Notman House is giving young founders the chance to invest in its future through a huge Halloween bash on Saturday, October 29.

The all-night, open bar #NotmanBall has already started selling tickets. It’s the inaugural event by the newly-formed Young Founder’s Circle, an initiative created in order to make the historic venue a more inviting place to work for anyone, whether they can afford to rent an office or not.

“There’s no reason to have all this space in Notman House if the community can’t take advantage of it,” said Alexandre Shee, an analyst at Real Ventures. Along with Notman house director Emma Williams, Shee is assisting in the Young Founder’s Circle’s launch.

The Young Founder’s Circle will throw one large event every year in the hopes of raising $30,000 to go directly into Notman House. For starters, one of its roofs has a leak that needs fixing. Even $30,000 won’t come close to fully repairing it but the proceeds form the event will be a start, say the pair.

Primarily the group wants to use some of the cash to create a new space within Notman to offer free desk space for people to work from. Whether its a non-profit, a needy for-profit startup or simply a member of the community, Notman wants to open up more of its beautiful walls to people who may not be able to afford it.

“The goal is to continually renew this space where people might get desk space for six months at a time, if possible. We want to bridge the gap between the young communities in Montreal and to raise money for the startup community,” said Williams.

For many in the community, Notman House was arguably the first true space where the city’s mordern tech and startup community took shape over five years ago. The Young Founders Circle wants more young people in Montreal to become involved with everything that Notman House represents.

“We know that a lot of young people may not have big salaries but they do have networks and they can help us bring people together to Notman House and show that this place can be a place for technology, startups, creatives, service providers and more,” said Williams.

Williams and Shee decided the House needed a kind of board of directors full of younger leaders. It’s a play on the already-existing Founder’s Circle, a group of people who donated money to Notman House when it sought its expansion project in 2012.

The Young Founders Circle will also throw a series of breakfasts and workshops throughout the year leading up to the big October event.

Notman House is “haunted,” said Williams. Naturally, it made sense to throw a massive Halloween bash. The director expects 400 people to attend.

DJs will fill various parts of the house, the ghost of William Notman may make an appearance and Haunted Montreal may even bring in paranormal investigators to inspect the house during the party. After all, there was supposedly a security guard who witnessed a paranormal event at the house in 2002, when it was largely abandoned.

Tickets currently go for $100 or a special VIP price of $150 (only 50 available, including an “exclusive VIP cocktail & mingle the OSMO Foundation’s Board”). However, various ambassadors of the Young Founders Circle will be selling 200 discounted tickets for $75.

MTLinTECH is proud to be the Official Media Partner of the Young Founders Circle and the Notman House Halloween Ball