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A Year At Avenue HQ – Our Highlights of 2018

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Here we are! Another year gone, as we find ourselves at the end of 2018. Whether you’ve achieved many of your goals, made a major life change, visited amazing new places or set yourself up for a brilliant 2019, we’re sure there’s loads to be proud of. Now is the time to reflect on what a great year it has been, and at Avenue HQ, we’ve had a blast. Here’s just a small collection of the things that made our year so special, for us and for our members…

We started the year focusing on our health and wellbeing, in order to beat the January blues. Our ‘Weeks of Wellbeing’ initiative brought a huge amount of people into the space, getting them and our members focussing on keeping themselves healthy, and thinking of ways to keep on top of their wellbeing. With Yoga, healthy lunches, meditation, visits from puppies – we had everything to keep our members supercharged ?

Across the year, we’ve played host to so many brilliant events, across Liverpool and Leeds! In Liverpool, we’ve hosted conferences from Microsoft and Dr. Martens, to Wagamama and Monzo, as well as so many more – like great initiatives from the likes of the Liverpool Girl Geeks, and Agent Academy (check them out!). In Leeds, our new event spaces have already helped unveil the updated Rugby League World Cup 2021 Trophy (complete with an illusionist, have a peek below), as well as The Football Association, Hyundai and more. We’re so pleased to have been able to help these incredible companies over the last year, alongside so many others!

March saw us celebrate the expansion of our Mann Island site, having added an extra floor of new members to our growing community, as well as fresh new facilities for our existing members to use. Win win! A couple of months later, we also had the launch of Liverpool Pride (in collaboration with Barclays) in our space, which saw us celebrating all things Pride! We rolled out the carpet, got the drinks flowing and had a performance from the wonderful Velma Celli.

A huge milestone for Avenue HQ came in June, as we were crowned IPSE ‘Co-working Space of the Year’ at the annual IPSE Freelancer’s Day. The award looked to ‘recognise and celebrate the important role coworking spaces play in creating a nurturing, inclusive and stimulating environment for the UK’s 4.8 million-strong self-employed workforce’. Naturally, we were chuffed to beat off thousands of other spaces across the UK. Matthew Kennedy, our CEO, said ‘our culture is focused on providing the best possible facilities and service for members to ensure they can get the most out of their working life. Our team work hard to support and nurture freelancers and remote workers within the space and it’s fantastic to be recognised by IPSE’. The whole team were extremely proud of this one ??

We were overwhelmed with the award, less than a year after opening. Just a few months later, in September, our community celebrated the first birthday of our Mann Island site – a great night with a few sore heads!

Perhaps our biggest achievement of the year happened in October – opening our second site, at East Parade, Leeds. A goal we were working to throughout the year, with so many different people involved, we opened our incredible new location in the first week of October, with a free co-working week for the people of Leeds! Just a week later, we celebrated the opening of our new site, with a bang. Our Preview Night had over 500 people coming to see our workspace, and enjoying a drink on our freshly-opened Rooftop! Since then, we’ve started building up a community of incredible Leeds workers – all of whom we’re proud to add to the Avenue HQ family.

On top of that, we also announced our THIRD site, opening in Liverpool in early 2019. St Paul’s Square, situated in the heart of the Business District, is set to bring even more premium meeting spaces, a fresh new hospitality venue and of course our award-winning workspace to the area! Expanding in the city we started is incredibly exciting for us, and we cannot wait to have this one open. Find out more about it here.

As you can see, there’s a lot we’re proud of in 2018. However, we can’t reflect on the year just gone without thinking about the incredible achievements of our members. There are too many stories across the year to mention, coming out of both of our existing spaces – whether it’s The Anfield Wrap taking Silver position at the Listeners’ Choice Awards, OPEN Media securing funding to expand their business, Project Four winning more and more contracts, Monterosa launching a global World Cup prediction experience (used by 850,000 people) or so many other pieces of amazing news…

We’ve also seen a huge amount of collaboration between members. In a survey we ran earlier in the year, we found that an amazing 70% of our members had bought services from other members. Collaboration levels are off the chart! Not only this, but there are so many stories of goodwill and friendship between our community. OPEN Media and The Anfield Wrap supported the Tyred campaign, ran by our member Frances Molloy, which seeks to change the UK law around old tyres. A hugely important cause, given backing by our members – something we were really proud to see.

Overall, we know that 2018 isn’t just a collection of exciting moments, but a year in which all of our members have worked relentlessly, day-in day-out, to keep on improving their businesses. Here’s a reminder of just how that hard work, every day, can pay off for our members, in the words of one of our members:

Thanks for reading about our (and our members) highlights of 2018. We have so many exciting things coming up in 2019 – and we can’t wait to share them all with you. To stay up to date with all things Avenue HQ, make sure to sign up to our mailing list, and we’ll keep you in the loop. For now, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
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