Good point - you’ve convinced me that it’s useful to capture a definable list of “people who wanted to join but couldn’t”. As opposed to a formal waiting list, or a load of extra people on the main mailing list.
Your rhetoric is infallible.
Makerspace hits 340 members!
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Now there’s enough data, it does look like there was a jump in signup rates around mid February. 15th Feb was the cutoff date for removing personal projects and tools from LHS. Correlation ≠ causation of course.
Is there a manual, blueprint and/or business plan for replicating a makerspace?
It’s clearly an increasingly popular idea given sustainability concerns which have turned into a frenzy since an episode of Blue Planet.
Even Barclays has them now!
There’s obviously a demand and if a new group wanted to find a space and start one it would be very useful to have a manual (including templates, useful documents, contact list, sources of help, pitfalls, etc.)
If there’s not, then I’d happily be involved in compiling one.
Perfick thanks. I’ll have a look through that
What Barclays has isn’t really like Makerspace.
“'I’m Going To Build My Own Makerspace With Blackjack and …”
I know it’s just a poor corporate copy but it shows that it’s financially viable and/or worrying them enough to attempt imitation.
All they are doing is using it as a marketing / csr gimmick.
The focus is on providing facilities for young people so they look like they are investing in young people.
Makerspace and Hackspace have never been financially viable businesses. They almost all operate on volunteer labour (SLMS/LHS) Those that don’t have a focus on higher paying SMEs (building bloqs) as their customer or are funded for a period of time before collapsing (eagle labs, fab lab, tech shop, etc)
Lots of organisations do quite well with volunteers and good will.
Most corporations would fail if employees worked to rule or even against them.
The religious money system isn’t sustainable. Look at the plastics nightmare which I believe is linked to increased cancer rates.
With the wealth of knowledge, skills, tools, resources and goodwill available I think the Makerspace model could be financially viable, with a few tweaks and potentially even without volunteers.
It’s all about the right structures
I think Croydon could be ideal for a SLM2.
- Excellent 24 hours transport
- Loads of empty spaces
- I’m there already with enough stuff to kit it out with the basics (eg. computers, tools, 3D printer)
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Closer is better, but a good transport link between the spaces would go a long way
Please feel free to investigate
make it so
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Takes me 30mins with electric bike and train. Probably 45mins by train & tram.
Space availability and suitability seems to be the biggest hurdle.
Can I get copies of SLM organisational documents:
Eg. Accounts, constitution, policy, architectural plans, etc
These you can get from companies house. Policies are where available on discourse, architectural plans I can’t help with I’m afraid.
Accounts
Makerspace only submits the short accounts though so there is no way to see what it actually spends money on in detail.
I have previously suggested this isn’t transparent and there is no good reason for a member owned organisation not to show this information to it’s members.
Constitution / Policy
Makerspace doesn’t really have one, there are the articles of association which are mostly boiler plate except:
There are as @peter_hellyer mentioned the various different rules that are semi-official and there is a code of conduct but this was all written a long time ago and has only has very minor updates as the governance working group was meant to be reviewing these things but that kind of fell apart (in my mind due to scope creep), the exception is the grievance procedure.
Plans
You should ask for these from @tomnewsom.
Other
Other than this there are guides on Hackspace Foundation and a meet up of people who organise these spaces called Open Workshop London, email me if you are interested in this.
Also would say that the lesson I learnt from helping to setup SLMS with @tomnewsom is that you need a mission statement/constitution/terms of reference from day one and display it clearly so that everyone is on the same page, it’s one of the points of most contention to this date with SLMS.
Also second absolutely must is not just to build a community but a steering group/directors/trustees what ever who are truly diverse.
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Thanks ever so. That’s exactly what I wanted.
You’re right, everything should be transparent. Unless there’s a very good reason why not. Obviously personal information should be removed, unless consensual.
I’ll read the links you’ve given and ask @tomnewsom for the plans.
Sounds like Open Workshop London would be very useful to my vision for SLM2
Agreed. Structure has integrity
This is not hidden from members, unless you mean the minutiae?
It’s also against my instinct to share this information beyond the membership – but that’s probably just a business hangover…