Imagine HUB South Shore

I walked into the Mahone Bay Centre and checked out the space last week. The floor was sanded, the walls painted and the lights in. It looked fantastic. For the first time I got really excited about working in the space. I imagined myself in the room with Dave and Matt who have been at the heart of this with me. That was good. Then it hit me! There is going to be loads of other amazing people as well. All the people we have been talking to began flooding into my vision – Alastair Jarvis, Chris Cousins, Zsofi Koller, Janine Smith, Claire Osmond, David Smith, Will Martin and so many more. This is going to be awesome. I am going to be surrounded by brilliant people who inspire me and provoke me to learn.

I am in.

I started letting my vision expand. I imagined us renovating the kitchen next door. A small, funky cafe moving into the space. The small breakout rooms becoming podcasting and multi media centres. We expand the co-working space into the room opposite because members are pouring in. The conference room down the corridor becomes part of the HUB as a meeting space, creative lab and workshop venue. We open up the entrance with the big stairs for the HUB and suddenly we are occupying the whole first floor. It is thriving hub of entrepreneurial activity, full of people building a resilient economy, and supporting each other making a good living doing work they love.

Then my mind drifted to the second floor. Right above us I began to see an international training centre for entrepreneurship built around the skills and capacities of our members. Established entrepreneurs working with emerging entrepreneurs. This isn’t about theory or academics, it is about practice. Something along the lines of Kaos Pilots in Denmark or Team Academy in Finland. We join together our skills, expertise and creativity to support the next generation of entrepreneurs in Nova Scotia and beyond.

It is good to be at the beginning. Who knows what is going to happen? I do know that none of this is possible if we keep working in fragmented silos across the South Shore. The more we connect, the more will become possible. We are going to be able to build something together that none of us could build alone. Something that integrates all we know but is completely unpredictable at the outset. We are building the path as we walk it. Come and join in.

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Tim Merry is a co-founder of The HUB South Shore, a master facilitator, social entrepreneur, slam poet, and change leader. He is married to Katie with three young children. You can find more about Tim on his website and is timmerry on Twitter. 

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