Also if you can’t work from home you are encouraged to go to work as long as workplace has covid compliant measures eg social distancing in work place.
Which point might the makerspace be back?
I was just refering to the previous point about a social meet in the park.
To your point, I am not sure if things changed but SLMS used to be a hobbyists/community space not intended for work purposes and that commercial use was discouraged.
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I agree. Just sharing the wider recommendations.
Perhaps it’s time membership has an open conversation about monetised work - it’s occured in the past to varying degrees - now with severe financial difficulties faced by many perhaps that leniency could be refined to help members. Not everyone receives government support, and those that do will very likely end June 30th, at least furlough subsidies.
On that topic @directors is slms eligible for any of the business grants, no interest loans etc.?
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It’s always been a bit of a grey area of treading the line of reasonable use which is probably how it should stay IMO but…
I think it would be interesting to see the conversation but the three major obstacles that exist to this:
- Commercial members need things to be more reliable than a maker or hack space can normally provide with it’s unpaid equiptment owners (@roles in SLMS terminology)
- Commercial members use things more which requires causes more wear on equiptment often not spec’d for commerical use, (SLMS has been better at buying/getting better quality stuff).
- Commercial members need more of the (space • time) factor i.e. how much time/space each member needs.
Another final consideration is the business model, spaces which operate for commercial makers do exist, and indeed so do hybrid spaces which mix this, but they usually have staff, this costs more money and would definitely put SLMS into the VAT range but in your example these members would be hard off, unlikely to pay the £200-300 a month rent for a coworking desk.
It probably makes most sense for SLMS to focus on the value it brings to a community through wellbeing, learning, circular economy (repair/upcycle/refurblishing things) and continue to let individuals who have business ideas use the facilities for prototyping and limited manufacturing but let other spaces be co-working spaces.
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I saw, again on the BBC, that R was developed by the (Tony) Bliar Institute and John Hopkins university.
Strangely I can’t find any mention of his ‘gift’ to humanity now.
Maybe we could temporarily relax that rule for now?
How are we avoiding this with the 2nd arch?
VAT registration kicks in when turnover hits…£85,000 (?)…if we increase our membership pool and/or the monthly fee, at some point we will pass that threshold.
Paying more rent (or any outgoing) does not trigger VAT. Caveat - i’m not an accountant.
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I’m missing the smell of sawdust haha
Really. being in the space and around other makers was also great for mental health - I dont make anything commercially for sale.
Just want to see the space open - even if that’s a very limited form…or even working on Arch 2 which is much easier to social distance.
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Yes, the lockdown changes didn’t really give us much
Work (including volunteering work) are the only current justifications I can personally see for using a space like ours right now. Hence the access for PPE production (but most assembly being done off site)
This pretty clearly excludes personal projects – the main purpose of Makerspace. And for clarity: any activity must fall into those categories: we’re not interested in testing the boundaries of the lockdown
The huge benefits of making are clear to me, and I believe we can create COVID-safe working practices if we put the work in
Let’s keep watching the situation/govt clarifications
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I’m fairly positive that this concept has been used in epidemiology for decades, if not hundreds of years.
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Hi all any updates or thoughts of the space reopening since lockdown easing?
Still looks like July for personal making (at the moment that’s the guidance)
Working on the Space and other volunteering can start happening much sooner (COVID-19 PPE for example)
It would be great if we could continue working on Arch 2, do we have an update on the current situation there?
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Independence Day : )
Will there be limits of how many people come it ect when it opens?
Usually before Covid I never really saw a huge amount of people in there at one time
Yes, likely with a booking system
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So with shops etc. opening is there any news on SLMS opening soon. I can see some people are using the shutter again but wondering if that’s just still for PPE reasons. I mean surely risk is about the same as shops if we keep numbers down
Shops are opening with high risk for the sake of the economy – we don’t come into that category. Likely 4th July…but with the erratic approach of the government: who really knows
And yes: COVID-19 production and development is the sole use at the moment…but there’ll be some call outs for a big clean/reorganise before reopening
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