The workhubs champion

Today I’m catching up with Fay Easton, who was one of my BIG Jelly co-organisers and is as busy as ever working to help the small business community in Shropshire.

Hi Fay, tell us a little about yourself
Former restaurateur, still with my heart in cooking, catering & hospitality. Mum to three gorgeous children Marcus, Em [who readers may know as the founder of Enterprise Nation] and Harriet.  Follower of fashion, rock music and design of all things home and office related.  Frustrated artist, love the art world from Renaissance to Hockney.  Never have any spare time to do anything with, always have 3 books ‘on the go’ – at the moment Atlas Shrugged / Management in Ten Words and Screw It Lets Do It.  Privileged to love work and the people I work with – Great believer in the Great British Entrepreneurship.

You have a lot of experience with workhubs, I believe
In 2005 I helped launch a ‘test’ hub in Shrewsbury Town Centre. A small studio office that was the base for intense market research projects and support systems for home based businesses. Then in 2008 we opened Enterprise HQ, a 4500 sq ft hub in the Ironbridge Gorge, providing contemporary offices & drop in space for local entrepreneurs and freelancers.

Why are you so enthusiastic about coworking?
We are living the future.  In ten years time coworking will be the norm and entrepreneurship will be a mainstream career option, we’re early to market as are all the other hub operators in the UK – we’re a select little bunch of pioneers – who by the way are the people with the arrows in their backs!
 
Who is your typical tenant?
Do you know there isn’t a ‘typical’ tenant/member – our oldest member in Coalport is 85, he’s a local historian, a part time chiropodist, public speaker and author. Portfolio career indeed!  And the youngest is 17 with a brilliant idea for an ICT business [can’t tell you what it is!].  Other than that – stats are – we have more males than females in our co working community, they are all owner/operators of their businesses (we have yet to strike into the flexible working employed sector), they are all connected by a generous nature – they share willingly and provide advice and help to others. Collaboration is King!

Fay will be back to tell us about her latest workhub, opening soon in Telford. In the meantime you can see some preliminary details of the new Telford Enterprise Hub by checking out Enterprise HQ in Coalport, shown in the photo above.