Would it be ok to show a SLMS-interested friend around the workshops sometime, if a Wednesday Open Evening isn’t possible for them?
I’m not sure on the etiquette or rules for that sort of thing.
Thanks!
Bringing non-member into Space?
The more, the merrier! Guests are always very welcome to come along!
All members are allowed to bring a guest whenever they want.
Thank you, Mark and Joe. I’d guessed that was the case, but wanted to be sure.
Am I right in thinking that guests can use induction only tools, provided the member who brought them is inducted and closely supervises?
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yes and no …
If your guest gets hurt it’s your problem.
Yeah this is something we should clarify at some point
Interesting… though in the case I had in mind, I hadn’t dreamed of letting a guest use anything at all (never even occurred to me as a possibility and would not be comfortable with that).
Yea we need to have a clear policy on this…
Either way, the guests actions are 100% your responsibility…
Sum up the problem I am quite happy to let your kids push it through the table saw under my Close supervision, but as you also know other members showing people how to use machines they’ve been inducted on scares the s*** out of me.
Think it’s important that we let people bring their kids here and let their kids get used to doing stuff, maybe an induction and signed exemption for parents bringing their kids here, but if someone over 18 once to play they should join in their own right
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Can we think this through please. It’s ok for guests to use induction-only tools when an inducted member closely supervises, but it’s not ok for members? Members have to wait until they are inducted. At the moment I can’t get on with a project that I’d use the Bambu 3D printer for because I’m still on the very long waiting list. If a non-inducted guest can get to use it when supervised by an inducted user, why can’t I as a member?
I think it’s a very very bad idea to let guests use some tools, even if closely supervised by an inducted member. That inducted member might be a newbie without the experience and understanding of the tool and awareness of safety that a tech has.
There are certainly members who have good experience who can supervise use by non-inducted users. IMO that should be signed off by the techs for those tools. Only those who have the proficiency and signed off like that should be able to supervise. That would be at techs discretion. They might very sensibly decide that some tools should only be used by a fully inducted user. That is a safety issue and risk assessment that should be in their hands.
Then if that’s allowed for guests, it should be allowed for members too - unless there is some very good reason I’m missing.
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ditto!
I wasn’t proposing that as a policy, I was asking for clarification on what I believed the existing policy to be
To be clear - I wasn’t restricting that to guests only, if another member wants to use a tool but isn’t inducted I don’t see any particular issue with walking them through the safety steps for a quick job. If it’s something extended that you’re not able to closely supervise or if it’s something potentially very dangerous like the planer thicknesser then this clearly doesn’t apply, but I think we should be wary of introducing too much bureaucracy to the process if someone just needs to make a handful of mitre saw cuts or something
Got that, and I get where you are coming from. As @asander1 said there needs to be a clear policy on this. There doesn’t seem to be. I’m stressing that that should be thought through. I think it could be a really good thing for very proficient members to share skills like that (a bit like the Makerbuddy initiative). But it does need to be thought through rather than letting any inducted member supervise.
That’s clear enough to you and I, but what about a new guy with a TP gold card?
No it’s specifically Close supervision of the of the members guess
Yes, I get that. I’m just saying that member might not be as safety conscious as needed to supervise their guest and to them, the planer thicknesser, welder etc. are fair go. We’re on the same page.
And why restrict it to supervision is by the member who brings the guest? Why not allow a non-inducted person to be closely supervised by any member who is approved by the techs as proficient to supervise a non-inducted user on that tool? Realistically, that’s going to be ok in practice, if so, lets have a policy which reflects what is sound and sensible rather than being haphazard (and potentially insanely dangerous).
I haven’t seen a policy written down, will have a search… there is likely a precedent that has been used, but we should be clear.
Sounds like a good one for the next members meeting… will add it.
Related question: I know there’s a minimum age of 18 for membership but am I able to bring a 16 year old in if they’re supervised at all times?
Bike shedding, verb describing the pursuit of irrelevant things because the important things are difficult.
We are experts at bike shedding, figuring out liabilities is hard so we make a guess and then through the medium of word of mouth it the more sensible suggestions become some sort of muddy policy that never gets written down because that would be difficult.
Unless somebody with some sort of formal legal training can outline the boundaries of the liabilities we can only make wild and exuberant gases what we should do. Asking the members is a completely pointless exercise without the members being informed of the exact boundaries and consequences.
I would argue that we need a system that
1 . allows parents to bring their children and let their children actually do something.
2 . Allows members to bring guests in and help with their projects.
3 . Remove liability from the maker space if someone allows their kids or Friends to do something stupid.
We should ask the members what else they would like added to this list and then ask somebody who knows what they’re talking about to go and figure out a policy and then put that policy in front of the members.
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at the moment I don’t think that would be a problem