 Tuesday afternoon now there's a national showcase tomorrow promoting the benefits of hub working in Ireland and hubs around the country including here in Donegal will be opening their doors for connected hubs showcase day and the whole idea is to promote why and I suppose it's each individual hub will in a way be doing their own thing but it's all about promoting hubs and also individual localities and why they're a great place to work for remote workers. Well I'm joined by two guests now there's the National Hubs Executive Leah Fairman from Strunorder and also Susan Michael Lear who's manager at Greencastle Community Centre and hub good afternoon to you both. Hi Joan. Leah I'll start with you and just looking at the I suppose in a way the national picture because it's a national initiative but you can bring it to bring it down as local as you like but the whole idea is about these hubs remind us what the hubs are about what their purpose is. Yeah I suppose the best way to think about hubs and especially in terms of the showcase day is the big move that we've all seen to remote work so it's connected hubs of the program backed by Department of Rural and Community Development who looked at the big changes that COVID were bringing and we're thinking about rural regeneration and how can we get more people working closer to home and then COVID happened and we all had no choice but to work closer to home and since then we've seen a real shift from the view of companies from public sector and even from employees themselves about where they want to be based. Hubs in general then offer the opportunity for people to remote work maybe in co-working spaces where you can work a day or two a week or they hand bond or offices or they have meeting rooms where teams can get together on a regular basis. So is this is there a lot of talk and you know little action or has this you know is there evidence now from your experience of all these hubs that small businesses in particular and startups are embracing this and that I know there's more capacity but you know what's the numbers like at the moment? Yeah I mean it's the take up has been massive and you're right it is a little bit chicken and egg so what we've seen is so I work on the national program we have 317 hubs nationwide a lot of those are smaller own door offices and facilities are full and then it's the co-working spaces which are maybe a newer innovation in Ireland where people share a space and work together and are you know beginning to to catch on a little bit more so at our last survey that we did there was a approximately 75 percent occupancy in hubs on average um so some hubs might be a little bit more than that some hubs might be a little bit less than that but what we're seeing is a real um awareness building among the public there's still a lot of people don't know that they're there and that's the reason for the hubs showcase day and so we need to let employees know but we also need to let companies and startups know that these facilities are there for them. Now you work on a national level but how is Donegal doing what's the number of hubs like in Donegal and the uptake in Donegal in comparison to other parts of the country? As you know John I'm a proud Donegal woman and I started in a hub here myself as well so I'm always flying the flag at Donegal and Donegal I'm definitely one of the best counties in Ireland and there's a little bit of competition for further south but you know there's over 18 hubs in Donegal which is just fantastic for the the country the size of the county that we have but also I think speaks to the um the innovation in local communities because a lot of these hubs are run by communities social enterprise and charities to get out there to these facilities to make them available for their local residents and to see the value in them so I don't have the specific occupancy numbers for Donegal but you've got no fantastic hubs like the G Tech out in the door they're running a showcase tomorrow fantastic hub they've got like over 50 co-working spaces three floor you know big big facility and then right up to some of the smaller more local hubs for example that Susan's going to be talking about yeah yeah well as you say one of those hubs is in Greencastle and Susan you you're the manager there so how are things at the the Greencastle community centre in the hub there? Things couldn't be better John um I think it all kind of kicked off last summer summer 2022 when we kind of took part in the national voucher scheme through connected hubs whereby remote workers could avail of our hub for free for three days so we found a lot of people kind of dipping their toe in using our remote hub but as well as that we kind of realised how many remote workers who either have moved back to the area during Covid who have a holiday home here or who don't have you know internet facilities or whatever because the internet is quite patchy here so um well we were pleasantly surprised last summer in the uptake that we had in our hub and yeah since then it has just been fantastic and it's definitely something that is needed in the area and is utilised every day so what do you find are the big attractions is it the great internet is it a lifestyle thing if you know you're relocating from Dublin or Belfast or something or is it convenient so there's the combination of all those sort of things yeah I think it's a combination of all of those um just thinking about the people that actually would use our hub on a regular basis there is a combination of all of that um a lot of people were able to move back home due to COVID restrictions and been able to work remotely and were able to move back to these rural areas and because of hubs like ours they were able to get access to you know high-speed internet um we also would have administration services and and meeting rooms here so um it kind of made that move possible and then like I said earlier about uh people with with holiday homes might not have good internet access a lot of remote workers you have to have a minimum internet speed and they just don't get it so we're lucky that we would have satellite um broadband and our internet speech are fantastic for the area um so yeah I definitely think it's something that's becoming more and more popular. Leah tomorrow's showcase it's about promoting the the idea of these hubs and co-working spaces but it's also an opportunity for in a way localities to promote their areas. Very much so I mean I mentioned the department of rural communications earlier and this is under the hubs that are supported under the Art Rural Futures so it's really about shouting out those rural areas and getting people to rethink you know the fact that you can't get really high quality jobs you can work for world class organizations and you don't have to go to urban centers anymore to do that you can if you want to but you don't have to sit there so if you want a different lifestyle choice or for whatever reason a lot of people's family responsibility is caring responsibilities um not just lifestyle that they want to live in those areas and I think what Susan said is a really great example hubs see the areas that they're based in so you know Susan talked for example about the holiday villages and and servicing that community you know if you go to G Tech Adore you're looking at really high tech innovation you know companies that are operating in a multinational level so that's why it's really important for us that the showcases are led by the hubs themselves so that they're speaking to the users in the area and they're showcasing the best thing about their particular area to anybody who might want to use them and we're talking about all sorts of businesses right across the you know the spectrum in a working environment and it's it's not just you know I'm now one person startups that you know it's just wide and varied oh it's massive I mean you could pick any business and you'll find one in a hub we've got a just the story I was looking at yesterday was one tech startup startup ascending a AI avatar of David Lean to the Cannes Film Festival so you could be sitting inside in a desk like him and then you could be sitting by side for somebody who's running their own chemotherapy business or you could be sitting beside somebody who's working for Apple or you know somebody who's just starting up their food business a lot of hubs have specialist facilities like podcast rooms food food kitchens you know all those different types of things so whatever type of business you are or whatever time of work that you do there'll be a space for you in a hub and the real richness that you get from that environment is then sitting around and meeting people at a coffee bread boy lunch break talking about what you do what connections you want to make you know even it could be something about like you know you want to give all for the local GAA hub it doesn't have to be just about business and that's all comes together in the melting pot of the hubs yeah yeah at least you're not working in isolation then as well so it's a you know it's a part social thing and hubs you know rather than doing their own thing tomorrow to highlight their local hub I know it in Kerry Gareth there's going to be a coffee morning so Susan what are you doing in Greencastle in fact you've played the day of an organized in Greencastle haven't you we do and actually it's part of the initial and co-working trail ourselves and the six other hubs within any shown are all working together and we're doing a hub crawl so it's each hub is going to have an open day and it's going to start in the eye in Bunkrana Kilmany Community Centre Malinhead Community Centre spray of the sport in Cardona Carmina Community Centre Mobile Slam Resource Centre and it's at the end in here in Greencastle at five o'clock and we're going to have some guest speakers we have a lady who has moved back to the area because of lockdown and has since been able to work remotely out of our hub and we also have GMD marketing and designs is going to be able to talk about how she has used our hub to help local businesses use our facilities for for marketing and for selling online and we also have a speaker from Go Remote to help remote workers with training and also help employers so yeah so we've got a lovely event planned in our hub to promote what we do and to also help promote the other members of the initial and co-working trail brilliant well the message is is definitely getting out there about hubs and tomorrow will be an extension of that message with the special showcase stay not just here in Donegal but also around the country and Leah and Susan thanks very much for joining us appreciate it thanks John thank you take care