Maker Nexus Makerspace: Difference between revisions

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(→‎More Details: added section on our location selection process and current status)
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History of the decision:
History of the decision:


We initially asked anyone who signed up as a member to pick one or more of the following locations: Menlo Park, Santa Clara, Newark. In late January the votes were pretty clear: 85% of the people voted for Menlo Park; 62% Santa Clara; 40% Newark.
We initially asked anyone who signed up as a member to pick one or more of the following locations: Menlo Park, Santa Clara, Newark. In late January the votes were pretty clear: 85% of the pledged members approved of Menlo Park; 62% Santa Clara; 40% Newark (Some people selected more than one location that was acceptable to them).


Where we are today:
Where we are today:


After our decision to use Menlo Park as the selected location, we changed the membership form question for newly added members to be: "Our shop will be on the peninsula, between Menlo Park and Sunnyvale." With available answers "Yes, the peninsula is OK with me" and "No, the peninsula does not work for me". We now have 101 responses. To get a current picture of the membership desires we have to add the new "Peninsula is OK" with the previous "Menlo Park" answers. Doing that, as of January 31, 2018 the votes are: 80% of the members vote peninsula, 49% vote Santa Clara, and 26% vote that Newark.
With Menlo Park and Santa Clara being the leading choices, we are limiting our search to the area between those locations.  To that end, we are adjusting our membership question, and will be conducting a follow-up survey with those who have already signed up - asking for strength of preference for four municipal areas: Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale, as well as an "Other" location to encourage people for whom those locations do not work for to express an area that works better for them.


===The Takeaway===
===The Takeaway===

Revision as of 21:50, 31 January 2018

(Information about the Maker Nexus organization's makerspace will be provided here. If you register with this wiki you can click the star at the top right to "watch" this page. If you do this then you will get an email whenever this page is updated.)

The Organization

Become a member, pledge your support, and track our progress on our website: MakerNexus.com

The Town Halls

The 6 member Maker Nexus (MN) board has been working on our plan since the day TechShop closed. We've had the help of several other people. We would be happy to have a board member speak to any group that is interested in our new shop.

To get the shop open we need a minimum of 150 members and $125,000 in donations. You can track our progress on the Maker Nexus web site.

  • January 19, 2018: We held our first open town hall meeting. (Thanks to Hacker Dojo for hosting us.) About 80 people attended - the room was packed with some people sitting on the floor.
  • January 28, 2018: We held our second town hall. (Thanks to [https://altoschool.org/ Alto International School). About 40 new faces showed up. It was a lively crowd with a lot of laughs and questions. This community is really amazing.

The Organization

We are a California non-profit. We are applying for 501(c)3 certification as a charitable organization.

Read our officers' biographies.

How to Help

We have a flier you can put up anywhere you think potential members will see it.

More Details

You can review the slides we presented here.

(Live stream was removed because it was just too hard to watch sideways.)

If you are into finance details, you can review our current financial model.

Location

We decided to limit our location search to the corridor between Menlo Park and Sunnyvale.

History of the decision:

We initially asked anyone who signed up as a member to pick one or more of the following locations: Menlo Park, Santa Clara, Newark. In late January the votes were pretty clear: 85% of the pledged members approved of Menlo Park; 62% Santa Clara; 40% Newark (Some people selected more than one location that was acceptable to them).

Where we are today:

With Menlo Park and Santa Clara being the leading choices, we are limiting our search to the area between those locations. To that end, we are adjusting our membership question, and will be conducting a follow-up survey with those who have already signed up - asking for strength of preference for four municipal areas: Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale, as well as an "Other" location to encourage people for whom those locations do not work for to express an area that works better for them.

The Takeaway

The slides are packed with information, but for those who need the quick summary:

  • Non-profit organization
  • Shop between Menlo Park and Sunnyvale
  • Targeted April opening
  • Limited machines, adding more as quickly as money allows
  • Paid staff members for support & maintenance
  • $150/month membership & $1,000 donation
  • Everyone has to pitch in to make this work

We hope that you, the reader, will join us in making this shop a reality.