onionbagblog

Blatant self plug. Re-published from the @15QueenStreet blog.

How are you a part of, and use 15 Queen Street?

I am a flexi-member, having joined 15 Queen Street on my third morning after moving into the area. With a planned move from South London to Wivenhoe, I had been following the growth of 15 Queen Street online. A very generous offering of croissants at a Breakfast Club was a sufficient bribe to sign up.

I now use the space mainly as a social gathering, but also as a great opportunity to collaborate with others, both in a paid and purely creative capacity. I also use 15 Queen Street as a toilet stop if I am ever caught short in town.

What do you think of our membership hub and Colchester’s growing Cultural Quarter?

The range and background of the members is brilliant. For a broad creative industry that often falls into the trap of everyone being individual but creating the same old crap, there is a tremendous range of skills and diversity at 15 Queen Street. Asking someone to define what exactly it is that they do for a living can often take up the best part of a social evening.

Tell us a bit about your journey and where you are today.

With a broad background in traditional journalism, I now work on online projects that engage people and communities. It’s not exactly a job description that you’ll find down at the Job Centre, and I have long since lost any ambition to pass it off as a proper job.

My work involves managing online communities using various social media tools. Most of this work is online and remote, hence the move from London to Wivenhoe.

I commute back to South London once a week, as I also work in a couple of local primary schools creating online content. I shoot video and record audio with the kids, and generally get very messy whenever I enter into the school Reception classes.

Since moving to Wivenhoe I have tried to engage the local community more online. There is a tremendous offline community spirit around the town, and I am keen to enable further collaboration both online and offline. I have set up the Wivenhoe Forum to try and capture this community cohesion.

And then there’s m’blog.

Give us a sneaky peak of what you are working on right now.

I was greatly humbled to be asked to contribute my blogging skills and work with the Creative Co-op here in Colchester. I am capturing the online presence of a number of projects, including Keep Colchester Cycling, the Hidden Kiosks and Mentor Me.

What events are you looking forward to at Queen Street this month?

Booze.

Chin chin.