Author: Cassian

If you’re excited about Machspace…

… maybe you like the idea of directing it, by becoming a director or a volunteer?

What does that involve?

By nature, being a volunteer or director means you’re more involved and can shape Machspace in the longer term. You’d be able to share suggestions and be trusted to make decisions for Machspace autonomously.

Open day host

Open days allow non-members to come and have a look at the space and see if they want to join, without having to visit as the guest of someone who’s already a member. Open days are two hours long, happen twice a month, and sometimes have a theme (like knitting or zines or board games).

If you like meeting new people and answering curious questions from members of the public who happened to be passing by, and you can be responsible for a small and easy-going space, while eating as many Tunnocks caramel wafer bars as you want, this is the job for you. You can be a long term open day leader and make bigger decisions with more responsibility, but if you want you can sign up to run just one open day – every hour of volunteering helps us a lot!

If you’re interested, please do send us an email or put a note into our inbox in the makerspace.

Credit: Brett Jordan, Creative Commons

Director

This is a role with more responsibility, but potentially less work. Whereas being a volunteer means being involved in the member-facing, day-to-day running of the space, being a director means running the company behind the scenes.

As a director you would have to attend an in-person meeting once every 2-4 months. They’re usually under 2 hours, and there’s usually votes on the legal and practical direction of Machspace. As directors we deal with accounts, legal responsibilities to Companies House, funding applications, meeting grant requirements… We maintain the foundations of Machspace, so that everyone else can benefit.

You could just come to meetings and vote in big decisions, or you could get more involved by helping with accounts, doing grant applications, or proposing policies. More directors means less work for each director, and it increases the resilience of Machspace as an organisation. If you want Machspace to last a long time, become a director!

Again, if that sounds interesting, please send us an email or put a note into our inbox in the makerspace.

The laser cutter countdown has officially begun!

Thanks to an exciting £12,500 grant from the National Lottery Awards for All (Wales) scheme, we are delighted to announce that our laser cutter has been ordered and it will be installed in early March!

National Lottery Awards for All (Wales) Logo: Cronfa Gymunedol / Community Fund

The laser cutter itself was just a portion of this. The rest is going towards a lot of related and unrelated stuff, like a laptop to use with the laser cutter, installation of something to safely extract laser cutter fumes, an A3 printer-copier-scanner, and an enclosure for the 3D printer. (Though we’re thinking maybe we might wait and use the laser cutter to make an enclosure for the 3D printer actually…?)

Help us rearrange the furniture!

We’ve planned a new layout for Machspace to accommodate everything, and we need people to help us move all the furniture around! Can you come and lend a hand?

It’s this Sunday, 11th February 2024, 11am – 4pm.

In other news

We now have 50 members – the number that we optimistically projected we’d have by the end of the SVFDF grant period in March 2025. We’re over a year ahead of schedule! It’s pretty amazing what this grant has made possible, not least the pay-what-you-feel membership model, and we’re so grateful for it. Just today we bought a bunch of supplies with it and stashed them at Machspace. 🧶🍫🥛

Open day: zines and badges

Image credits, L-R: Machspace, GM Zines (Wikimedia Commons), David Silver

The next open day has a dual theme, two crafts that go together like cheese and pickle.

A zine (pronounced “zeen”) is a homemade booklet, often copied by photocopier, with big counterculture vibes. Informative or arty or silly or serious, they’re versatile and limited only by your own imagination. At this open day we’ll teach you how to make a mini zine using just an A4 sheet of paper, no staples required, and then you can copy it using the Machspace inkjet printer-scanner.

Our badge maker was one of the first things we bought for Machspace, and we’re very proud of it! Put your art into the die with all the right layers, crunch the handle, and voila, now it’s a proper badge. From brain to badge in 3 minutes! Very satisfying. We can do 25mm and 45mm badges.

It’s a drop-in for members and non-members (ages 11+), so feel free to pop by anytime between noon and 2pm. If you’re into the theme you can bring your own art supplies and stickers and washi tapes. Machspace can provide printer paper and printer ink. And you’re very welcome to bring anything else to make instead, or just come to hang out and drink tea.

It’s free to attend, and food, drinks and materials are free – donations welcome but not required.

If you have any questions, feel free to email us: hello AT machspace DOT org

Let’s do a regular knitting group

About 15-20 people came to yesterday’s knitting-themed open day including lots of new people, and several people asked if we’d hold another!

So, we are now in search of a new volunteer. Does this sound like you?

  • Machspace member (or soon to be)
  • Likes knitting
  • Likes socialising in groups
  • Happy to host and take responsibility for the space

This volunteer would regularly host a knitting group in the Machspace workshop, perhaps weekly or fortnightly. Attendees of various skill levels would attend, and be able to help themselves to donated yarn, snacks and refreshments. The volunteer would be responsible for:

  • Choosing the group frequency and booking the space
  • Informing the PR volunteer(s) of the dates and times well in advance
  • Unlocking the space before it starts, and locking it again afterwards
  • Welcoming new attendees and making sure everyone is comfortable
  • Informing people about the help-yourself refreshments and snacks in the kitchen
  • Informing people about the yarn supplies and equipment
  • Helping interested people to find and fill in the Machspace membership application form
  • Being a point of contact for potential attendees
  • Finding other volunteers to support them in this work

If you’re interested, please get in touch! Email us: hello@machspace.org

Open day: knitting

Our first open day of 2024 is on Saturday 6th January, 12-2pm – and as you can see, this time we’ve picked a theme. Avery and Cassian will be hosting, and they knitted all the items above. They can help you get started, and they can probably help you with knitting pattern questions or advice with mistakes, too.

It’s a drop-in for members and non-members (ages 11+), so feel free to pop by anytime between noon and 2pm. If you’re into the theme you can bring your own knitting project(s), or learn the basics from Cas and Avery. Machspace has a stash of donated yarns and a collection of knitting needles, or you can bring things with you. And you’re very welcome to bring anything else to make instead, or just come to hang out and drink tea and eat leftover mince pies.

Please be aware that you can take yarn away with you afterwards, but you won’t be able to take Machspace knitting needles with you. (We recommend checking out the local charity shops, who often have a good supply of knitting needles for cheap, but they usually keep them behind the counter and you have to ask at the till to have a rummage.)

Progress report: two months

The kitchen has new teas and hot chocolate and LOTS of snacks, and a supply of small cartons of cow and oat milk. Also we’ve 3D-printed two towel holders (about 45 minutes each) for the kitchen:

Our t-shirt stencil bleaching went well:

And then we had our festive open day, complete with decorations, mince pies, and shortbread with Christmassy decorations, which was well-attended enough that I was too distracted to get photos of attendees:

And today, we finally got around to replacing the 15 missing and broken lightbulbs!

Event: Winter Holiday Open Day

Wednesday 20th December 2023

6pm – 9pm (drop-in, open day)

This open day is a little longer than usual, because of the festive season!

We’ll have mince pies, hot beverages, and spiced berry cordial (hot or cold). You’re invited to bring sweet and savoury snacks to share, and festive crafts to work on together. Tell us in advance if you have any dietary requirements, so we can make sure there’s stuff you can eat and drink.

With any luck we’ll have been organised enough to get some decorations up! Any members who would like to mastermind any decorating sessions are invited to email us: hello AT machspace DOT org

Who can come?

  • Any adult (18+), regardless of whether or not you’re a member.
  • People aged 11-17, accompanied by one responsible adult each.
  • Assistance animals, provided they can sit quietly beside their human throughout the visit.

It’s free to attend, and food and drinks are free – donations welcome but not required.

Event: T-shirt stencil-bleaching

Sunday 3rd December 2023

11am – 1pm (drop-in, members and guests only)

Facebook event here.

Here’s what it looks like:

You should bring (if you can):

  • A cardboard box
  • A newspaper
  • A pair of rubber gloves
  • Any t-shirts, clothing or other fabric (non-white, containing natural fibres) that you’d like to enhance
  • Warm clothing – we’ll have the front door wide open for ventilation

What we’ll do together:

Avery will walk us through the process of designing a stencil, cutting it out, preparing the t-shirt and stencil, and spraying the bleach onto the t-shirt. Different dyes and fabrics react differently, so Avery can also share his advice and experience about that.

Dress warmly, because it’ll be cold in the space! Bring a good face mask if you’re not into the smell of bleach. If you already have stencils you want to try out for this (or share with others), feel free to bring them along!

Any natural-fibre fabric will work, but maybe bring a t-shirt that you don’t mind destroying, because as with pancakes and any other craft, the first one is always rubbish.

Who can come?

This is a members-and-guests event. That means if you want to come, you need to be a member already, or be the one guest of an existing member. Guests must be 11 or older. If you want to become a member by Sunday, email us ASAP – we can accommodate that! hello AT machspace DOT org

It’s not a private event, so the space will remain open to members and guests who want to do other activities, but please be aware that it will probably smell very bleachy in there and it might be a bit cold.

It’s free to attend, and it’s free to become a member.

Progress report – one month

Our grand opening was on 20th October, and today, almost a month later, we have 14 inducted members and 16 people waiting to be inducted.

We have storage space for members’ projects now:

We’ve also got some posters for members to tell us about what equipment they’d like us to get (some since acquired), and – as we have very limited funds for equipment – a very offline way to informally crowdfund for particular items:

And, since the poster thing has been turning out so well, we added another for sharing materials and coordinating skill-sharing:

Members are invited to write on this poster if they want to teach others how to do their favourite crafts, or if there are particular skills they would like to learn.

Also, our kitchen now has shelves, a sink and a working hot water supply, and a little fridge under the worktop:

Also it’s super duper yellow 🤩

Today’s open day was pretty good, we had a few visitors coming from the repair cafe over the road, and a couple of new members signed up. Cassian and Avery used some salvaged materials (left by the previous pop-up art shop tenants) to create a sandwich board to make the workshop look more open and welcoming on open days:

Things are still pretty chaotic, and occasionally overwhelming, especially with regard to offers of donated items! We have a small space so we have to be quite careful. Also, there are only three volunteers at the moment, with limited time and energy, so we can’t accept anything that needs any kind of mending, maintenance, etc.

We’re sending out emails to applicants once a week or so, to offer time slots for induction, and managing about 3 sessions per week.

Our next open day is scheduled for Saturday 25th November, 12-2pm, but we may not have enough directors/volunteers to manage it – stay tuned! If you want to be sure we’ll be there to show you around, come on Wednesday 6th December, 6-8pm. Open days are intended for everyone, members and non-members alike, to drink various hot beverages and make things together – come along and meet each other!

Membership, inductions and volunteering

Membership and induction

Membership applications have been coming in since the grand opening, and we’ve inducted several people already, which means people are using their key fobs to access the makerspace whenever they want! We love it.

If you’d like to join, please fill in the membership application form here. And if you’ve already done that, you might have an email inviting you for an induction – get in touch at hello AT machspace DOT org and we’ll find a date and time that works for you. We have availability in the afternoons and evenings most days of the week at the moment, with mornings (hopefully) coming soon.

Open days

We’ve figured out our open day sessions! You can find them on our calendar page here. In summary, they’re Wednesday evenings and Saturday lunchtimes, with one every two weeks or so. The next one is Saturday 11th November, 12-2pm, which coincides with a repair cafe taking place at the Community Hub over the road.

Volunteering

Would you like to help make a makerspace? If so, we would love for you to join in! Machspace is a non-profit run by three volunteers with limited energy and time, so every little helps. Email us at hello AT machspace DOT org and tell us what you’re into!

In particular we’re looking for a woodworking specialist – because woodworking is something a lot of prospective members have expressed an interest in, and none of the directors have much expertise. If you’re proficient with woodworking, carpentry, power tools, etc. and you’re interested in helping out, please take a look at this volunteering “job description”.