Following on from our #Makerdifference campaign (which raised Ā£5,743.00 mainly for PPE production) weāre launching another campaign in response to COVID-19
In essence weāre focused on wellbeing and community engagement through making, with an emphasis on local BAME residents
We have several strands, and opportunities for members to get involved with each and develop them at many levels, this is draft/embryonic at the moment and weād love as many members to participate as possible ā read though the rest of this post and see what youāre drawn to or excited by or want to addā¦
Making as key to wellbeing
This time weāre focused on how making can be key to our wellbeing
(Check out the 5 ways to wellbeing as see how they fit your experience of making)
We have an outdoor workshop (our āOuter Spaceā) and weād like to run some free skills/making workshops for the local communityā¦so weāre looking for ideas and people to run them
Bear in mindā¦
- it might be cold, so short workshops could be in order?
- participants should get a sense of achievement and possibly a physical object to take home
- sustainability is a core value for SLMS
- will be very small groups (6 and under)
- this is free for participants via funding from our Just Giving campaign
- doesnāt have to be super excitingā¦āhow to change a plugā can be life-changing for some people
Possible suggestions: mask making workshop, design and screen print a tote bag, Arduino 101ā¦furniture from an old skateboard (in development with Grace and Alex)
If you have an idea for a workshop/skillshare message @directors or make a post to discuss it
We will break this out into a separate thread and more specific guide if needed
Working with community groups on maker solutions
This would involve reaching out to local groups, identifying pain points/needs and seeing how we can work with them to find solutionsā¦our page says this:
Weāll engage and co-create maker solutions to ongoing issues - could be by building an air purifier or developing āno touchā door openers for a community centreā¦we know that we donāt know quite what it will be, but we will bring our facilities, skills and enthusiams to compliment those of local makers
The key here is that we wonāt know what the needs are until we engage, though we can have some potential offers on hand. If you have any skills/experience in this area let us know, or if youāre in contact with a community venue or organisation that might benefit from working with us please make that connection
Air purifiers
We prototyped our Ā£300 SAM (Sweet Air Machine) during Lockdown 1.0 and Mk2 has been happily scrubbing the air in the Clean Room for the last few months. Aerosol transmission is becoming widely accepted as a major vector for COVID-19, and air purification is recognised as a solution where enhanced ventilation is not possible. With winter drawing in many places that achieved good ventilation by opening windows will be less inclined to do soā¦in which case there may be a need for a relatively cheap and effective DIY purifier. SAM was always designed with open-sourcing in mind, and to do this weād need a small team to check over the design, feedback towards a simple DIY kit and prepare a B.O.M. and CAD/CAM files to share
Supporting local businesses
We set up a simple e-commerce site for local independent businesses and supplied face shields and masks as part of #Makerdifference. This time round businesses are much better prepared for lockdown, but weāre ready to help if needed (air purifiers might be the thing?)
PPE
And we have all the facilities and skill to make masks and face shields if needed, and of course our āwindow masksā for lip readers which is a possible boom area. We also have designer masks with logos by Tye Jones (as seen on the JG page)
Publicity and social media
Want to get involved on this side of things, identify yourselves!
General planning
This is just a draft outline and once we get going weāll need to fill in a lot of details, advertise stuff, manage bookings, source materials, risk assessā¦etc. if that side of things is your bag then we need you!
Funding
Mostly this will work like most things at SLMS: as a volunteer-run campaign, but some aspects of it will be funded:
Running a workshop represents a time commitment to prepare and deliver, so we think itās a good idea to fund whoever runs them, as opposed to accepting donations, so itās clear for the participants that the workshops are Ā£free. Also we will be looking for local people to run workshops and skill shares and want to be able to offer remuneration, especially in the current erratic employment situation
Weāll consider funding other activities on a case by case basis (and dependent on how the fundraising goes: we have Ā£900 so far)
Zoom meeting
Will have a Zoom meeting to gather and develop ideas and move forward. Date/timeTBCā¦in the meantime we can discuss it below
done thx