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Hi Deech,<br>
<br>
First of all thanks alot for your support words. The feedback that
we get from your comments and all the other guys that send us emails
and that we personally talk to is very encoraging.<br>
<br>
The simple statment that many of you started the exact same way as
we are now makes us believe that we are not so off target. And I
completly understand your advice, "Go Forward" is the way to go :)<br>
<br>
Thanks for sharing (and for actually reading the blog btw :)<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
kripthor<br>
<br>
On 05/05/2011 07:57 PM, Deech wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTikTWAUh=VXRtsrxXJTPykn75uqW7Q@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">Congrats and good luck! I love how your elaborate
democratic process failed so completely that you ended up with a
name that wasn't even on the list in the first place. :) <br>
<br>
The only advice I can give to aspiring Hackerspaces (and what
worked for AR) is "Go Forward." <br>
<br>
If you want to be a group of guys meeting in a cafe somewhere and
that makes you happy, then by all means, continue. But, if you
want to be a thriving space full of awesome, someone has to make
it happen and keep going forward. Find a space. It can be a crappy
space, but find a space to call your own. We started with a
relatively small group of guys who committed to the vision and to
make things go forward committed to split the rent bill 5 ways (or
so). Once we got the space, without even doing anything to it,
people suddenly realized we were "real" and not people just
talking about doing something. We got more members almost
immediately. We then started to make our admittedly shitty room in
a old brewery complex as cool as possible with salvaged carpet and
furniture, building work tables out of whatever we could find
(like a giant door we found in our space that was too heavy to get
rid of). We brought in our toys and projects and finally staged an
open house to show the community we were there and we meant
business. We expected 50 people to show up. We got 300 walking
through that night. In four months, it became painfully obvious
that the space we were in was inadequate (serious metal fatigue in
all the load-bearing members, the wiring is substandard, it's
completely inadequate for our power needs, and the neighborhood is
like a demilitarized zone). Once again, we had to decide if we
were going to go forward or stay pat. A few more people stepped up
and again agreed to foot the bill for a better space. Again, our
gamble worked. We've been in our current space for a year. We are
still hovering about the "break even" point as far as monthly dues
are concerned, but we have money in the bank, around 40 members
(or so), have been consistently able to pay for rent, heat,
insurance and internets, and next month we start work on shooting
a satellite (of love) into low earth orbit.<br>
<br>
The point here is, many of us started as "Five guys in a pizza
place" (fun fact, yesterday was the 2nd anniversary of our first
meeting at the pizza joint), but we pushed forward, went outside
our comfort zones and made something awesome happen. <br>
<br>
You can too. :) <br>
<br>
-Deech <br>
President and Chief Scruffy Nerd Herder<br>
Arch Reactor <br>
(yes, a title block. Pfft. I throw it on occasionally...haters,
etc.)<br>
<br>
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