[hackerspaces] Introduction from Birmingham, England

[Far McKon]

I was involved in a hackerspace here in Philly before I got involved in
Hive76.   IT was hosted by a nonprofit, and so it was 'free'. Membership was
whoever showed up, and there was not cost. Hive has clearly defined
membership (but is very friendly to visitors) and costs, and (YMMV) that
makes people more active.

I think it comes down to 'buy-in' on the space. Being hosted by someone
else, or having a 'free' or low-cost/free group isn't always the way to go.
For some people/groups/places having your own money on the line, and having
an investment ($50? $60?) gives people a lot more incentive to do stuff,
based on the feeling they are throwing money away unless they are doing
something with or at the space.

just my 0.02.
- Far


On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 6:49 AM, Antonio Roberts
<antonio at hellocatfood.com>wrote:

> Thanks for all of the feedback! I'm going to be alternating between
> open hacksessions and workshops and then hopefully that'll drum up
> more interest
>
> Ant
>
> 2009/10/1 Martin Mitchell <jester.ie at gmail.com>:
> > How about working on starting some working group nights?
> > Over in TOG, hackerspace in Ireland, we have found it good to have group
> > nights with a certain theme. These nights for us so far are on Mondays we
> > have Micro-controller Night (Arduino), and Wednesdays we have a Coding
> > Night. These nights aren't classes, it just encourages people with
> similar
> > interests to get together and create an environment if your soldering or
> > coding. We have found also that it helps attract members. For example, if
> > people are looking for a weekly working group for Arduino to bounce ideas
> > off or get troubleshooting help they can generally find it in TOG on
> > Mondays. Same goes for the coding night as we get people studying in the
> > space on Wednesdays. But people also just like to come to the space on
> those
> > nights and work on different things, just so they're not working on the
> > space on their own, it's a better atmosphere.
> > This also gives us good times to show people the space. If someone
> contacts
> > us about joining or checking out our space we will generally bring them
> > along on a Monday or Wednesday because there are generally people working
> > away on those night. It gives the space a better feel, rather then
> showing
> > them around a space with no people inside.
> > Jester
> > TOG, Ireland
> >
> > On 1 Oct 2009, at 22:41, Far McKon wrote:
> >
> > Far from @Hive76 in Philly here.
> >
> > We have open house 2 hours each weds, with a 15 min members 'scrum'
> meeting
> > beforehand.  3 members have picked one night a month, as a night for
> their
> > projects, and on that night they get dibs on the space.
> >
> > That way, people are working on what interested them,  but not all
> crowded
> > into the space at once. Part of our membership is 4 hours of 'work for
> the
> > space' a month, and doing a python night (or AVR night, or what) counts
> as
> > work time for that.
> >
> > - Far
> >
> >
> > ----
> > http://www.Hive76.org  "Making things awesome,  making awesome things!"
> > http://www.FarMcKon.net "Creatively Maladjusted"
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
> >
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-- 
----
http://www.Hive76.org  "Making things awesome,  making awesome things!"
http://www.FarMcKon.net "Creatively Maladjusted"
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