Ending membership

[tomwj]

Hi,

I'm not sure what the process is for ending membership, I've cancelled my direct debit and there should be a box in the space that says tomwj on it which still has a tiki-tag reader in which belongs to the space and the box should be returned to general use. I guess any RFID cards I currently have registered to doorbot should also be removed.

It's been interesting to see the space grow in members and size from the old space above the archery range to the two Cremer St. business units. The facilities and number of tools available is now huge. Having said that the huge growth has caused its own problems a lot I think have to do with informal arrangements not scaling well. I have various thoughts about this but they are moot given I'm ending my membership.

I should probably say that I'm ending my membership because I've moved to Ipswich and I wasn't getting to the space very often even when I lived in London. If anyone else is interested in meeting up in Ipswich to discuss setting up a Hackspace let me know (I'll start another topic for that).

Tom

[Martin Dittus]

Hey Tom,

Indeed it is sufficient to simply stop your payments.

Yes I think there's now a general agreement that we need to figure out how to deal with our current size. I'm looking forward to making a few changes myself, as has been discussed on this list.

Do check in whenever you're back in London!

m.

[Jonty Wareing]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "tomwj" <tomwje...@gmail.com>

> It's been interesting to see the space grow in members and size from
> the old space above the archery range to the two Cremer St. business
> units. The facilities and number of tools available is now huge.
> Having said that the huge growth has caused its own problems a lot I
> think have to do with informal arrangements not scaling well. I have
> various thoughts about this but they are moot given I'm ending my
> membership.

They're not moot at all, please do let us know what you think should
be done.

If you're not comfortable talking about it in public, email
trus...@london.hackspace.org.uk

--jonty

[Steff]

On 9 October 2012 19:10, tomwj <tomwje...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm not sure what the process is for ending membership, I've cancelled my
> direct debit and there should be a box in the space that says tomwj on it
> which still has a tiki-tag reader in which belongs to the space and the box
> should be returned to general use. I guess any RFID cards I currently have
> registered to doorbot should also be removed.

Thank you for this - you've reminded me to do the same. I haven't been
along in a long while, and it seems I'll be moving to Stockholm in the
nearish future so it seems like the right moment. There seem to be
several hackspaces there...

S

[Akki]

Hi there,

My friend, Jon Benton, is trying to start an Ipswich hackspace. The website is http://www.ipswichhackspace.org.uk/ and they have details on there about joining their facebook and google groups.

~Akki

[tomwj]

Thanks, Akki I met John last night at the Curiosity Collective meeting which was really good he mentioned someone called Heather from london this may be you or someone else from London.

 

With regards to the space I think it would make sense for the different interest groups take control of tool access of the relevant tools this already seems to happen with the biohackers, music guys, it would probably makes sense to do this for the mechanical/welding stuff, woodwork and electronics. It would also help make the space a bit more personable if they had meetings on different days ( I realise there could be issues with this given the size of the space). 500+ poeple requires a fundamental change in how things operate, it's very hard to run a meeting with this many people let alone expect everyone to know each other.

 

There has been talk of putting access control on all the tools I think this is a really good idea. It could give a trail to who last used the tools if they did get damaged and there should be strong encouragement if you've damaged something i.e. if you blunt this chisel you should have someone who knows how to sharpen them correctly (found through sub group for relevant tools) supervise while whoever has damaged them fixes them. This isn't nessasarily going to be possible for everything but I think it's important for people to be their so they understand what is involved in keeping stuff in good working order. The other benefit is it enforces training/ confirmation that someone is competent. I guess a final benefit is it increases somewhat the security although this doesn't appear to have been a major issue to date ignoring people borrowing things unannounced.

 

Having meetings in person allows for much higher bandwidth communications. The current email/irc based system isn't fit for purpose anymore. Having minutes from meetings announced would be important to keep everyone updated to what current thinking and consensus is. As for coming to decisions I'd recommend consensus decision making, there are guides on the internet but it's likely there is someone who could run a course on this. It seems like the most well suited to the culture and attitude of the hackspace. It may make sense to have raporters from the different sub groups if the meetings get to big and unwiedly.

 

In summary:

1. Formation of sub groups with ownership/control of relevant tools (with clear contacts)
2. Access control put on everything
3. Face to face meetings to discuss issues fortnightly

Anyway these are my thoughts. I don't think there is anything that is particularly novel here but it's what I think would be the most important things to get done to solve the major problems at the space.

 

Tom

[Mark Steward]

On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 1:54 PM, tomwj <tomwje...@gmail.com> wrote:

Having meetings in person allows for much higher bandwidth communications. The current email/irc based system isn't fit for purpose anymore. Having minutes from meetings announced would be important to keep everyone updated to what current thinking and consensus is. As for coming to decisions I'd recommend consensus decision making, there are guides on the internet but it's likely there is someone who could run a course on this. It seems like the most well suited to the culture and attitude of the hackspace. It may make sense to have raporters from the different sub groups if the meetings get to big and unwiedly.

I disagree - meeting in person tends to result in a lot of pauses and umms.  Real-time meetings (this includes IRC) are great for getting everyone up to date and brainstorming, as long as you keep them short and to-the-point.  However, as soon as you end up debating stuff, it's better to have it laid out in email or arguments get missed and you end up overrunning.  You can't force people to come to meetings/IRC, so all we really need is the summary/report part.

Right now I know of nobody interested in creating summaries of decisions and goings-on in the space.

Mark

[Martin Dittus]

I don't think that's always true. It depends on the group, the setting, etc. You can make a big difference by having a clear meeting agenda, and enough people around who help keep the discussion focused.

I also think that physical meetings allow people to form bonds in ways that don't easily happen online. Additionally the small cost of having to actually travel for a discussion can serve as a means of keeping out snipers/casual trolls who may simply not bother to attend.

But I agree with the general observation -- not everything needs to happen in the same virtual/physical place, and it would be good to get a better sense of this. Some of the Hackspace patterns can help there, but it more and more seems to me like we need to start writing some of our own.

> Right now I know of nobody interested in creating summaries of decisions and goings-on in the space.

I think that's a fair assessment.

m.

[Dario]

Tom and all,

I think a week is a decent time to wait before beginning the scavenging? As a new member I was wondering how to proceed with bringing my own storage box on the premises, there seems to be an awful lot of boxes on the shelves and I am not sure if I could find a space to put mine... do I just help myself to an empty slot? and if there isn't one, any chance I could take your Tom?
I don't expect to be leaving an awful lot of stuff on the premises as my projects will usually Arduino/RasPi and electronic-centric but I thought it would be good etiquette to ask the group beforehand.

Any hints much appreciated
Dario

P.S. Best of luck in Ipswich, I've been there quite a few times to visit BT at their Adastral Park campus :-)