I’ve been mulling over the idea of having a round table discussion at EMF about anything to do with managing spaces and organisations, starting new hackspaces, etc. I’m hoping to hear from spaces that are a year in, figuring out the challenges they face and how older spaces have overcome them.
If I submit this as a workshop, I’m expecting a 2 hour slot so I’d probably have to limit discussions to a few short topics such as member growth, member turnover, financial stability.
Would anyone be interested? This is mostly aimed at current or past directors and trustees.
Any ideas how we could stream this 2 way online so that spaces who aren’t attending could join in, I am just mindful a lot of spaces won’t have reprisentation because they didn’t get tickets.
Sounds like a great idea! I’m going down 2 EMF along with another director from Hack Oldham, it would be great to meet some fellow directors and to share advice.
Ok… that sounds like enough noise to submit a proposal! Sent!
Any ideas how we could stream this 2 way online so that spaces who aren’t attending could join in, I am just mindful a lot of spaces won’t have reprisentation because they didn’t get tickets.
I have access to a conference speaker but not sure how well it will work in a windy field. Anyone else can join via hangouts since it has the speaker focus so we can get a video feed if needed.
We stop running things in the workshop tents after 8pm, so I can give you one of those in the evening if you like?
I can probably give you a workshop with a plasma screen and PA for the dial in - I’ll have to talk to the stage team to see if we have any appropriate microphones that would work.
This is basically what we do for the Open workshop network meet ups, I could run that at EMF if you’d like?
I just rembembered about your offer. What format do you use for these? How do you choose the topics? How do you moderate? Would love to bring over any useful experience!
How public do we want this to be? I guess we’re not discussing anything too specific, or sensitive, so we could live stream.
Is there someone who actually wants to join in that is not coming live? I don’t mind a few calling in, but I’m still worried about the faff of organising the online link. I do sporadic online meetings and the bother of “can you hear me?” is so exhausting.
Rough agenda
Introductions
Name, description of space (name, location, membership size, member run/semi-professional)
Membership drives. What works? what costs more than its worth?
Pay up! How to convert interested stragglers into paying members? What pushes people to sign up?
Insurance. How many hackspaces have insurance? how much does it cost?
Getting started. Members or space first?
Working together. How we can facilitate local hackspace networks to collaborate? What’s the best way to facilitate “one hackspace’s garbage is another hackspace’s treasure”? Shipping in trainers from other hackspaces to kick off communities and events; has that been tried?
We tried. How to deal with winding down if you’ve overstretched and are now in the red.
Does anyone have other opinions on topics or some that I proposed that people think might degenerate/are not appropriate?
Thanks for putting this together, I am really looking forward to it. The only thing I will say is as a director of a Hackspace I would be concerned about having an online link and sharing certain information such as insurance costs/how we operate etc
Just my thoughts - an online link won’t stop me turning up
Sadly not, we don’t really have any suitable equipment for this on-site.
If anyone has access to a USB conferencing mic that would be perfect. I might try and borrow one from my office, but no promises.
Unfortunately I likely won’t be able to attend this - I’ll probably be stuck in a portacabin running the event (or asleep), but I look forward to the notes.