I am Andres Muniz, of amunizp for short. I am the co-founder of Richmond MakerLabs. Our group focus is on helping the community. Be it by sharing skills, fixing equipment or doing projects to help the local community of Ham and Petersham and beyond. We describe ourselves as an arts and crafts for the digital world. Glad to be a part of this. We have a very small space of ~16 metres squared with a lasercutter, 3D printer, servers, computers, kitchen, toilet, sewing machine on request, tools of different sizes and an outside space with BBQ. We have a village feel even though we are in greater London.
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I am Jonty Wareing, jonty or jontyw for short. Iām the co-founder of the London Hackspace, although in January I resigned from the board after seven years so I could get my brain back in order and focus on other things.
Iām also the co-founder of the Hackspace Foundation from way back, although we never put as much time into it as we would have liked, and it had stagnated until lovely energetic people appeared and put a colossal boot up itās behind.
For my sins, Iām also the co-founder of Electromagnetic Field (emfcamp.org) and have vague plans to start another hackspace one day. I should probably be banned from starting new things.
My plans for the next couple of years are to fully put all my time behind the foundation and aim to get it in a self-sustaining state with all the UK spaces properly communicating and collaborating, and hopefully actively helping start new spaces across the UK.
I am Christopher Stanton, also known as Stanto. I am a member of Leeds Hackspace and have been since sometime in 2011. I took on the Hackspace social media channels in an effort to pull in more members, and helped to market the Hackspace and its events across them, including setting up and organising a Meetup account which helped to bring in new members, and extended access to support Hacman and LAMM.
Leeds Hackspace has been running for a number of years now, has recently moved premises, if you havenāt seen our Uber Cube (http://www.makerfaireuk.com/makers/leeds-hackspace-ubercube/) then you should really check out some videos on youtube.
I am Damian Axford, co-founder and current director (one of 3) of the Swindon Makerspace and member of its previous incarnation as Swindon Hackspace for several years. I look after most of the physical infrastructure, and project management of big things - like our current major project to construct a mezzanine floor. I also organised the hackspace insurance policy earlier this year, and look forward to helping the HSF get ship shape 
Iām Fligg, BuildTheRobots, formally TheMidnighToker or Pink Shiny.
Iām one of the directors for Leeds Hackspace and have been for a while.
I leave this short and sweet as it seems better than not filling in anything at all.
Stanto does a better job of selling us than I do, though I plan to update this at some point. 
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Hello, my name is Dominic āChickenGryllsā Morrow (never Domā¦ if youāve been calling me that I secretly hate you). Iām the co-founder of the Nottingham Hackspace (2010) and the Derby Makers (2011). Iāve also been a member of the Bristol Hackspace 2012. Originally I pretty much ran the Nottingham Hackspace (with a lot of help) prior to an elected board at the time of our first AGM in May 2011. I had championed a move to a larger premises (and NHās current home). I was elected trustee in May 2011 and was again elected in 2012 and also again in 2014 though Iāve stepped down several times for various reasons. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the Nottingham Hackspace but am very proud of it and itās members generally. I now call myself the āElder Statesman of Nottingham Hackspaceā this is totally self-styled.
Nottingham Hackspace is pretty big at about 500 members and I think it currently boasts the largest amount of floor space. Itās pretty well equipped but has scale and burn out issues. Itās pretty good though.
Iāve done quite a lot as the UK Hackspace Foundation UKHF between about 2012 and about 2015. I organised and ran the UKHF table at the UK Maker Faire in 2013 and 2014. Iāve done a fair amount of outreach for the UKHF and Iāve visited an awful lot of hackerspaces between about 2011 and 2015. I know quite a lot of people in the UK, Ireland and USA Maker scene through those visits.
In addition to my work with Hackspaces, I did a Hackspace themed Podcast called Hack-all-the-spaces with current Nottinghack trustee Kate in 2012, itās something I really enjoyed but have not been able to revive. I did try to revive it this year with Tre, an Irish Hackerspace person I know but have been unable to find the time to make it work properly.
Very much related to my work on Hackspace, I co-founded the laser cutter import company Just Add Sharks Ltd in 2014 with my mate (now work wife) MSRaynsford. Martin and I first met at the London Hackspace, space-warming party at the old site when they took on an extra bit of workshop back in I think 2010.
Weāve been going to Maker Faire ever since and Iāve now been to very many Maker Faires and Minis all over the world. I love maker faire and am a big fan of (the old Popular Mechanics size) Make magazine. I organised my own āminiā maker faire in Derby starting in 2012 which is now in its 5th year. Iāve also been volunteering as crew for Maker Faire in the USA and am very much an advocate.
At the EMF camp in 2012, I helped with the Nottinghack village. In 2014 we did a laser cutting village and in 2016 I ran the workshops tent. I am hoping to organise the workshops at EMF camp in 2018 also.
Prior to running Just Add Sharks I was a process engineer for the environment agency, prior to that Iāve been a people manager basically.
Short and sweet, My name is Chas and Iām one of the original members and a Director of Cheltenham Hackspace.
Our space has recently re-opened and we are looking to grow our membership.
My personal interests in makery things are biased towards mechanical engineering. I build and race old motorbikes.
Iām James (geeksareforlife). Iāve been a member and trustee of Nottingham Hackspace for nearly 6 years, but I am stepping down in May to attempt and get some of my life back (although I fully expect to be drawn into other fun things like UKHF and EMF )
As a trustee, I tend to worry about the legal side of things, and with the other trustees at the time I instigated a Safe Spaces policy at Nottingham Hackspace, which has seemed to improve our diversity (there is definitely no actual evidence for this, as collecting diversity info from our members is akin to putting CCTV up- one of the many things we just donāt talk about!)
J
Iām Tony, a retired Electronics Engineer from Leicester University Space Research Centre and have been a member of Leicester Hackspace since it started at the Makers Yard in March 2014. Director resignations left only two in Nov 2014 and I volunteered as a temporary director until formally voted in at the March 2015 AGM. I am also company secretary. My main extra task has been to find a new venue since the Makers Yard was only thought of as a temporary home. After several false leads I negotiated a reduced rent at De Montfort University Innovation Centre and we moved there in July 2016. LHS membership is now over 100 and we offer reduced price membership to DMU staff and students (although this is somewhat academic since we have no minimum subscription presently). We presently have 6 co-directors and I consider I have now done my ātimeā so will be resigning at the March AGM.
I note that many of you use the word ātrusteesā. I believe that is a word only to be used for charities, and since we are mostly not-for-profit limited companies, I believe we should use the word ādirectorsā.
Iām David, serial tinkerer, event organiser and occasional mountain bike journalist/trailbuilder. Iām also one of the original founders of Nottingham Hackspace. While there, I pushed to implement teams and stop the board from burning themselves out by taking so much on, lobbied for a safe spaces policy and the procedures to back it up, and occasionally did some truly exhausting crisis management. After 5 or so years, I moved to Yorkshire then stepped down from the board.
My work in events means Iām not easily rattled, and people seem to regard me as a level head. Iāve implemented safe spaces policies in a number of organisations.
Once in Yorkshire, I gave Bridge Rectifier ( http://bridgerectifier.org.uk ) a kick up the arse to get a physical space, which they did and have had for the past year or so. Theyāre tiny, primarily devoted to electronics, and I recently resigned from the board there because I donāt have enough time/energy to push them toward bigger space/membership/facilities.
Iām still a member of both spaces, and thinking about what to volunteer for in 2017 (probably B4RN).
Hi, Iām Ben a founder member of Norwich Hackspace, we recently moved in to our own premises which are part of an old shoe factory and our landlords are very accommodating looking for groups to use their buildings before they redevelop them in a few years time.
In a short space of time through grants, donations and purchases we have been able to build a nice selection of tools including a Silverfin A2 laser cutter from Just Add Sharks, pillar drill, metal lathe, wood lathe, band saw, bench grinders, table saw, various hand tools, electronics bench, vinyl plotter/cutter and probably more I havenāt remembered.
If youāre ever in Norwich on a Monday evening pop in open evening is 7pm - 9pm
Hi, iām James, Founder and Director of Cheltenham Hackspace (Hi Chas!). Cheltenham Hackspace has been around in various forms for 2.5 years; for the first 6 months we were a Thursday night meet only, then we got our first place (440sqft) which lasted us a year before our landlord and his landlord had a bust up over money and we lost the space in the progress. Cheltenham commercial rents are both rare and expensive so it took us 3 months to find another space. Luckily we found somewhere bigger and better (880sqft over 2 floors) and with our larger membership, were able to afford a lease.
Weāve now been at our newest place 8 months, a new roof (paid for by landlord), a new wall (built by us) and lots of paint and long weekends later and we have a nice little community with around 70 members, aprox 20 of which have joined since our open day at the end of November.
In 2017 our plans are to increase the number and range of workshops and themed evenings we do, help build cheltenhamās tech/creative community though āTechCheltenhamā our Slack Channel, improve our gender and racial diversity (Which currently sucks!) and to work with Cheltenham Science Festival in their creation of a science festival makerspace (and hopefully get a stand out of it too).
Hi Iām Tom Newsom, Director and co-founder of South London Makerspace. Our seeds were planted in late 2012, we met in pubs and community centres throughtout 2013, and then got our first space in 2014. Later that year, we moved into a 160mĀ² railway arch nearby and spent the next two years doing all the interior fit-out and building work ourselves. We have 172 members as of today. Longer version of this story.
We deliberately set out to build a friendly, welcoming place, which would be reflected in our both our culture and the design of our space. I think weāre living up to our aims pretty well, but thereās always room to improve!
Challenges for our future include getting a proper election/governance structure in place (weāve been in āstart-upā mode for too long!) and worrying about the long-term security of our space (we will outgrow it soon, and Network Rail has a habit of turfing out railway arches, refurbishing them and then charging 3x the rent).