So far, we’ve had a broad range of people trying out the community, so you’re bound to meet a few new faces you might be collaborating with in the future!

If you have any questions, please leave a comment!

And so it begins- what began as a dream while working days in a coffeeshop booth has now become a reality. The Reno Collective will be opening in the first week of January at 250 Bell St., otherwise known as the Cathexes building!

We’re extremely excited to announce this, as Colin and I have been wrestling for the last year and a half to secure a building, generate interest and find the funds to open the doors.

Come Check out Our Digs

So, while we work to ready our space for the community, you should come down and check it out! We may be putting furniture together or working on Lively Labs projects, but Colin and I are available to take you on a tour! Either contact us via twitter, email, or phone (775-393-9560) and we’ll make sure we’re ready for you.

Give us a test drive

All next week, starting January 4th, you can come in to work at the collective for free! No drop-in fees, no contracts- just stop by, plug your laptop in and go to it. Just stop by any time from 9am to 5pm and we’ll show you around and then set you up in our cafe membership area.

Watch out for more!

We’ve got a launch party scheduled for January 21st here at 250 Bell, and next week we’ll be having a open house on the evening of the 7th. In addition, we’ve already got the next Reno Ignite coming up on January 14th and many more community events in the works!

Thank you to the Reno tech community, as well as the coworking community at large, who have all given us your generous support as we’ve worked to get this started.

We are very excited to bring the Freelance Camp event to Reno-Tahoe but unfortunately we have to postpone the event. Freelance Camp Reno-Tahoe will now be taking place on November 7th. Our new venue is being finalized this week but the event will be taking place in downtown Reno.

RSVP for Freelance Camp Reno-Tahoe

This is a small blessing in disguise as we are confident that Reno Collective will be opening its doors on November 1st and we may be able to host the event at our building.

For more information on what Freelance Camp is, check out www.freelancecamp.org

“The lastest renaissance in downtown Reno began in the late 90s when City leaders focused on revitalizing the Truckee River corridor. The vision was to create a downtown where residents would live, work and play. This video highlights residents who are living the new downtown experience everyday through their investment in a condominium, business or leisure activity. The redevelopment agency completed a number of projects, including retrac, century riverside theater, palladio, special events center, ballroom, city plaza, whitewater park , west street market and other attractions.”

For those who don’t know, Lunch 2.0 began as a bunch of Silicon Valley techies who began crashing tech companies’ cafeterias to scarf free food and socialize- and morphed into a business lunch with a tech bent. The San Francisco Chronicle describes the luncheon with the following:

…a small group of high-tech go-getters, determined to get inside Silicon Valley companies, decided to reinaugurate the business lunch. They created a loose-knit community in search of a free lunch — and social interactions with their peers. They call it Lunch 2.0. Their slogan: “We really want to eat your lunch.” Read on for more info >>

This techie lunch may not occur at a free cafeteria, but it’s being hosted at one of our favorite places to eat and talk tech. Hosted by Reno Passport, this luncheon will feature Tommy Inglis, describing the organic growth of renopassport.com through the use of Wordpress, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and other tools. As the developers of the Reno Passport website and close friends of both the Passport and the Amendment 21, the Reno Collective is very excited about this new tech event in Reno.

So don’t miss out on Lunch 2.0 next Thursday at the Amendment 21. We’ll see you there!

For more info and to RSVP, please go to the Facebook Event here.

Job Search & Freelance Tips

10 Reasons that Freelance Camp Ruled

Freelance Switch

Northern Nevada Unemployment in the News

“Jacobs was among the estimated 3,000 who had turned out by noon – some with young children in tow – in search of one of the 700 jobs expected to be available when the $1.2 billion Legends at Sparks Marina shopping and entertainment center begins to open this summer.

Sponsors said they expected two to three times that number by the time the event was to end at 7 p.m. in a state where unemployment climbed to 10.4 percent in March, the highest in a quarter century.”

- Thousands at job fair for Legends at Sparks Marina [via Forbes]

Want to help in sponsoring LaidOffCamp Reno?

There are many opportunities to sponsor the first-ever LaidOffCamp and FreelanceCamp Reno. Please contact us via our contact page if you are interested.

Sponsorship of LaidOffCamp can include volunteering for the organization and execution of the event, presenting a session, or corporate fiscal sponsorships of $250 and $500.

Corporate sponsors, depending on tier level, will be granted promotion on the following:

• Freelancecamp.org Website
• Event Schedule
• All Marketing and PR Materials
• Email lists hitting over 3,000 business owners
• Blogs Posts and Articles
• T-shirts
• Sponsor signage at the event
• A short timeslot at the beginning of the event to promote your company
• Distribute of promotional materials for discussion and networking

The building is shared by the Cathexes Architect group and a bevy of green, renewable start up companies and organizations including the Renewable Energy Accelerator 250, Bombard Renewable Power, and the Sierra Club. There is such a strong synergy between these groups and we believe our presence will only further that synergy and create new opportunities for the community.

We are putting together a new website to allow for anyone interested in becoming a member of Reno Collective to sign up and learn more about the space and what opportunities it will offer so keep checking back!

Post your response in the comments below.

To participate in the crawl, just bring 2 cans of food to donate to the Food Bank.