Musings of An Angry Hippy.

Things are really moving along with Cultural Squatters now, we are working 7 days a week to be ready to open our doors to you all late April 2018. Photos to come soon of the before and after of the physical space we are occupying, so until then I shall introduce you to us. Everyone likes a photo!

This is me, Narina, Co-founder and dreamer of dreams. I am in charge of the day to day running of Cultural Squatters, putting together our team of volunteers, training, event planning, creative lead and Chief Maker of Brews. I recently realised I have no idea of  how to play table tennis, which is kind of a big deal considering CS is home to the region's first Table Tennis England sponsored Ping Pong Parlour, so shall be cramming on rules and regulations in preparation for the tournaments we will be hosting. I deliver alternative education workshops, I work as a tutor to children and young people who are home educated, or who have additional learning needs, and I write stuff . Like lots of us, I have the world's best kids, a fella, friends and three doggos who are undoubtedly the greatest beings in my life...I'm a rather unexceptional, normal kind of person. I also know, as clear as I know it is snowing outside my bedroom window as I type, that if everybody was a bit more 'dog', this world would be a far more pleasant place in which to live. 

F is for Fee. This is our Fee, who is also a Co-founder of Cultural Squatters, and is the quiet one. Allegedly. Fee is just finishing her Master degree in photography and film, and will be developing CS's live streaming, T.V channel (yep, we are having a channel and will be enlisting reporters of all ages and backgrounds to help create content for it), and is our in house photographer. Fee also delivers educational and creative workshops, some with Narina, she occasionally lectures at Staffordshire University, and works as a professional photographer when she has the time, now, as CS has pretty much taken over her life, too. Fee has two delightfully rotund kittehs who are pretty much her life, because furbabies, regardless of species, are, indeed, life.

This here stand up gent is our Mike. Mike is the silent partner in Cultural Squatters who, rather wonderfully, makes more noise than myself and Fee put together. Mike's background is business but don't hold that against him, as he is hell-bent on creating a new model of business, where the onus is on fairness, kindness and helping the small business become a viable option against those nasty big corporates, and is teaching us how to figuratively hack the system from within, for the greater good (...the greater good...) of the customer/guest, smaller business and investors. Mike wants to show the world that social value is about people power, not ticking boxes, and has a cunning plan in the form of the incredibly innovative Counter Coin to do just that. He is a mad Northern Soul fan, devoted husband, dad and all round good 'un. Mike also has ace taste in trainers. He gets rather cold in CS HQ and will happily wear donated goods to keep his noggin warm, before we hand them out to the rough sleeping folk of Newcastle Under Lyme.




Lots of other people are working alongside us, so many I would be writing this blog entry for days just to include them all, many of whom wouldn't be too keen on having their faces featured here, and all of whom we are incredibly grateful for. However, myself, Fee and Mike are the original Cultural Squatters, and we are exceptionally proud to be so.

#bekind