Founded in 1990, The Square is Bristol’s Private Members Club for the creative industries, located on Berkeley Square. Members of The Square are part of a unique community of like-minded creative professionals. The Square provides an arena of original thought and discussion, and members enjoy a range of personal and professional benefits.

Event and work space

Along with a vibrant events programme and an award-winning restaurant, The Square provides a dynamic social environment and a flexible workspace. Equipped with a boutique lounge, the Square Kitchen restaurant, the Lower Deck Cocktail Bar and hidden city-centre Terrace, The Square is ideal for working, socialising, holding events and meeting new people.

Reciprocal club access

The Square Club connects creatives across the world, and has reciprocal arrangements with clubs in the following locations:

Discounts for BCI members

BCI members can apply for discounted membership at a rate of £60 per quarter. This not only gives members access to The Square Club, but to all of the reciprocal venues around the world.

For an additional fee, membership can be upgraded to include access to Square Works, The Square’s high-end, part and full time serviced offices and co-working space. 

Square Member Benefits include:

To apply for discounted membership, please email [email protected].

 

GYDA is thrilled to announce its repositioning as a Mastermind-centred business. The relaunch which happened in June 2022, sees GYDA increase its focus from being a business consultancy who helped agency leaders through traditional consultancy methods, to one that focuses on peer-to-peer Mastermind groups for agencies leaders all over the world. 

The relaunch was the culmination of a six month project initiated by the managing partners Robert Craven and Janusz Stabik. 

Robert said:

‘Our experience of running Mastermind programs spans back over seven years and includes the renowned Google Elevator program. It made sense to pivot the business to focus on the tools that work for agency leaders. We continue to support our clients with additional 1-2-1 coaching and growth centered consulting.’

The project included an in-depth strategy phase where GYDA collaborated with their growth experts and agency clients. Followed by a rebrand project with TinyBrand. 

Janusz said:

‘We were so excited to work with Jemma at Tiny Brand again. Helping us to solidify and refine our brand strategy, they went on to create a new visual identity and collateral for GYDA. We are over the moon with the results. Our beautiful new brand fits perfectly with our audience and confirms GYDA’s position as market leader for mastermind programs.’

Visit GYDA.co to learn more about GYDA Mastermind

Visit Tiny Brand

We have a jam-packed events agenda in July so we thought we’d summarise the education and inspiration you can enjoy.

All Bristol Creative Industries-run events are free for BCI members. If you’re not a member, sign up from only £4.50 a month


Wake Up Call: Blogging for results – How to strategically use content to move people along the buyer journey

1 July, 8.30am. Free for BCI members only. 

Wake Up Call is our online event exclusively for BCI members that’s delivered by BCI members. It features a 30 minute practical presentation and Q&A every other Friday at 8.30am.

First up in July is copywriting expert Rin Hamburgh from Rin Hamburgh & Co.

On 1 July at 8.30am, Rin will look at the different types of blog post you might use to engage your audience at each stage of their buyer journey and guide them one step closer to doing business with you.

Sign up here.


Why we need to talk about menopause at work

5 July, 12.30pm. Free for members, £25 for non-members. 

Women over 50 are the fastest growing demographic in the workforce, and a significant percentage are likely to be in senior/leadership roles, plus on the front line of client relationships. 25% of menopausal woman say it can have a ‘debilitating’ effect on their ability to do their job, but unfortunately due to lack of awareness and societal shame, this is issue is not acknowledged enough in the workplace.

What can you do if you manage a team that includes women who could be heading towards menopause if you know nothing about it, and wouldn’t have much of a clue how to tackle a conversation about it?

In this online session, executive coach Fi Craig and Kinneir Dufort’s Tamsin Chambers discuss why this menopause is such a relevant topic for the workplace, why is it not spoken about enough, and what business leaders can do to address it.

Sign up here.


Solutions to the 2022 Recruitment Challenge

14 July, 12.30pm. Free for BCI members, £25 for non-members.

In this online workshop, recruitment Liz Gadd will cover the affects of the pandemic, Brexit, the ‘Great Resignation’ of 2021, the gig economy and how they’ve have contributed to businesses’ current recruitment challenges.

She will suggest solutions and ideas on how you can better recruit including perfecting your recruitment process, advertising the roles, using job boards, working with recruiters, and much more.

Sign up here.


Wake Up Call: How to supercharge your lead gen activity with value-based bidding

15 July, 8.30am. Free for BCI members only.

This online session will demonstrate how you can drive lead quality through the roof and bid more efficiently using value-based bidding.

Harriet Barter, from paid media agency Launch, will guide you through what value-based bidding is, how it works and how to start using it right away, so you can target the conversions that mean the most to your business.

Sign up here.


Other events from the Bristol creative community

See all events here.

Running your own event? Submit details here for listing on the website. 

All Bristol Creative Industries-run events are free for BCI members. If you’re not a member, sign up from only £4.50 a month

At AUK we not only make a meaningful difference through our work, but we have a strong focus on creating positive impacts on the health and wellbeing of our team. Our strong values surrounding health and wellbeing mean we get the best out of our day, both mentally and physically. Creating a working environment that supports good nutrition is key to AUK’s approach as it’s the backbone to how we function, especially as a creative agency. We need to get those creative juices flowing!

In 2021 we joined forces with Registered Dietitian & Nutrition Consultant Laura Clark to become our own AUK nutrition and diet advisor, guiding us on our learning and development. Laura has already helped the team take a look at the connection between mental health and nutrition, and this year we have a strong focus on maintaining our energy levels.

“How we choose to fuel our working day has the potential to have a profound impact on our productivity, energy levels and mental resilience. However, we seem to be fond of creating a structure in which we expect our brains to do it all simultaneously. Food should be tasted, savoured and enjoyed, if only for a few brief moments away from the keyboard. We tend to succeed more with all tasks that we decide to devote our attention to. Appetite regulation and energy management are no different.” Laura Clark, Registered Dietitian & Nutrition Consultant

Being an agency for all means we love to give back, so we wanted to share our ways of working to our AUK friends to give them a deeper understanding of our values surrounding nutrition and our approach to the work we create. Check out their thoughts:

“We spend a lot of our lives at work, so ensuring that we are fuelling ourselves with the best possible things to optimise energy feels really important to me, now more than ever after attending Laura’s talk. It also made me realise that it’s not just all about me. It’s about the impact I have on others too. If I’m running low on energy or having a slump, others will feel that impact too.” Kate Gray, Cookpad

“Good nutrition fuels our minds and bodies – our two biggest tools when it comes to doing impactful creative work. Feed your body, nourish your brain. It was great to see Laura take a realistic look at nutrition and wellness. She explained how to balance a diet that is realistic and sustainable for working professionals.” Alyssa Jaffer, Deliveroo

“Creating a flexible culture where breaks to eat at a time that is right for individuals, away from the desk and in a mindful way, is encouraged will foster empowerment to personalise wellbeing through food, which ultimately will benefit all.” Amanda Butterworth, Trust My Care

“Managing energy levels is key to productivity across a team, and nutrition plays such a huge role in this and affects everyone regardless of their exercise habits or sporting interests.” Simon Rollings, The Canned Wine Co.

“We all deserve the opportunity to fuel our brilliance. With small tweaks and an ethos that supports the foundational aspects of employee wellbeing, we can really set ourselves up for success,” says Laura Clark, Registered Dietitian & Nutrition Consultant.

Now that people are venturing out in person to Industry events Like to let all BCI memebers know I will be attending footageMarketplace on behalf of Science Photo Library (SPL) on the 21 June, and it would be great to meet some of you while I’m there.  

I’m sure allot of you would have dealt with SPL before , but if you haven’t Science Photo Library (SPL) is the world’s leading source of science and medicine images and video.

Register now and meet me there: footagemarketplace.com

We’re thrilled to be welcoming Rita Clifton CBE to Bristol to join us at the Watershed for a  lunchtime Keynote on Thursday 26th May. Currently Deputy Chair of John Lewis Partnership, Rita is a global brand expert and published author.

Rita will talk about how she has found brand thinking not just fundamental to successful businesses of all shapes, sizes and stages, but also how you can apply it to yourself to ensure that you are as valued and influential as you can be. She will:

Tickets 

Tickets are priced at £50+VAT for BCI members and £75+VAT for non-members which includes a buffet lunch so there’ll be plenty of opportunity to catch up with old friends and make some new connections too.

BOOK YOUR PLACE HERE

If you’d like to join the BCI network, read all about becoming a BCI member here.

About Rita Clifton CBE 

As a high-profile business leader, acclaimed brand guru and sustainability champion, Rita is able to inspire organisations of all kinds to find new ways to succeed in an uncertain world.

She has been called ‘Brand guru’ by the Financial Times and ‘The doyenne of branding’ by Campaign magazine. Retail Week commented that she is ‘A fabulous ambassador for business’. Alongside her board chairing and non-executive roles, Rita is a writer, keynote speaker, conference chair & practitioner on all aspects of brands, branding and business leadership.

Her career has included being a Vice Chair and Strategy Director at Saatchi & Saatchi, as London CEO and Chair at the global brand consultancy Interbrand and as co-founder of BrandCap. She is now a portfolio chair and non-executive director on the board of businesses including John Lewis Partnership, Nationwide Building Society and Ascential plc. Previous boards have included ASOS, Dixons Retail plc, Emap, Bupa and Populus Group. Her non-profit boards have included WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature), the UK Sustainable Development Commission and Green Alliance. She was recently appointed Chair at Forum for the Future, the leading international sustainability organisation. In the 2014 New Year’s Honours List, Rita was awarded a CBE for services to the creative industries.

Rita is a regular columnist and media commentator, as well as author of ‘The Future of Brands’ and two editions of The Economist book ‘Brands and Branding’. Her new book on leadership ‘Love your imposter’ was launched by Kogan Page in September 2020.

PR expert Jessica Morgan has been a Bristol Creative Industries member since 2016 when she founded Carnsight Communications. She speaks to Dan Martin about her business journey, the importance of flexible working, how BCI has benefitted the business and her tips for getting your story in the press. 

How did you start Carnsight Communications?

“Around 20 years ago, I started working in advertising in London. After a few agency mergers, I ended up working at Proximity which is an amazing agency. However, I had come from a small, incredibly creative ad shop, and now I was at a big agency. I was at a transition point in my career and the PR consultancy that used to work for Craig Jones, the niche boutique agency I was at, approached me and asked if I was interested in doing some PR instead.

“I was told about 50% of the job would be similar to advertising because it’s still about building relationships, communicating and getting messages out there, and 50% would be totally different. My CEO at the time said it would be another string to my bow and so I made the leap.

“I joined an agency called Pumpkin, a specialist in agency PR, in 2009. I was there until 2015 when prompted by my daughter being about to go to school, my husband and I thought that after 15 fantastic years in London, we wanted something different. We didn’t necessarily want our children to grow up in London and we’re both from villages. Cornwall, where I’m from, was calling me, and my husband’s from Kent. We compromised with the Bristol area. I studied at the University of Bristol and I absolutely loved it. It was great to move back.

“In 2016, I started working for myself. I was on maternity leave and had my first client who I worked with during evenings and weekends. Early on a brand specialist suggested I think about a brand name rather just going under my own name. I settled on Carnsight Communications. ‘Carnsight’ was the name of the house in Cornwall where I grew up.”

What were some of your start-up challenges and how did you overcome them?

“One of the biggest challenges was that it was just me. I knew early on that I wanted to work with other people but when cashflow is tight at the start, you can’t employ a second person. I had to find ways to work with others, be that client meetings, co-working or networking, so I had people around me to bounce ideas off.

“Another challenge was doing everything myself. I did get an accountant to help set up the business, but everything else was me. That was something I had to learn to balance well. How much time do I spend pitching to journalists or updating my website?

“In terms of finding clients, I’ve been lucky with my network. I had my contacts from London and and I knew some people in the west. However, I still needed to know more people and networks like Bristol Creative Industries have been very useful. Someone suggested early on that I join Bristol Media [the former name for Bristol Creative Industries]. It wasn’t expensive to set up my profile. I very quickly had people reaching out to me after seeing my profile and four became clients. It was really helpful.”

Flexible working was important for you from the start. Tell us more about that.

“It started with me thinking that I wanted to create a business I’d really like to work for. Ever since I’ve had children, I’ve worked four days a week. It’s really important to work hard, but I feel my team is probably more productive because we do fewer hours. My ambition is for everyone in my team to work three or four days a week or whatever suits them and the business. If they work four days, they are paid for full time work.

“The nine to five, Monday to Friday is a construct. It’s something that has evolved. If we were going to start again, would we still work it like that? Or would we be flexible and fit in more outside passions and time off? I feel I can offer people something that’s more suited to the work/life blend. I don’t talk about work/life balance. We don’t just work and then stop and do home life. During the day, we do things like take a personal call or go to a doctor’s appointment.

“This approach has enabled me to work with a variety of people. For example, I’ve worked with an amazing consultant who could only give two days a week for a certain amount of time and that was absolutely fine. I’ve also worked with MA students who need to do a certain amount of work and a certain amount of study. That has worked really well too.

“My approach has opened up the talent pool to more people and set the tone for the business.”

Do you also apply the flexible working approach when finding clients?

“Relationships in PR work best when there’s mutual respect between the client and the agency. I’ve said ‘no’ to people because I felt they were not the right type of client for us. I strongly believe that if they don’t buy into us and our approach from the start, they’re probably not going to be satisfied at the end.

“This needs to be a sustainable business that people are delighted with the service from and that people enjoy working for. Lots of places don’t get that balance right, so I wanted to create it.”

You are very active at posting content on the Bristol Creative Industries website. Why do you see that as a key benefit?

[Self-publishing content on the BCI website is a member benefit. Find out more here.]

“Posting wherever your target audience or peers can read your commentary is really valuable. Also, the content doesn’t just sit there; BCI actively uses it by posting it on Twitter and LinkedIn and sending it out via newsletters. It’s a great way to get your message shared.

“I’ve also attended Bristol Creative Industries events, such as the member lunches, and met really interesting people. It’s nice to feel connected to other local creative businesses, especially during recent times when we haven’t been able to meet face-to face. It’s a good way to keep tapped into what’s going on. It’s a great community.”

What’s your advice to business owners looking to get coverage in the media?

“You need to think about why you’re doing it. Why are you doing PR and what do you want to say? I think people often start with the fact they want to communicate without stripping it back and thinking about what they actually want to say.

“We start off new clients with a ‘three lens messaging session’. We get all the key messages written down and ensure that we know exactly what we’re saying, it’s clear and there’s a story behind what the client wants to say.

“Make sure you’re already in the process of communicating that story through any channel available whether that’s free social media or other content.

“Before doing PR, get yourself ready. For example, are you happy with the copy on your website? You need to be ready to face the outside world and take enquiries before you send your first press release.

“It doesn’t start with a press release, it starts with talking about yourself and your story and what’s different about you.”

What are some common PR mistakes?

“We always assess if a story is newsworthy. For example, a new website isn’t very interesting or particularly newsworthy, but the fact that you’re rebranding and relaunching could be more interesting. I often see stories I think are lazy and are what the agency desperately wants to say rather than something that’s interesting for the outside world and what journalists want to write about.

“I still hear all the time about the scattergun approach where people send press releases to everyone on a massive media list. All that does is give PR a bad reputation and make journalists cross. You need to research which journalists could be interested in your message, whether they are still at the publication and if they are the right person to contact.

“I also think people often don’t treat each PR push as an opportunity to communicate broadly. They might have a story that’s great for local media but that’s all they do. However, people are often doing brilliant things that could be of interest to the national media. You need to think wider. It’s very easy to get into the habit of just communicating with the same group of people every time.”

Fancy joining Jessica Morgan as a Bristol Creative Industries member? Benefit from industry expertise, training, leads, curated news, kudos and more. Sign up here.

Learned in Texas, delivered in Bristol. TMW Unlimited are hosting a free event at Origin Workspace to round up the most interesting bits from the world’s biggest knowledge-sharing festival, South by Southwest.

Liv Wedderburn (Social & Influence Director) and Paul Dazeley (Strategy Director) have returned from from Austin brimming with ideas and topics to discuss.

When they last returned from the last SXSW all the way back in 2019, they were most struck by how the conversation had shifted from revering tech to fearing it, with big corporations coming under mounting pressure over their ethical practices.

In the 3 years since, there’s been a pandemic, a new President, a Facebook rebrand and a whole new web has developed – so to say there’s a lot of new ground to cover is probably an understatement.

Besides a hefty dose of jet lag, the biggest issue in preparation so far has been trying to filter down the colossal amounts of information and choosing the most important things to share.

Liv and Paul will be diving into unknown realm that is our future: from the climate crisis, to demystifying the hype around the metaverse and Web 3.0, all the way to weird and wonderful conversations on space, sex tech, synthetic biology and much, much more.

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To attend, register here. Free ticket includes drink, canapes and fun for all.

Date and time:

Thursday 31 March 2022 18:45 – 20:30

Location:

Origin Workspace, 40 Berkeley Square, Bristol BS8 1HP

Your company’s growth depends on your ability to sell and get new customers through the door quickly.  But many of us recoil from the thought, let alone action, of selling, networking and prospecting for new business. 

Louisa Clarke, partner at The Caffeine Partnership and co-author of Catalyst: Using Personal Chemistry to Convert Contacts Into Contracts, joined us for a keynote event to demystify the science and art of business development and to provide practical advice on how to catalyse relationships that will win you new clients. Bristol Creative Industries editor Dan Martin summarises her brilliant tips.

We all know the cheesy theories and tactics that many so-called experts share when talking about business development. For Louisa, all that management speak makes prospecting for new business sound “academic and joyless”, when it’s actually simply about people and human relationships. 

Louisa’s book relates business development to a catalyst, a process to make a chemical reaction happen more quickly, without changing the catalyst itself. 

She believes the job of business development “is to be a person whose enthusiasm and energy causes others to be more friendly, enthusiastic and energetic in response”. 

When two people share a special connection, they develop a rapport. The person then develops an impulse to feel a need to see that person again. “Business development is about catalysing relationships, creating connections between human beings that change fortunes,” Louisa explained. 

The importance of networking

“Business development is really just about staying in touch with people and being helpful in a conscious, methodical way”, Louisa said.

To find those people in the first place is where networking comes in.

But the thought of networking, selling and prospecting for new business fills many people with dread. They feel “entrapped and pressurised”, Louisa said, and even if they do form new contacts, “they struggle to turn them into something more commercial because how do you go from contract to contract without losing your soul?”

The danger is you fall into the trap of becoming a professional networker, Louisa warned. We all know at least one of them. The person who makes it all about them, who when talking to you scans the room for someone more interesting, who never follows up and who never says thankyou if you help them.” 

So how can you avoid being one of those people and become an effective networker? Here are Louisa’s tips. 

You need to show up

If you have that fear of networking, you have to get over it because you have to get out there. The first step is showing up. 

You need to be wherever your potential clients are, be it conferences, events, trade show dinners or even the queue at an airport. 

Louisa challenged attendees to force themselves to say ‘yes’ to every invitation they get in a month and force themselves to show up. 

Overcome the fear of rejection

Most people have a fear of rejection which, Louisa said, stops us from making the first move so we stick with what and who we know. 

But think about the first time you met your best friend, your life partner, your long standing client; all the best relationships start with someone being brave enough to make the first move and someone else reacting positively to the person who had that courage.”

Louisa continued: “When we ask about someone’s journey or the weather or what someone’s work is, what we’re really saying is ‘I’m friendly. Are you friendly?’, Or ‘can I get on with you?’ But it’s too weird to actually say that. So ‘what do you do?’ remains our stock phrase. 

“And it’s not what we say in reply that matters, but how we say it. We introduce ourselves so many times in the world of work, no wonder we can often sound bored about it. But the person opposite is hearing this for the first time. Make it interesting for them to hear.”

When someone asks you ‘what do you do?’, think about how you can answer it in an interesting way. Louisa gave the examples of the team at the Caffeine Partnership who say “we help impatient leaders grow their businesses and brands fast” and an executive coach who describes her work as “holding the mirror in front of clients until they start to really see themselves”. 

Stop selling, start helping

Louisa said that many people forget the golden rule: “Networking is about acting with the aim of advancing someone else’s agenda, not your own.”

She added: “The currency of effective networking is not personal or corporate greed, but generosity. When you are networking, there’s zero pressure on you to make a sale or close a deal. In fact, if you rush to sell and close the deal too soon in the relationship, you’ll find it counterproductive. Networking is about getting to know people and being helpful to them so that when they need you, you are there.”

Louisa shared an example: “I met a stranger at a dinner. We bonded over both being working mums and the conversation turned to a project she was struggling with. It was in the area of employee engagement which is one of our specialties. My radar was on and it sounded like something we could help with. 

“I then deployed one of my favourite new business questions: ‘Would it be helpful if….?’. ‘Would it be helpful if I sent you some examples of similar projects we’ve done?’, ‘sent you a book on the subject that my colleague wrote?’, ‘took a look at your brief and suggested how we could help?’ I didn’t try to sell, I just tried to help.”

Meet fellow creatives at the BCI Walk & Talk outdoor networking event on 4 March. Book now.

Cast your net wide

In these uncertain times, investing heavily in just a handful of key relationships is the wrong approach, Louisa said. Instead, cast your net as wide as possible. 

Louisa related a story of someone she met at an event where a colleague was delivering a speech. The woman said she knew the ‘Alan Sugar of Barbados’ and thought The Caffeine Partnership could help him. It sounded too good to be true but three months later, she got back in touch to set up a meeting. It led to a six month project that netted almost $1m in fees and four trips to Barbados.

That example shows you should never close the door on someone who wants to work with you, however far-fetched the opportunity may seem. You never know where it might lead, even to a beach in the tropics.

Take the pressure off

Talking to strangers when there’s no deal to be done or meeting to secure is much easier. That’s why you should take the pressure off yourself when prospecting for new business. If someone tells you what they do and you jump straight in with a sales pitch, you’ll come across as self interested, obvious that you’re after something and that you have selfish motives. 

“Treat every new acquaintance as a chance to practice your ability to build rapport rapidly,” Louisa said. “Don’t sell but help. What is it that you do that could be helpful to that person? Invest the effort in practising not because you’re manipulative, but because you’re in the business of making contacts and might be potentially of use to them. 

“The more contacts you make, the better you’ll become at making them. The more people will want your help and the easier it will be to get even more people to see you as a useful contact.”

Be a diligent farmer

Louisa said the best model for business developers to adopt is diligent farmers. 

“They work consistently, they never slack, they shepherd their flock and steer them from danger. They invest care and attention on each and every one of their charges. Their interests are best served by serving others’ interests brilliantly and when the time comes, they reap the benefits. 

“The simple secret to their success is that they create a relationship with their prospects that builds cumulatively over time, that by the time the potential buyer becomes an actual buyer, it’s a foregone conclusion that they will buy from the diligent farmer.”

Like farming, business is a long game. Too often, people only turn the new business tap on when the need for new revenue is urgent. “But if you are a diligent farmer, you will have a constant stream of potential clients who are not just in the market to buy now but are predisposed to buy from you because they’ve been looked after by you.”

Be consistent

“One of the secrets of high performance is consistency,” Louisa said. “All top performers, whether they’re comedians, Olympians, artists or CEOs, are more consistent than the rest of us. They show up to do the work whether they feel like it or not, they don’t procrastinate and they don’t make excuses. They just do it.”

This can be explained by what has become known as The Seinfeld Strategy.

It’s the story of a young American comedian at the start of his career who met global superstar comedian Jerry Seinfeld. He asked him for advice on how he could improve. Seinfeld replied that the way to be a better comic is to create better jokes. The way to create better jokes is to write every day. He asked the young comedian to get a big wall planner with a year on one page. With a big red pen, write a big red cross over the day. After a few days you’ll have a chain. Keep going and the chain grows longer every day. You’ll like seeing the chain especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.

“Notice that nothing was said about results,” Louisa said. “Nothing was said about the quality of the work. All that matters is not breaking the chain.” Consistency and developing a behaviour is the key to success.

According to a study by UCL published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, it takes 66 days for new behaviour to become automatic. 

“In that spirit, start your prospecting activity with a 60 day plan,” Louisa advised. “This is less about filling in an activity for every single day but more about keeping yourself accountable for a set period. New business prospecting isn’t something you can turn off and on like a switch. It should be a constant stream of day to day activity.”

Network with fellow Bristol Creative Industries members at the BCI Walk & Talk outdoor event on 4 March. Don your walking boots and meet fellow creatives while enjoying the beautiful countryside around Bristol. Register here

Gather Round’s second co-working space is now open at 15-16 Brunswick Square, St Pauls.

Purposefully designed for creatives by creatives, the new space supports up to 90 creative professionals; inspiring creative thinkers and doers to connect, collaborate and thrive.

Gather Round is a growing family of soulful, creative workspaces, designed to foster a positive community of like-minded creative people through an open and supportive culture. Gather Round’s flagship workspace, at the Cigar Factory, Southville, opened its doors in 2018 and has since become a hub for creative minds.

The newly renovated grade II listed building in Brunswick Square, St Pauls, looks to build upon their success and expand the creative network across Bristol. The new site will house freelancers, self-employed and micro-businesses, from the surrounding areas of St Pauls, Montpelier, Easton, St. George, Kingsdown, and beyond.

Nestled in the heart of the vibrant St Pauls, the neighbourhood is renowned for its heritage and cultural significance, as well as thriving community spirit. Founders Ben Steers and Jason Smith hope to mirror this ethos within Gather Round’s doors.

“Good culture comes from great people. We’re conscious about the kind of people and businesses that share our spaces; we look for ambitious individuals and companies that share our values of creativity, community, culture, character, kindness and integrity. – Jason Smith, Co-Founder of Gather Round.

The Georgian terrace has been carefully considered to work for the diverse needs of the creative community. It boasts flexible areas with fixed and casual desks, a private 5-6 person studio, meeting rooms, hang-out areas, communal kitchen tables and quiet areas for thinking. It also has a dedicated public event space with room for 50-60 person events.

Membership options are flexible and transparent, with no hidden extras or nasty surprises. Whilst none of the memberships have lengthy tie ins, signing up to a co-working space can feel daunting. This is why – for a limited time only, they’re offering the chance to check out the new space for yourself with a free day pass. Click here to get your free pass.