The hubs
Burgas Coliving and Coworking is a hub located in the surroundings of Burgas, a beautiful city on the east coast of Bulgaria. The place is dedicated to freelancers, remote workers, entrepreneurs or travel lovers with different backgrounds and interests from all over the world and aims to provide them with the opportunity to live, work, socialize, create and simply enjoy life together.
Burgas Coliving has been operating for a year and a half, but even in this not-so-long period we have successfully brought many members to our community, organised many different scale events together, mostly creative, and involved our community in the lives of local people.
Cloud Citadel is one of the most famous and beloved coliving in Europe, opened almost four years ago. It is located in one of the most beautiful places in the Alps - the historic part of the highest town in France, Brianson.
We chose this particular hub because both Cloud Citadel Coliving and Burgas Coliving are community based hubs located in tourist towns in Europe, targeting people who work remotely, and many of the challenges we face are very similar. Last but not least, Cloud Citadel has been around for almost four years working in this field, so we were able to gain invaluable experience and knowledge directly from Jelena and Joe, the hub managers.
Objectives
The main goals of our exchange were to share knowledge and experiences on many important topics, such as how to successfully manage coliving, how to find the best ways to build community, to discuss what impact coliving can have on the city it is located in and how in the future the coliving community can expand beyond the walls of the physical building.
The exchange
We had many different joint activities organized by our hosts. Every day we had discussions on different topics related to community life and community management.
We had the opportunity to interact not only with the two hub managers, but also to live and comunicate with the colivers and find out more about their needs. We got fully into the daily life of Cloud citadel, discovering what life is like at the hub, how it is organized, how members participate all the little creative events that happen there.
From the first step into the hub we were amazed by the welcoming and hospitable atmosphere. It is one of the best well organized colivings we have ever visited. Apparently Jelena and Joe know very well how to meet the needs of the entire community and not only that, but how to build and maintain that community. On this first day of our arrival, we met the two managers, the staff of the colliving and had the opportunity to eat an amazing local dinner with the colivers.
On the second day we introduced ourselves, shared our experiences of what we have achieved so far, analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of the two hubs and discussed the issues facing both hubs.
The next day, the hosts organized an open discussion with the community, where we tried to answer the two main questions - which needs of colivers are met in our hubs and which needs are not yet. This allowed us to better understand life in coliving from the perspective of the colivers, gave us many new ideas and showed different directions of development for our hubs.
On the fourth day, we focused on expanding coliving. The topic of conversation was how a coliving project can expand beyond the walls of the house and attract remote workers to settle in the city and what the needs of remote workers are to do so. The hosts organized an amazing apero featuring the colivers and local remote workers.
The fifth day was devoted to making a conclusion of our exchange. Finalizing what the Cloud Citadel and Burgas have in common and how we can best help each other, but also how we can anticipate the future needs of our collivers and establish a relationship with the local government to meet those needs and continue to exist in the coliving world.
During these five days our experience went further than the hub itself and we met with several local producers and farmers, such as a small artisan chocolate factory. Of course, we devoted two afternoons to discovering the gem of the area, the French Alps, which gave us an insight into why this small town is so attractive whatever the season.
The final event
The final event was something very special for everyone. All of us coliving owners and colivers sat down in a very informal atmosphere and delved into topics like what coliving is for us now, what our vision is for the future of coliving. We brainstormed, discussed and at the end of this exciting experience we were able to enjoy an amazing dinner prepared by local chefs especially for the community.
The future
Cloud Citadel and Burgas Coliving are different hubs located in different parts of Europe but working in the same field, with the same goals, sharing the same values. What we have achieved with this exchange is to define the possible future needs of our collivers. To find a way to answer these needs. How to involve the local life into the hub life. How to promote that great impact that remote workers could have on the cities where our colivings are located. We believe that this meeting will begin to create a strong network between coliving operators that will help us all move in the right direction, together.
