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<i>> What do you do when your volunteers burn out and the
machines are not all working right because it </i><i><br>
</i><i>> is no one's job to maintain them? Wait for new members
who want to grease and align machines? </i><br>
<br>
+1.<br>
<br>
My definition of a 'sustainable' space isn't simply a financial
definition, it's one that takes into account legality, energy and
long-term safety. Is your space to-code, do you have insurance, and
do you operate entirely above-the-board in your community? If not,
then I don't think you're sustainable in the long-run. Do the people
who run your space (either the individuals, or the collective
volunteers) have the ability to take the time off from the space
they need to not burn out? Does everything remain in good working
order if they take that time? If not, then the life of the space is
directly linked to the attention span and patience of the people who
run it. In terms of safety, are your members trained to use the
tools in the space? Is there a mechanism to ensure that safe
training, that will sustain itself in the long run? If not, you run
a much greater risk of getting someone hurt, and that will probably
close you down.<br>
<br>
To be fair, the Asylum doesn't meet the 'energy' criteria of
sustainability yet - we're about to hire 2 more people, to bring our
staff to 5, to try and get to that point. We believe that once we
get there, it'll be an intense job, but one that can be handled in
40 hours a week.<br>
<pre>><i> Is it really worth it to be 'so big' if it requires paid staff and no
</i>><i> longer is free-to-access? wouldn't it be better to have multiple smaller
</i>><i> spaces?</i></pre>
My question in response to this is, is your space able to provide a
safe, legal, sustainable environment while being small? Some groups
have certainly accomplished some of those (such as NOVA Labs). For
us, in order to provide professional manufacturing environments
given our expenses, we chose to go large. Those professional
environments would be much harder to provide in a sustainable
fashion, if we were small.<br>
<br>
There's a bigger point that you make, which is the importance of
being free-to-access. To me, this question is directly linked to
'what do you expect to be provided for free?' If your answer is
'access to professional manufacturing equipment', I think the answer
is 'absolutely not' - high end tools cost a prodigious amount of
money to keep going, in terms of maintenance, consumables, tooling,
and training. If your answer is 'access to a space with wifi,
tables, chairs, and other people', I think it's much more likely
that that could be provided for close-to-free. <br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Gui Cavalcanti, President
Artisan's Asylum, Inc.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.artisansasylum.com">http://www.artisansasylum.com</a>
Cell: (857) 389-7669</pre>
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