decade, what can be done to avoid feelings of isolation?

If you’re working from home you’re living the dream right? You have the flexibility to work around your other life commitments. No more 9 to 5 – you choose your hours. No more commuting – you don’t even need to leave the house. No distractions. It’s just you and your rules.

So, how’s this work life balance working out for you?

Like 5.4 million other people in the UK, I work from home and have done, on and off, for over 10 years. I work for myself and love it. I love the freedom it gives me. I don’t have to deal with office politics and I can work to suit my creativity at different times of the day for the greatest results. It sounds perfect doesn’t it but I’m going to be honest here: it’s not.

Don’t get me wrong; I wouldn’t change my work set-up for anything but I do miss the interaction you get from working in an office. Socialising keeps my brain active and I don’t mean social media either. In fact, that’s a whole other challenge right there, which I’ll file under procrastination for now. What I miss is real, face-to-face conversation with someone other than my dog.

Ironically, I’m not alone in feeling lonely and, according to research conducted by Brigham Young University (and recently reported in the Guardian), this could be bad for my health too.

Brigham found that sociability is linked to mortality. Those with stronger social relationships have a 50% increased likelihood of survival. Low sociability can be as damaging to the human body as being obese, smoking 15 cigarettes a day or never exercising.

Take what you will from those statistics but I know personally that social interaction does make a real difference to my wellbeing, creativity and, interestingly, my productivity.
What’s the solution then if I don’t want to go back into full time employment and I’m not a huge fan of networking? Well, I have found a way to enjoy the best of both worlds and the answer lies in ‘work hubs’.
Work hubs have been quietly popping up in and around towns in the UK and, with local government supporting the initiatives as a way to create a greener economy, these co-working spaces are becoming very popular.

What’s a work hub? Work hubs are workspaces offering desks and shared facilities such as printers, photocopiers, tea, coffee and broadband, which can be booked as and when needed. Perfect for mobile/remote workers, small businesses, nomadic freelancers and home workers, these hubs can act as a professional front to a home business offering the use of meeting rooms and virtual addresses.

The FunkBunk, the local work hub just outside Wing, Leighton Buzzard, stops me going mad on my own at home. When I find myself feeling cut off, unmotivated, distracted by unimportant household chores like sorting through the under stairs cupboard, I pop in to the ‘Bunk for a sanity check. It’s informal, friendly and flexible. I go in when I want and leave when I want. I can talk to people if I’m in the mood, or I can just work there quietly in the company of others. It makes such a difference to my output and discipline, and reignites my enthusiasm and focus like nothing else I’ve tried. If it’s true what they say about health and socialising, I guess visiting the Funkbunk is like a gym membership for my brain. The hardest thing is getting out and going there but it’s worth it when you do.

Kia Cranwell – www.e-copywriter.co.uk

The changes may be subtle but we have just given our website a very needed once-over and fixed some broken links and removed the out of date content.

Along with this ‘out with the old and in with the new’ session we have listened to our customers and updated our pricing structure to better meet the desk rental needs of home workers, freelancers and small businesses.

You can now rent desks by the day starting at just £15 for single whole day with discounts for block bookings. We are now hiring out our meeting room too. If you just need the meeting room and not a desk – it’s yours! Permanent desk rental is unchanged and still at the great value £200 per month including all bills.

See the new price list here.

Not only have the prices been spruced up, so has the way you can book your desk. Try out our new booking form and reserve your desk for when you want. If online forms isn’t your thing you can still just pick up the phone talk to a real person.

With the summer storms well and truly upon us, don’t you wish you could avoid the flash flood soaking and just stay indoors the 30 seconds it takes for the storm to pass?

Well in a true ‘show n tell’ style resident FunkBunker Gary Loosley of SIGA Vision bought in his latest project, the Lightning Detector Mk5! This amazing looking contraption can pick up lightning strikes happening up to 300 miles away and display the strength of the strike and direction it is in. So avoid getting frazzled and don’t go out without checking it first!

Gary designed and built the device from the ground up and has an LCD display planned for Mk6 which will show the approximate distance to the strike in miles and further information on the lighting strength. Google Map showing the strikes coming soon?

Every Monday at FunkBunk, the local Howe and Co’s Fish and Chip saloon visits FunkBunk at around 12.30. So get yourself down here for the tastiest fish and chips in the area!

This weekend past, I read an article in the newspaper about the recent sale of Tweetdeck to Twitter for a deal worth $40 million. One of the things that enabled Tweetdeck as a business to get to this position was the collective consciousness they had from sharing a building with bunch of other entrepreneurs.

It meant that they were able to share in the buzz, the atmosphere and the collective business and creative experience of all the other individuals in that space. The space became known as the Silicon Roundabout and has become an attractive proposition for investors from Silicon Valley looking for a UK base.

We’re not saying that we are the next Silicon Roundabout but every resident at FunkBunk benefits from being part of a collective that is stronger than it’s individuals alone. I hear ideas being discussed everyday that have the potential to be the next Tweetdeck. Just by working in the same space there is inspiration all around and the resource to make the ideas come to life.

For those sick of shuffling from coffee shop to coffee shop, struggling to get a wi-fi connection, working in isolation and struggling to kickstart their ideas, places like FunkBunk are definitely the way forward.

The article from the Guardian is well worth a read. Check it out here.