Re: Community organisation would like access to leather and sewing studios for disabled & deaf

[Vivas Pro]

Thank you for all your comments regarding the above topic.

 

VivasPro would like to apologise for any misunderstanding regarding the announcement on our Facebook page. We came to the induction on Tuesday and spoke with Andy. During this conversation we were under the impression that we had been given the green light to go ahead at Hackspace and so we placed Hackspace's address on our advertising.  Andy did suggest we send an email to the trustees and we thought it was to advise us how to register each member rather than seeking their approval. 

We all apologise for this misunderstanding. 

Overall we have been clear and transparent throughout and are in no way trying to omit anything. Our group email bounced few times so we are very grateful that we are now added to this communication and can grasp what is going on. 

We would like to introduce ourselves as  not for profit community organisation which helps disadvantaged and deaf/disabled people from the community who want to learn new skills. We need a space for them to come and learn/practice leather-work, woodwork and sewing. We support disadvantaged members of the community to enable equal access. We do not run a business or service. 

 

We are not looking to 'sign members up in bulk without going through the normal channels' as someone has said. We are a community based group who simply want to help a few disabled people who are interested in learning a new skill to sign up as members at Hackspace and use the space. These people do not know how to access Hackspace as some have learning disabilities and as they are deaf, they need communication support i.e sign language interpreters to help them. They cannot do it by themselves and we are merely assisting them. We are happy to modify our workshops to suit your space. If easier, each deaf/disabled person can sign up individually and pay the membership fee.

In addition any of the existing Hacspace members, provided they fit in the criteria,  can sign up for any of the workshops they may be interested in attending.

 

We understand that Hackspace is a space for individuals to come and share equipment and knowledge. It seems to us that this exactly matches what we are trying to do with the deaf/disabled individuals we are helping. We are do not wish to cause offence or grievance and are slightly anxious that some people have misunderstand or miscommunicated our noble aims.

We understand that Hackspace is not so concerned with money as with responsibility and safety. Those that become members agree to certain rules to allow the space to run smoothly and do what it is intended to do. We will support and assist the deaf/disabled individuals who want to access Hackspace to comply with the rules and be true members, not just people who have paid a membership fee. We will make sure they understand the rules and have the induction and ensure appropriate supervision at all times. We could also arrange a separate additional induction with the deaf/disabled people - this is something we would like to discuss with any current members who think this is a good idea. 

We truly trust this is clear now and we would like to start the workshops if possible please. We would be grateful for your help. If any current members use British Sign Language we would welcome the opportunity to meet them and introduce them to the deaf/disabled individuals.

Please contact me for any further information you may need.

Kind regards

 

Sheila

[Giacomo Giacomo]

Hello Sheila, thank you for explaining your groups aims and requirements.  

Would you be able to elaborate on the criteria for existing hackspace members to sign up for workshops?  Existing groups or specific tools (such as Playwood or the Lasercutter) have inductions to use the tools and workshop space.   AFAIK the only criteria is membership.  

What would be your plans, for example, joint workshops for hearing impaired and hackspace members or separate workshops for both groups?

Could you describe your proposed schedule of workshops - how many hours per day/days per week/weeks per year would you be proposing?  Would these scale and increase over the course of a year?  Which rooms or spaces would you like to use and how/would they they be shared with normal activities?

You could find that approaching the hackspace with a sample or test event to begin with.  Then asking for slow expansion to other events on a semi-regular basis would be better to introduce something that is quite exciting, but completely new.  I would be very interested in your workshops, as they sound very interesting and would give me useful skills to make new things.   

Thanks, 

Giacomo

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[Vivas Pro]

Hi Tim and Giacomo and others

 

Tim - At the moment we have very few learners for leatherwork about 3-4. Thank you very  much for your most kindest offer – if we do borrow your tools we will keep it in a very good order. We have not got scheduled any workshop for weekends at the moment, but we can meet with you at some mutually convenient weekend once we know exactly how many Deaf are coming.

 

Giacomo - We think at the moment it will be 1 time per week for 3-4 hrs for leatherwork, and also sewing. Sewing are about 3 Deaf females. We do not think the pace will escalate nor we think it will increase with time, we intend to keep it 3 -4 persons per workshop. If there are more people we will have 2 slots per day or something similar, depending on the free time of the tutor and memebers' own time. We are flexible in this regards and can modify the structure to fit around the time of Hackspace members. This is also new for us to operate in the shared facilities, so we will have to learn too:) At the start we will use leatherwork and sewing table. It will not interfere with the others in my view because of quite small group we will have now. We will see how it all happens and will always endavour to tune in smoothly. 

The criteria to join is to have any type of disability or disadvantage, or any shape or form of trauma. Any age (16+) colour, race, denomination is welcome. 

We will be there tonight for induction, and good idea to have a test for tomorrow and Thursday - thank you for suggestion to do the few test-courses, I think that is precisely what we also had in mind.

Tonight our whole team will be there to meet with Hack-members.  

Kind regards

Sheila

    Stop Abuse Forever

  0744 86 45 679                              www.vivaspro.org.uk      

  facebook.com/vivas.pro.90             twitter.com/ViivaPro

  vivapro.wordpress.com              youtube.com/user/VivasProTV

[tim_n]

Doesn't sound like it's going to take up more than a couple of desks worth.  It might need to be revaluated if hundreds of people turned up, but otherwise I wouldn't have an issue.

Sounds like more of an asset than an anchor.

[Charles Yarnold]

So despite being told by the trustees to wait for confirmation you have done this anyway?

It's also worth pointing out that:

• Vivas are an outside company who have yet to have any members at the hackspace.

• They have posted an advert about the event the same day they emailed the trustees about the possibility of hosting events.

• They started signing up members to the system this same day.

• The events are for an unspecified amount of time, class size, date and frequency.

• The events are only exclusively for those with disabilities within their catchment.

• They are looking to hire the space as a workshop

• They are a commercial entity that receives funding.

"The workshops are funded by the Arts Council and will be in Flower Arranging, Leather-Work, Sewing, Drawing/Painting and Jewellery Making. We need to hire a suitable studio/space for these workshops as soon as possible."

More "emotive" things

• Despite being shown the guide to organising the event and being told they will need approval before they could hold events they dismissed this and have proceed anyway.

• They have switched from looking to hire a venue for events to the unspecified length, date etc usage of the hackspace though the membership "loophole" for classes between their client and teacher.

• They have emailed the mailing list as an announcement not a request "We will make the announcement too and would greatly appreciate the trustees’ prompt response."
  

I hate that anyone with issues about how this is being run by this outside organisation have been forced into adding this caveat by Dean, but this post has nothing to do with the participants being deaf or disabled.

[JJ]

Apologies if I'm missing the obvious but it's not clear from their website what the entity, format and legal status of Vivas Pro actually is, or any real contact information?  It describes itself as a 'charitable organisation' but that's not the same as being a registered charity. The domain is registered to a UK individual and although breaching Nominet regulations is hardly a serious matter it doesn't demonstrate good faith either.

Bottom line is whether using the space for the price of a few (minimum rate?) membership fees is subsidising someone's income. 

[deanforbes]

JJ I assume your "bottom line" argument also applies to all the Tindie and Ettsy store product that is made here by a number of members including trustees ..... 

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/london-hack-space/QlrRLRPJp3g/Gyen8HQ-AQAJ - the various scenarios in this thread all I believe put this into context as well as some of the ridiculous aspersions 

That prospective member use the space in the interim period while waiting for their payment to be cleared is common practice and has been since I have joined in August 2011, I am confident that if there were more than 30 member in the space at any time there would be about 3 people who are in this position - so the question is why are these people being treated differently 

My View 

They have an "event" which is a group gathered in an area, which  happens all the time and as new members (pending) moved to quickly for the pace of the hackspace (hardly a hanging offence) 

We have I believe sevral; business resident in the space estate agent ranging apparently from estate agent to architects and designers to developers - if the board don't know about it they don't have their eyes on the road. (I  would be astounded if the did not ) 

[Charles Yarnold]

On 28 April 2016 at 07:55, deanforbes <m...@deanforbes.com> wrote:

My View 

They have an "event" which is a group gathered in an area, which  happens all the time and as new members (pending) moved to quickly for the pace of the hackspace (hardly a hanging offence) 

There is a marked difference between new members moving too fast and an outside funded company registering members themself to have a cheap place to hold their own workshops while ignoring emails from trustees about how they should proceed.

To that effect they have started their courses that have no set dates, times, sizes or memberships already and have started talking about 20+ "bookings".

[David Murphy]

Not sure if this link will work but their articles on company house seem to look reasonable. Limited company but lots of references to being bound by the the charity act (I'm no lawyer) but it looks like a fairly standard charity. Their stated goals in that match their claimed motives here.

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08913388/filing-history

It is vexing that they've not waited to get things OK'd and advertised before getting agreement.
Is there more going on behind the scenes?

I wonder if they understand the significance of locking some members out of the events. I'm sure it's well intentioned but would I be right in thinking that it would make it the first such event to officially disallow attendance of a portion of members? Is there a reason to exclude those members like the conditions of one of their grants or is it just ideological?

That being said the groups I saw on tuesday seemed congenial and I'm generally in favor of their goals.

[Billy]

I don't think that they would want to exclude other members, as there's a lot of skill-sharing we could do.

Yes, they have their remitt, but if they can't organise events without excluding other members, then maybe they should need to find a more appropriate venue-for-hire, rather than the hackspace.

[Billy]

Please note, that i'm always interested in learning more leather-working techniques, and sharing what i have already learned.

It's the exclusion that i am objecting to, as well as the presumption, ie. advertising the events before they had any confirmation.