HACMan History

Stockport Hackspace
An email was sent out in mid-june 2009 by Jon Spriggs, asking about interest in starting a hackerspace group in the Stockport area. A meeting was held on 25th of June 2009 in the Grey Horse Pub, Reddish, and Stockport Hackspace was formed, planning to rent a space in nearby Broadstone Mill. After some encouraging initial meetings with the architect at Broadstone, the Property Managers got involved, and the price skyrocketed out of the group's reach.

The group then spent several months meeting in pubs around Stockport, looking for alternative affordable spaces, and discussing everything from Arduinos, to which OS is best (Linux).

In late 2009, the group were contacted by a member of MCC, asking if they wanted to use a room in MCC's new HQ, Factory 2010, a building just inside the Mancunian Way. They decided to pursue this idea, and voted to move future meetings into Manchester City Centre, and rebrand.

HACMan
The group's name changed to Hacking & Artistic Community, Manchester (or HACMan) in late December/early January 2010, and the meetings moved nearer to the centre of Manchester, namely to The Bull's Head Pub.

Unfortunately, in February 2010 MCC were forced to cancel the Factory 2010 project, leaving HACMan again without a space.

However, the move into Manchester had opened up the door for more collaboration between HACMan and other groups in Manchester, and as of late February 2010 the group had started working closely with MadLab in the Northern Quarter.

By July 2010, hacman were meeting every Wednesday and on the third Saturday monthly at Madlab.

Hackspace Manchester
In June 2012, due to time and space constraints, we decided it was time to move on from Madlab. We found another space just down the road at #44 Edge Street, and took occupancy as of the beginning of August 2012.

Hackspace Manchester is run under the regular hackspace model, with rent and bills paid by membership fees, and the members voting to elect a board of trustees, who make sure the bills are paid and the space continues to function.