In the last week of May we held our first ever Working in the Heart of the Community week in The Hub, our coworking space behind the bookshop. One of our aims was to increase the ‘visibility’ of The Hub, as many people are still unaware of its existence!

Homeworkers and freelancers could book coworking desks at half price and take advantage of a series of informal lunchtime talks on topics relevant to them: Chris Davy from Devon Work Hubs talked about the initiatives in place to support remote workers in Devon; author Carla Jenkins, whose debut novel Fifty Minutes was published by Hachette in May, discussed her journey to publication; Dee Studholme-Cote of Jelly Southwest talked about community support for small businesses; and Sarah Meredith of Sarah Coaching & Speaking gave us a presentation about networking for introverts.

The talks, which were accompanied by a delicious selection of finger food kindly provided by our partner The Kitchen @ 25, led to some lively discussions around the kitchen table and a chance to get to know fellow co-workers. One of the main messages to come out of the discussions was that people felt that informal social events to get to know each other were more useful than formal, professional networking events where the emphasis is on self-promotion and making superficial contacts.

We were also able to gain a clearer picture of why co-workers use our Hub, what they look for in a coworking space, how we can best support them, and what sort of community events we should aim to provide in future. For example, it was confirmed that offering discounted, flexible, prepaid blocks of coworking sessions that could be used as and when required, would be preferable to a monthly membership offer where there is more pressure to use The Hub within a certain time frame. We are also aiming to install a noticeboard featuring information and contacts useful to freelancers and small businesses in the Crediton area.

If you weren’t able to have your say during our Working in the Heart of the Community week, we’d still love to hear your views – you can fill in our five-minute online survey here