FAQs

The MCN is an online community for partners of military personnel worldwide to share advice and inspiration and create a network of contacts to help and support their careers, education, studies, and businesses.

Individual hubs are connected by a powerful, online professional network which any member, anywhere, can access and benefit from.   

The coworking hubs are contemporary office spaces located on bases throughout the UK and overseas, where our Hub Members can come to work, study, or learn. 

What you get when you join our online community:

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• Member discounts – training & events

• FREE business listing in our online Business Directory

• Full access to our exclusive Members Area 

• Regular updates via our Member eNewsletter (you need to subscribe to receive).

Benefits of being part of our Online Network
 

• Find yourself again – be you!

• Be part of a strong, supportive community

• Reduced isolation and loneliness

• Increased well-being

• Boost your confidence and grow your independence

• Be inspired and change your life!

Benefits of using one of our Coworking Hubs
 

• Better work-life balance – separation from home and office

• Increased productivity – less distractions and a dedicated space to work or study

• Flexibility – hotdesking options to suit your needs

• Networking opportunities – meet like-minded people

• Sense of community – combats feelings of loneliness and isolation

• Makes remote working a feasible option.

There are two kinds of membership: 

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Online Network. Membership  of our Online Network is open to all military spouses & partners of serving personnel, veterans and reservists.  It's free to join and membership is for life!  Becoming a member gives you access to a wide range of resources that will help you build or advance your career, help you to set up and manage your own business, support your personal development and wellbeing.  There are also lots of opportunities available to connect with like-minded people around the world, just virtually.  It’s also where you can subscribe to our Global Hub Network.  

​Hub Network Membership of the Hub Network is subscription-based and enables you to access the national network of coworking hub spaces. Our 2023 Membership Plan runs until the end of the Pilot Project in September 2023 and costs just £30 for a whopping 900 hours of hot desking for the life of the plan. If you join the Hub Network first, you will automatically become a member of our Online Network.

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Visit our Join Us page and sign up to our Online Network today! 

Anyone who meets the following criteria may become a member of an MCN Hub:

• Aged 18 or older

• A partner / child of a serving member of the UK Armed Forces in possession of (or eligible for) an ID pass to allow them to access a military camp

• A (partner / child of a) UK Based Citizen living in Cyprus

• Remote working serving personnel

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If Hub members are happy to accept (via a majority vote) a member who does not fall into the membership criteria, occasional exceptions may be made. Examples include MOD civil servants with an MOD pass or a closely linked member of the wider military support community whose Hub membership, through the skills and experience they bring, would benefit the military community as a whole.

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Yes, you can.  We offer free trial sessions, so you can essentially 'try before you buy'.  Simply drop us an email at mcnadmin@militarycoworking.uk

We have deliberately set membership costs starting at £30 for the rest of the Pilot Project – a price of a cup of coffee per week – to try and make it as accessible as possible.

We are running a pilot project, and this is the model for the pilot.  We are keen to collate feedback from people if they feel these costs are too high or not accessible for members of our community, so we can feed that back at the end of the pilot in September 2023.

There is still a lot of help and support available to you.  Simply join our Online Network and once you are a member, you will have access to our Members Area, where you will find a wide range of resources, support and advice.

The majority of our hubs are open 24/7 – some exceptions do apply.  For more details, go to our Hub Page The number of hours you can use the hub for will depend on your membership tier, but desk time is available in
3-hour blocks. Each time you book, you'll see your remaining session balance. 

You can take your membership with you.  Simply, get in touch with the team at your new hub, and carry on as always.
 

Don’t forget to join your local hub’s Facebook group so you can meet people before you arrive as well – they will be a fountain of knowledge on the local area, and you will already know people when you arrive! 

And, if your partner gets posted to a base where there is currently no hub, we will refund you pro rata.  

Each hub is run by a small team of enthusiastic local members who truly believe in the network and the community we are building. 

The Central Support Team take care of as much of the administration of the hubs as possible, but we still need people in the hubs to build their coworking community and establish a professional relationship with the base.   

These members are the core of our community and give a huge amount of effort, energy and time to make the hubs work well. 

• A contemporary office space

• Hotdesking facilities

• Secure WI-FI

• Access to printing facilities

• Unlimited tea and coffee

• Networking opportunities.
   

Some hubs are equipped with a few more facilities, but you can check out what’s available at each hub at www.militarycoworking.uk/hubs

The MCN is currently a pilot project, and we are therefore limited to the number of hubs we can open.  For the pilot, we identified several sites across multiple geographies, including Akrotiri, Bovington, Bulford, Blandford, Chivenor, Clyde, Leuchars, Sandhurst and Valley.  

The pilot will end in September 2023, and there will be an ongoing evaluation of our hubs using an independent agency.  The results of this will be presented to the MOD to support discussions on the future of the MCN. If successful, we are hoping to secure longer-term funding, which will allow us to open further hubs at other military bases. But for the time being, it does mean that we are not able to open more hubs for the duration of the pilot.

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However, there is something you can do!

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To help us evidence genuine need and demand for the work we are doing, you can join the MCN Online Network & Sign our Hub Register - both are FREE.

Yes!  First, check out our Business Support page for a great “Quick link” guide to all the organisations and associations that offer free advice and support to the  Armed Forces Community.  There are also lots of great courses available from groups like Heropreneurs and Supporting the Unsung Hero, some with member discounts or Armed Forces discounts, some even free.

If you have a hub local to you then first join their local Military Coworking Hub Facebook group and then get yourself to a hub.  As well as lots of remote workers, our hubs are full of people running their own businesses.  They have been through or are going through the same journey and the great thing about coworking is that you have a friendly group of people working around you to ask questions and bounce ideas off.  

Many hubs also have great links with the Local Enterprise Partnerships which can help small businesses with practical support and integration with the local community.  

First, check out our Career Support page for a great “Quick link” guide to all the services that are offered free to our Armed Forces Community.  Companies like Lifeworks offer great courses designed to reveal exactly what it is you want to do. 

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Once you are enrolled on a course the hub can provide a de space to study from. 

Get in touch!  We love to hear from you!  

If you are located on a military base where there is already a hub, and would like to volunteer your help and support, we can put you in touch with our Volunteer Member Team there.  Alternatively, why not pop along and introduce yourself?

If you happen to be located on a base where there is currently no hub, there are other ways you can get involved. For example, you could write a blog or host a webinar on topics that could benefit the community or even run a Skill Sharing session, where you can help others to grow and learn.  There are so many ways you can help our community.

The whole project has been built by military partners, for military partners.   

We have grown purely by demand from partners around the world.  As we have grown, managing the network has become a full-time job and we now have a small “Central Support Team” who run the day-to-day operations and expansion of the network.   

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The Covenant Trust Fund has generously supported the Military Coworking Network.  These funds are held and managed on our behalf by the Royal Air Forces Association.