This post is a digested series of activities over the last few months, a collection of events and a space to gather them. You’re welcome.
Summer breaks and not braking
Its been a busy summer, with YT managing to get a break to remote Coulanges sur Yonne in the potentially amazing project space that is Le Jardin Victor. Walks and empty spaces aplenty, great for decompressing from the many stresses of city living. Coming back was like ascending from the depths a little bit too quick, with many pieces of work to accomplish and some deadlines too. ah well. Managed to get the Autumn New Cross Assembly newsletter done, juggling the tai chi sessions for SELVIS (which sadly finished before the full run owing to poor attendance) and ongoing seated qi gong for the feisty ladies at middle park community centre.
Meet greet have a seat. Got a card?
It seems that UnLTD have regular ‘get togethers’ to encourage networking and for some reason no one brings business cards – mine were sucked up like sweets in a playground scramble; the best return was a great chance meeting with Oli Monks, heading up the Place with Purpose, a coworking space for the neurodiverse. It took a while to sync up our busy schedules, but finally we had a follow up chat with interest on both sides to continue a dialogue – a distinct pleasure to meet an organisation with the social model of disability at its core.
More Luck marketing
James Stevens assisted Babar Luck with the centrepiece of his online marketing, pulling the online strands together, which is handily a recreated space from the Babar Luck spaceship we’ve been putting together {1}{2}. YT created a business card and a CD cover for his next release. Had a great Tshirt as a present from Mr Luck. Keep on Keeping on Babar.
PPS project- proposals to Aaja and VAL
The PPS project rolls on steadily and slowly, with proposals sent out; it seems that there is a potential for the idea/project/business, searches are coming up with nearby coworking spaces in Peckham and Deptford/Greenwich borders. Searches have found a thriving coworking community mostly in the US but beyond there are some interesting takes on this working together stuff. A kindly referral to a Coworking Google group by the incredibly helpful Tony Bacigalupo from New work Cities, YT is daunted by the scope of what it can be …a different type of community development from the work done previously, that’s for sure.
all about space, how its used
As a front line worker in a variety of community spaces over 6.5 years in an umbrella project, the work spaces were all fitted out the same – same desktop computers, same printer, even the same chairs. What was interesting within this was the ‘accessibility box’ of hardware and software to enable better use of the facilities. Most places didn’t use much of the goodies, with items gravitating towards suites based in day centres. Most intriguing was that the SuperNova screen reader/magnifier was hardly ever installed in the centres, though this was not without reason – my colleagues weren’t trained in using the software (with some awful unnecessary features creating an unnecessary learning curve) and not many clients needed the facility. When windows 7 arrived in the centres in 2007, screen magnification improved a little and YT had been doing ongoing research for free and open source applications to enable best use for a wider audience. Thunder (now longer developed) and Webbie were the bees knees, complementary and had real use. Since then, Thunder has been replaced in my toolbox by NVDA.
Coming back to the point…
Having an inclusive coworking space:
- tools to to assist people with differing access needs.
- facilitating an environment for businesses to support trading and moving up.
- form a community which they can network and be productive together.
The last bullet is pretty much the idea and the ideal, with the other points contributing. Now to crack on and lubricate the social wheels, push some doors open and put this furry face into various venues. Among other things.
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