Benefits of Membership

#1

Hey everyone,

Ahead of this weekend’s launch event I thought it might be good to give our Become a Member page a bit of an overhaul.
http://southlondonmakerspace.org/become-a-member/

We should probably cover:

  • Key benefits of membership
  • Talk a little about the membership, ie. it’s a rolling contract
  • Current membership levels?

In addition to this, my questions to the current membership are:

  • Was there a something or something that got you to sign up?
  • What do you enjoy most about being a member?

Guess this is a question for @marketing, though not sure if that’s been tasked to anyone yet and thought it be great to get some thoughts from all @members

#2

Good post. And I’d agree, the front-of-house website definitely needs an overhaul. If it wasn’t for Tommel’s redesign / reimplementation, I’d have knocked it around a bit myself.

Not sure we need to get into specifics of membership numbers. To my mind, what is pertinent is that it’s large enough to share the rent on the arch, small enough to be appropriate to the facilities and remain functioning social community. And that we’re mindful of the balance.

If we want to get to it, it’s 100+.

What got me signed up? Access to a 24/7 workshop space with a laser cutter. It didn’t have a laser cutter at that point, but I was playing the long game for something affordable and local to me.

What have I used since?

  • The suction pump desoldering iron, when assembling PCBs with tricky components. I have a lot of love for that piece of kit.
  • Clean assembly space.
  • Machining tools, of which back then was a bodge but we’re much better equipped for now.
  • Aaaaand a 4m metal pole bolted into the back of the arch, which clearly isn’t an option now =]

#3

Thinking outloud, it might also be useful to have a “this is our space” section, maybe discoursed, that lists what things are, what you might hear them talked about as, and what you’d find / make / do in each of them.

Edit: I’m broken at work today, so maybe I’ll just do this. Doesnt sound hard.

#4

Something along the lines of

https://discourse.southlondonmakerspace.org/c/space/tools

But for the three rooms?

#5

yeah, pretty much a landing page for that. Can also contain weird and wacky nomenclature, for the lost or easily confused.

#6

Thanks for the input Toby, much appreciated.

The 24/7 access definifely is going to be the main feature of membership, so perhaps it’s a case of breaking that out a little

  • 24/7 Access to Workshop
    Each member gets their own access fob to unlock the doors and raise the shutter.
  • Flexible Working Areas
    The recently completed second phase of building works in the space
  • Selection of tools
    The space is now equipped with [list some significant items] as well as [some other things].

In addition to the space you’re joining a group of 80/90/100 architects, designers, engineers, makers, seamster, printers and tinkerers. Each of us exploring our own projects and interests through Makerspace whether that’s within the workshop or via the Discussion boards. Open evenings are a great way to find out a bit about what project’s are going on.

I think there’s a huge amount of value in the members of Makerspace and it’s important that highlight that. But at the same time getting a membership shouldn’t entitle anyone to another member’s time…

#7

seamstress is a gendered word, and I know for a fact we have plenty of seamstors (?) as well.

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#8

That sounds great, I was thinking that marketing site would link through to various locations within Discourse for the latest and greatest information.

On the Become a Member page it could be useful to list out significant / popular items grouped by space? Anyone able to put that together? Not sure if I know my tools well enough…

#9

My bad @tomnewsom. Seamfolk? Seamstros https://morewomeninskepticism.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/31-accept-and-use-gender-neutral-terms/

#10

I think a clearout of the #space category is in order. It wasn’t really intended as a place for discussion, but documentation.

#11

Don’t know if discourse is the best way to write something out collaboratively

@peter_hellyer if you’ve got a bit of time on this that would be great I’ve put up a Piratepad at:
http://piratepad.net/D8UvazkAdL

Can be a little glitchy but unless we get a few dozen people in there it should work fine.

#12

Nice start you’ve made :thumbsup:
I like :slight_smile:
Although I’d avoid introducing new jargon/in-jokes. They promote an “in-jokes for the in-crowd” atmosphere IMO.

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#13

Noted. I was going for somewhere in the middle, the kind of “we don’t take everything all that seriously” approach, but could go either way, I agree.