Welcome to The Warehouse

As you may know, I work in possibly one of the most eccentric yet cosy office buildings in the country, The Warehouse in Digbeth. Owned and run by Birmingham Friends of the Earth, we workers by brain, by hand and occasionally by petition and fluffy bee costume from Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland also have an outpost here.

The Warehouse also includes meeting rooms for hire, a health food shop and a whole plethora of other community organisations renting space.

Much like the Japanese car industry, the Warehouse is in a condition of continuous improvement, thanks to the indefagitable Building Manager Phil Burrows and his team of volunteers. As there's a whole range of changes happening at the moment even by Warehouse standards, however, I thought now was a good time to begin sharing life here with you in photographic form.

So, here we go! Welcome to the Warehouse

That's the Moor Street viaduct in the background - we're just round the corner from the station and the city centre.

Here is our lovely reception (Phil manning the reception desk) with murals and more take away info materials than you can shake a stick at.

To get to the offices, you pass through the secret behind the scenes storage area of the Warehouse

"But in the Latin alphabet, Jehovah starts with a Y..."

Putting in a new window for a small office, inadvertently doing a Rothko 

Phil is arranging for the dead tree resources of Birmingham Friends of the Earth to be finally disposed of - [sniff]. Sentimentality aside, they are very rarely used now and we do need the extra office space.

Mice attraction very infra-dig, although why they aren't just deterred by our many-headed Eric Pickles-hydra I have no idea... 

Finally, a sneaky preview of the main office, more photos and introductions to follow next time...