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Hello Makers and Artists,

One of the key reasons we set up the Hack613 space was to have a great place for meetups and communal activities. Also to have a place for peoples’ projects, workshops, to share tools and have a convenient central location for their activities. Further to have relevant tools with high availability (no long queues and schedule conflicts).

Let’s discuss the regular Wednesday meetups we’ve been having over the years. Here are some of the ideas:

1. Pubs. They’re a great place for meetups since they’re neutral, self cleaning and have food and drink. These chaotic and fun environments are a lot of fun and give the group some visibility in some cases. On the downside you tend to have to be in constant communication with the staff and meet thresholds to keep the bookings. Another community I’m very involved with holds the booking by guaranteeing $500 of business.
2. Other Public Spaces. Places like the Nepean Library, Central Library, Ottawa University Makerspace have some awesome spaces to meet. There are some interesting tools with varying availability (Nepean lets us have one of the lasers). They tend to be free but do require some volunteer work to maintain relationships with the venues and ensure there is a time and place for the meetups.
3. Our own makerspace. This is a good option because it has space, tools (can have proximity to social districts for bringing in food etc.) plus there can be breakoff spaces such as lounges, kitchen and boardrooms. On the downside there are expenses for the space, consumables and there needs to be someone to clean up, take out garbage, vacuum and so forth.

What do you want with meetups? 

This discussion can take place in the comments of this post and at the meetups of course. I look forward to hearing what you all think.

What do you want in a makerspace?

A makerspace is great for meetups but is also for much more than that. I’d like to invite people to continue this discussion as well to see if we still have critical mass for a project like that.

Of course this discussion can take place in the comments here and at the meetups. I’d like to favor people who are genuinely interested in supporting such a space so a separate regular meeting might be in order. If your want to be a member, let’s talk about when this regular meeting could be.  I’d propose this extra meeting be just before or after any existing regular meetups but look forward to other ideas.

Darcy Whyte

The Hack613 steering committee has been discussing community sustainability.

A suggestion came forward of asking repeat meetup attendees for the Wednesday evening and Sunday afternoons to bring a friend! What a great idea!

Of course the issue arises: “What if people ignore the suggestion?”.

We will have a donation box with a suggested donation of $10 for people who don’t bring a new person to the meetups.

If you can’t afford the $10 and don’t have time to find a new person to bring, perhaps have a look at the volunteer page and help with some of the items there.

Also the idea is to bring someone new who hasn’t been to the space. Just pairing up with someone who comes is defeating the point.