[Swansea Hackspace] What next

[Steven Whitehouse]

Hi,

On Tue, 2013-03-26 at 22:35 +0000, Paul Harwood wrote:
> I saw that reply, shame eh!
> 
> 
> I was thinking more about flyering for members, rather than asking for
> a space. The more initial membership is = the bigger space the
> hackspace can afford.

That may be true, but the bigger questions are:

 - What (aside from space) will the hackerspace provide?
 - Who is going to be responsible for health & safety?

When I'm figuring out what I'm prepared to pay each month, the thing I
want to take into account is what I get in return. I'm already paying a
subscription to various professional societies who put on talks
regularly, and the biggest issue with these is getting anybody to attend
them (in the case of the IET, they are all open and free to everybody,
not just IET members)

If I want to meet up with a group of people, we can do that in a pub or
something at very low (or no) cost.

So it seems to me that the only reason that the hackerspace would need
(expensive) premises is to contain the kit which would help to encourage
people to join by offering them access to things which they could not
otherwise have access to.

One of the main reasons for trying to have the uni as a base is because
there are various things which could be borrowed for little or no money
(e.g. fancy 3d printer comes to mind) which would provide a real
incentive for people to join.

If based elsewhere, then the budget looks like it would be so small that
it would be difficult to purchase the kind of items which would
encourage people to join - at least unless some initial set up grant was
available.

As soon as there are premises, we'd need public liability insurance, and
also someone has to be in charge of health and safety. That means making
sure that only people who've had suitable instruction can use certain
items of equipment, it means dealing with COSHH and checking mechanical
and electrical equipment are safe to use on a regular basis. So there is
a fair amount of responsibility for anybody taking this on,

Steve.