I have a box of books and toys from my kids art club that I can’t store there now, I’d love to bring it in or gift it to someone. It’s a wide range from toddlers to 10 or 12. All the comics have been grabbed up, kids love them and the stickers most!
Inclusion and diversity at Makerspace
I just wanted to add that once a month I host a craft along session, on average 8 participants attend of which 99% of the turn out are women, and approx 40% ethnic minority.
A suggestion to build on increased diversity reach could be to have sessions/workshops run by those that you are trying to reach. Utilising meetup is a great start as they have ready made groups with mixed diversities right on the South London Makerspace doorstep.
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I just looked up meetup and downloaded the app - it’s amazing! Can’t believe I’ve never seen it before, thanks for the tip. Is this how you find attendees for your workshops? Do you host a regular group?
The other group that’s under-represented is retirees. Makerspace would be a great fit for people with lots of experience and time to do stuff during the day. I’d love to see it as busy during the daytimes as it is in the evenings. @Tansy_Drake had some ideas about reaching out to this group?
Yes, as Tom mentioned above I made contact with the local University of the Third Age(U3A) group last year. But the main interest at the time was carpentry. So we’ve had to wait.
A U3A group using a workshop for a morning every fortnight always felt like a good fit to me.
It’s something I can look into again pretty soon.
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Great see you Friday
@dsikar The term middle class isn’t about wealth, it’s more about social status, but that is an imprecise word. It is a complex subject but includes things like professional, aspirations, etc… It’s very hard to explain unfortunately.
@beth possibly, I think it would be better placed in the membership system so we can run reports on it, but that is very sensitive information and would need to be held much more securely, it would take time and we’d need to know it was worth while.
@StudioNelle Thats another fantastic suggestion, exactly the kind of thinking we need!
@dermot if you could have a chat, the guy got on well with you that would make another great contribution.
I was asking about the minority. How did you work that out?
Hey Sarah,
Glad you like it. Yes it’s the primary source to getting people attending my community workshops. I have 3 including the one at the space.
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I didn’t not mention a minirity I said the majority are middle class.
Your social economic profiling only works for majorities?
I’m not sure this is going anywhere useful, guys.
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We had very positive discussion about this at the meeting.
It was great to hear that members’ experience has been overwhelmingly positive. However we can move from a good place to an even better one. We had some useful feedback and will look at ways of encouraging more.
No room for complacency but we have a welcoming space we can be proud of!
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The problem is that is a self congratulatory pat on the back from people who like Makerspace, saying that Makerspace is good for them so by extension there isn’t an issue. The issue is that there were a large number of members not there, 127, plus 100 or more former members, and hundreds of open evening visitors who never even joined.
I am not saying there is necessarily a major issue, however we need to be extremely careful with this “I’m okay so everyone else is be” idea, and that the majority being okay is good enough, because we’ve got that without trying.
The issue in society is always the people who get ignored and forgotten and it worries me that it was said during the meeting with broad support that:
If the 99% are okay, we shouldn’t be worrying about the 1%.
That to me was a worrying statement from a position of privilege and that number of people agreeing with that without consideration was shocking to me.
I am not trying to make a storm in a tea cup but I really think there are some issues of inclusivity here and the fact Makerspace has elements of an Old Boys Club is problematic.
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I think you know that we’ve tried consciously from the start to have a welcoming culture, so perhaps it’s not really accidental that we appear to be moving towards significantly better gender mix than the average Maker/Hackspace. It may just be coincidence, of course.
You were one of the people there from the start, one of those who was active in pushing high design values, we always believed they would feed into the culture and creativity of the space.
And 1%? I’m not sure who they are or how we reach them. Or if that’s really even our job.
I think you miss understood what I was saying when I said 99%. I think a few people round the table did. Maybe I didn’t say it clearly enough.
It’s quite the opposite infact.
I was saying we seem to be in a situation where a lot of people are very happy at SLMS. That’s great. Something we can be pleased with. But because we can generally agree that most of us are happy, this shouldn’t preclude or negate any one else’s concerns or issues. That in essence was my point.
Maybe the vast majority are happy, maybe all. But that doesn’t mean that bullying, descrimination or abuse of power is not happening. Or even that it is.
Even if it was one person (1%), the thoughts of that person should still be respected. Group dynamics work in ways that it is normally individuals or small groups that get excluded, marginalised or scape goated by the rest of the group.
…pressed submit by accident. Still typing…
I don’t think we have a problem at the moment.
But it’s not really for any one apart from the person on the end of it to say that really. I hope that makes sense.
Any way. I think any think like this is very delicate.
So I think we should put an annoimous feedback form on the site. It doesn’t have to just be for bullying blah blah. At that point we would have a much better idea of if we actually have a problem or if it’s just an academic debate we are having.
The things we have talked about are bad. But I think the community is strong and wouldn’t accept this kind of stuff. If there are issues let’s have a way to bring them up easily and quickly.
Then we can deal with anything that comes up.
Until then it’s a bit too theoretical in my mind.
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First, I just want to make it clear that the purpose of this thread is to have a conversation about how we change rather than trying to justify that something is wrong it feels like I am having to defend that there might be an issue and this is becoming tiresome, if you don’t agree there is an issue please start a new thread about that.
@boldaslove Thanks for clarifying your intended meaning.
I don’t agree with this statement from my own experience and from having witnessed or been told of first hand incidents.
I would like to think so, but I think the issue is it’s hard to see when things affect others as they won’t bring it up, anonymously or otherwise. Some of the things said and done in the Makerspace not aimed at me, have made me feel uncomfortable, having spoken with the individual they defended this action, no one else present spoke up to my knowledge.
Yes it is our job, we created a community and now we have to ensure everyone is welcome and made to feel comfortable.
Hi running 5 mins late! Sorry
oh m ygosh im so sorry i forgot!!! Will be there in 5
No problemo! 