The wonders of Twitter have been distracting us of late (not hard, I know) and we have been neglecting our blog somewhat. So as it has been a month since I last mentioned what has been going on here, we thought we’d post a quick rundown of recent events.
Most of all we must say there has been a general feeling of industriousness here at FunkBunk over the last few months. There has been coworking and collaboration a-plenty as Bunkers Provide Design, Hallway Studios and Purity Productions have been working together to produce an online events management system and new website, due to launch in August. It has been great to see everyone coming together organically to produce some really great, effective work.
FunkBunk were also proud to be part of the WorkHubs conference on the 29th June. The conference, held at BT’s Business Centre and attended by over 120 people confirmed a national and public interest in the WorkHub & Coworking concept. FunkBunk is just one of many fantastic WorkHubs all over the UK and an outcome of the conference was that a supporting network will be created to support work spaces like ours - the next generation of workspaces to fit the low carbon economy. You can find out more about the conference here: http://www.liveworknet.com/live-work-article580.html
On the 4th August we hosted our first ever Jelly. The peeps from Chiltern Jelly came together for a spot of monthly co-working and the event went down so well they have rebooked for next month with a view to making the Jelly a monthly feature here at FunkBunk. A Jelly, in case you were wondering is a free all day event were people from all different industries (mainly home workers) come together to simply work in a different environment. We supply the tea, coffee, desks and broadband and Chiltern Jelly even supplied home baked cakes! It’s a great way to change your working space for a day and meet some new people. We look forward to hosting many more!
You can find out more about Chiltern Jelly here and book yourself on the next one on the 1st Sept here.
On a silly note, a Buzz Lightyear costume somehow made it into the ‘Bunk and it was shoe horned into a video competition for Olympus called ‘Read My Lips’….. You can see the slightly surreal effort online here.
FunkBunk are also now proud to be part of the newly formed Milton Keynes Design Forum. This group promises to be shining light for design in the Milton Keynes area. We shall definitely be posting on this more in the future but for now, if you are a professional connected with the design industry you should signing up to their website.
Our new pricing plan at FunkBunk is proving popular and we are loving meeting all the new FunkMonks when they come in for their couple of day’s a month. There are still plenty of spaces available for both part time and full time desk rental packages. So whether you are looking for a permanent base or just hot desk to use as your second office on the odd occasion please get in touch. (Download the pricing plans here)
On Wednesday 4th August Funkbunk is opening it’s doors. After being approached by organisers Elizabeth Druce and Hayley Chalmers and with the prospect of home cooked cakes how could we have possibly refused hosting the first Chiltern Jelly. Now, for those familiar with the concept of a Jelly you can skip the next bit.
If by now you are wondering, what is a Jelly? A Jelly, in this case is not something you have in a trifle, but a casual event where freelancers, home-workers and people running small business can break away from their usual work space, meet new people and perhaps regain some sanity working in a social environment. Plenty of work, chat and collaboration without the ‘N’ word (networking). Oh, and did we mention they are FREE?
For the day up to 8 individuals can come down to Funkbunk and get involved. The Jelly begins at 9.30 and finishing up at 5.00. Chiltern Jelly has all the information you need on the Chiltern Jelly Blog and their Eventbrite page. Make sure you follow @chilternjelly and @shortcouture on twitter to keep up-to-date.
This month sees the 1st annual WorkHubs conference at the BT Business Centre in London (29/06/2010) and FunkBunk will be attending to drink some coffee, eat some sandwiches and generally hob knob about the place talking to anyone who will listen.
As well as the consumption of sandwiches, founder of FunkBunk, Sam Cranwell will be sitting on a panel talking about supporting rural homeworkers.
Apparently there are tonnes of you guys working from home in the Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire villages such as Stewkley, Wing, Cublington, Soulbury, Wingrave, Eaton Bray, Edlesborough and Pitstone to name a few.
Sam will be taking part in a discussion with Roger Turner (Head of Rural Economies, Commission for Rural Communities), Ian Baker (head of economy, DEFRA) & Nick Kirkham (Founder of Old Glove Factory, Holt, Wiltshire - a fine coworking space). They will be trying to uncover what benefits places like FunkBunk have for homeworkers in rural communities and the challenges we face in setting up and running our establishments.
If we get some piccies or videos from the event we will post them here!
* Home Office Mental Exhaustion - recognise the symptoms and act now. Download this essential information before it’s too late!
“The experience of a loss of professional image and credibility is common-place. Frequent episodes of dressing gown days may occur and friends, family and neighbours consistently ask favours as your business is ‘just a hobby’.”
Now FunkBunk comes in four different flavours to suit your office needs. We realise that hotdesking doesn’t suit everyone, and renting a permanent office might not float some people’s boats either.
With FunkBunk becoming a more active coworking WorkHub every day, serving Milton Keynes, Leighton Buzzard and Aylesbury we are learning more about small businesses needs and wanted to offer more flexibility and better pricing to you guys.
So we created FunkMonk, FunkTrunk, FunkChunk & FunkBunker to cater for the ‘homeworker who just needs to get out of the house occasionally’ through to the ’small business that needs a permanent base to develop their enterprise from’.
The wonderful creative magazine Weave (http://www.weave.de) have published us in a great article about coworking and workhubs in the latest issue. Now if only we spoke German…… but a friend of ours does and assures us it is a very nice article. We will try and post a transcript.
It also uses a photograph that we haven’t used enough and I really quite like:
“A place to work, a place to focus, a place to inspire, a place to achieve, a place to interact, your place, FunkBunk.”
Josh just showed me this awesome video about Photoshop CS5’s Puppet Warp feature. I cannot tell you how many times this would have been useful in the past. We are really getting quite excited about Photoshop CS5 here at FunkBunk and i’m sure the first FunkBunker to buy it will be everyone’s friend! I certainly am saving my pennies!
Gary is a resident at FunkBunk and regularly keeps us all entertained with news of local and international origin. The kind of stories that never get shown on TV and only make the smallest of columns in the local rags.
We asked Gary if he could give us a quick digest of his stories of the week - so here goes the first installment of ‘Gary’s News Flash’!
If you have ever worked from home, you will have loved some elements of it and quite disliked others. I have to admit I always liked being able to start when I wanted, and working in PJs was quite novel, but it really didn’t do my business any good. It sure as hell is risky ironing and answering the phone at the same time!
It turns out that loads of people in the blog world feel the same way too. It was quite enlightening to read some of their articles and comments. It made us feel that creating a workhub and a coworking space in the form of FunkBunk was really was the right thing to do.
Want to stay in the loop and receive freebies, ideas and updates from the creative bunch at Funkbunk? Just send us your contact details below and we’ll keep you updated with the latest news, views, events and offers.
We promise not to share your details with anyone else, ever and we won’t bombard with you with spam: Scouts/Brownies Honour. Any time you want out, just let us know.
We’re giving away free ‘half-day hot-desks’ so get your details over to us pronto and we’ll send you the e-voucher.
Please tell your friends and we’ll send them one too!
FunkBunk were also proud to be part of the WorkHubs conference on the 29th June. The conference, held at BT’s Business Centre and attended by over 120 people confirmed a national and public interest in the WorkHub & Coworking concept. FunkBunk is just one of many fantastic WorkHubs all over the UK and an outcome of the conference was that a supporting network will be created to support work spaces like ours - the next generation of workspaces to fit the low carbon economy. You can find out more about the conference here: http://www.liveworknet.com/live-work-article580.html
On the 4th August we hosted our first ever Jelly. The peeps from Chiltern Jelly came together for a spot of monthly co-working and the event went down so well they have rebooked for next month with a view to making the Jelly a monthly feature here at FunkBunk. A Jelly, in case you were wondering is a free all day event were people from all different industries (mainly home workers) come together to simply work in a different environment. We supply the tea, coffee, desks and broadband and Chiltern Jelly even supplied home baked cakes! It’s a great way to change your working space for a day and meet some new people. We look forward to hosting many more!
On a silly note, a Buzz Lightyear costume somehow made it into the ‘Bunk and it was shoe horned into a video competition for Olympus called ‘Read My Lips’….. You can see the slightly surreal effort online here.
On Wednesday 4th August Funkbunk is opening it’s doors. After being approached by organisers Elizabeth Druce and Hayley Chalmers and with the prospect of home cooked cakes how could we have possibly refused hosting the first Chiltern Jelly. Now, for those familiar with the concept of a Jelly you can skip the next bit.
Gary is a resident at FunkBunk and regularly keeps us all entertained with news of local and international origin. The kind of stories that never get shown on TV and only make the smallest of columns in the local rags.
