Norwich Hackspace/Makerspace

[Marion Catlin]

Hello all

Attached are some notes from the last meeting. Below is a cut-down version. I am proposing a follow-up meeting for Monday August 3rd 6pm either at STEW again if they will have us, or a pub. Please reply if you can come - I will confirm venue asap.

Six people attended the meeting: Karl, Marion, Toby, Tristan, Marcus and Jo (Marcus and Jo from STEW and had to leave early. STEW is an artists' collective that runs a bit like a hackspace))

Meeting notes (full notes attached)

There were pretty much two camps of discussion

• a) Karl wants to set up a hackspace as a business venture,  not to profit-making but to give him a job with a reasonable living
  
• b) Toby has been a member of the London hackspace which grew organically from a community and he is more keen on this model
  
• Tristan had no strong feelings either way, having not experienced a hackspace but is interested in a bigger workshop space than he currently has access to
  
• Marion thinks it is possible to combine both approaches and that we should start by building up activities

So suggestion is to run both ways of developing a space in tandem so that they are mutually beneficial ie we build a hackspace community and at the same time, Karl implements his business plan with the group in mind. His plan is for him to take out a business loan, rent some premises, buy some equipment, recruit members and users with various subscription rates. He would be paid out of the income to recruit members, maintain equipment and supervise use, run inductions etc on a 9-5 basis and the hackspace would be open to full members 24/7. During the day, the activity could include more incidental use eg a laser cutter shop for non-members.

He would have the commitment for the space but his model/business plan includes a Board of members who would make decisions etc. I guess there has to be a balance of risk v decision-making power, yet to be decided.

We need to pull together a small team of core members who are prepared to put in effort to move the project forward and make decisions.

We agreed to start building broader interest by running some events such as an Arduino workshop, Raspberry Pi, that kind of thing - charge a small amount and start building a kitty. At the same time, form a core group of members who are prepared to meet frequently and regularly and will commit to building the community and developing the space - ie moving it all forward.

We are also planning to do some visits to other hackspaces.

There was a debate on names - no real conclusion but we felt that it could be good to align ourselves to the bigger hackspace movement. We also wanted to be clear that this is possibly a slightly different proposition to Rob HP's makerspace/fablab move or at least .

Karl is going to set up a MeetUp group as a way of communicating. If anyone is interested in joining the group please ask them to sign up to this Google group norwich-...@googlegroups.com

Meeting ended at 8pm

Marion Catlin BA(Hons) Design PGDip Cultural Planning AD:UK Senior Fellow
Independent cultural development and communications professional 

specialising in arts, culture and heritage

Telephone office 01603 765353  Mobile 07946 261651
LinkedIn Marion de Mello Catlin  Skype marionecatlin
Twitter accounts marionofnorwich and norwichcultcity

Website: www.theshiftnorwich.org.uk

[Jarryd van Zanten]

Hi,

I should be able to make it this time! :)

J