I’m self – employed, living in rural Northumberland but I don’t (always) like to be by myself!

Ever keen to practise being more resourceful, green and generous from our lovely home in Northumberland, I decided to offer a co-working space.  I’ve seen adverts for shared working space in London and Manchester but never anywhere near me.

I called my co-working space a Creatively Conscious exchange… it very much links to my own ethics and values in my business which you can read more about here. 

It also gave me opportunity to work alongside people who inspire me, some of whom I’ve worked with before and some of whom I haven’t.

What does your Monday – Friday look like?

The invitees – people who connect deeply with the work I do and also fancied trying co-working.

I held the first one here this week and invited creative women living in Northumberland.

I was very open to other people who might want to come – I hate the thought of things being ‘clicky’ or first come first served – it’s not my style at all.    There are practical reasons, of course but there’s not that many of us doing this work here in Northumberland so in a way it all worked out.

The co-working format, agenda and takeaways

I purposely kept the c0-working agenda loose so people could do work if they needed to.  As it happened, Dave and I had been juggling a poorly son between us for 10days so he was there too.  Motherhood and work sometimes just have to happen at the same time huh?

So we had a board for ‘post-its’ of burning questions about our businesses and ways of working.

With copious amounts of tea and cake round my kitchen table/ in our yoga studio in our home in Northumberland, we ended up talking about so much including…

• Energy
• Boundaries
• Dance
• Yoga
• Blogging, seo, key words
• Shamanic healing
• Client work-load
• Self development
• Self-publishing
• Tarot
• Systems and admin

“Create the things you wish existed…” Elizabeth Gilbert

 

Books and creative people we talked about during our co-working day… 

• Big Magic – Elizabeth Gilbert
• Jodi Ann Bickley – Patreon/ Write a Letter
• Brendon Burchard- High Performance Habits 
• 12 Secrets of the most creative women
• The Artists Way – Julia Cameron
• Self Publishing – Unbound
• Self Publishing – wattpad
• Jen Carrington – (a coach I’ve worked with)
• Hashtag Authentic by Sara Tasker
• Tifany Han – 100 rejection letters

And here’s where to find everyone who came along online;

• Sarah Seed
• Bethanie Wardell – Northumberland Family Diaries
• Lyn Campbell
• Sarah Riseborough 
• Me (you’re already here)

So did we actually get any work done?

There’s a simple and a more complicated answer to that – you’ll have to come to the next one and find out!!

If you’re reading this, and thinking you’d love to come along to the next one or perhaps host your own, please drop me an email.  I’d love to meet you/ work with you and drink coffee with you in our co-working space in Northumberland or somewhere else.

Claire x