the blog

Inventing Your Future – The Art of Creative Pivoting: apply now for our new course

With business as usual out the window for so many in the creative sector, we need to be thinking more than ever about what comes next. About what business ‘not as usual’ might look like. About how we might change our game, switch careers. About where the new possibilities are, which the right ones are […]Read More

Our free ‘Taking Care of the Business’ business planning course is NOW OPEN for applications

Taking Care of the Business – Getting Creative with Business Planning is our new business planning course. Perfect if you’re an artist, freelancer or creative entrepreneur who’s struggling to manage the ongoing impact of Covid19 on your life and livelihood, this 1 day course (delivered across 2 mornings) will help you flex, improvise and think […]Read More

World Book Day – Our Top Reads for Balance

Header image: Andy Gibson – The Mind Manual Today is World Book Day. At the hub we cherish books; to feed our minds, to learn from, to discover other worlds and experiences, to inspire us and also to escape and relax. As part of our Balance programme, we run regular sessions and drop-ins for artists, […]Read More

Signs of Hope

Balance #8 – Going the distance…The art of creative perseverance

Our first Balance session for 2021 and ‘creative perseverance’ definitely felt like a timely and relevant topic to start the year with. The current restrictions on our freedoms, plus learning how to cope with the changes and uncertainty that the pandemic has brought about has definitely meant digging deep… to go the distance. Whilst hope […]Read More

Join our team! We’re looking for a p/t freelance comms and content hubster

Founded in 2002, the hub develops new thinking and practice in the creative sector. A social enterprise, we have a particular passion for championing the new and the independent, and for supporting creative freelancers and entrepreneurs. We work on projects that excite us, and that enable our peers to meet their potential. We’re on the […]Read More

Balance #7: What a difference a (new) year makes – here’s to (new) habits, hopes and your good health

What a year it’s been. We’ve each made our own journey through 2020, but for most of us in the creative sector (and world at large) it’s been a roller coaster year of change, uncertainty and emotional ups and downs. But we’re here, and for many of us, 2020 has given us the chance to […]Read More

Balance #6: Keeping burnout at bay: reclaiming life in the time of Coronovirus

Even during the ‘before’ times, a lack of work-life balance, financial risk and the ongoing pressure to do more with less meant incidences of burnout in the creative sector were on the up. Fast forward to life in the time of Coronovirus, and new pressures and frustrations mean more of us than ever are susceptible […]Read More

Balance #5: Turn and face the strange: embracing the future and staying true to yourself

Change is a part of life, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy, and it feels especially hard now, given that the change we’re living through feels seismic and constant. Should we try to stay the same, or is it better to embrace the future knowing that we might lose things we love or that […]Read More

BALANCE: WORLD MENTAL HEALTH ONE DAYER

It’s World Mental Health Day on 10 October, and to mark it we’ve put together a Balance OneDayer, full of talks, workshops, coaching sessions (plus a living room disco!) designed to help artists and creative freelancers take better care of their minds. The day is yours to dip in and out of, and you can […]Read More

Balance #4: Work, rest and play….How to stay creative and positive

According to Albert Einstein, “creativity is intelligence having fun”, and our September Balance talk, all about Work, Rest and Play: How to Stay Creative and Positive, explored how, as creatives, we can sustain our creativity – the juice we run on – to thrive in this so-called ‘new normal’. Yet again we were joined by […]Read More