Author: ted@thebrickyard.org

When we first started talking about this makerspace idea, just about a year ago, it was really just a handful of people.  One thing led to another, and now we have a group of people who’ve come to see us, learned about what we’re doing, joined in, taken on some of the heavy lifting, taught classes, provided leadership…  you get the idea.  The thing is, we haven’t really had a chance to all get together in one place.

This month we are looking at our final awards letter from one grant, and decisions on two more that could enable us to pull the trigger and sign a space.  We’re looking at a few spaces, and talking with some landlords and brokers.  We’re accumulating equipment that we’re storing (and using if we can), and we’ve got a growing list of people who are excited about joining us.

We’ve also formed some pretty interesting and fairly powerful alliances – groups in Lynn, and groups up and down the North Shore as well – and they’re all interested in how they can be a part of what we’re doing.

So, the time has come to get everybody together, shake hands and dive in!

We need to put some faces to names, get off Facebook for a bit and put together some solid plans for the coming months.  I’ll be putting a slideshow together of the past year, and some teases for some spaces we may be calling home, along with some peeks at what we’ve got for you to use.  You will meet our Board, meet our instructors, meet our volunteers…  meet the people who have kept the momentum and enthusiasm growing!

We’re having this on the 29th of September, at Land of a Thousand Hills, 61 Monroe Street, from 11-2pm.  We’ll be putting together the Facebook Event, probably an Eventbrite too, just so we can keep track, but stay tuned and keep an eye out for the announcements.  Share with anyone who you think may be interested, this is open to everybody and for newcomers too!

(UPDATE: Registration – free – and more info on the Eventbrite page, here.)

Thanks for all that you’ve contributed, thanks for your help and involvement, and mark the date – see you then!

 

 

Ted

Keep making stuff. Take care of people, play nice and clean up after yourselves.

This year the Mural Festival is HUGE!  After a week and a half of work, the city is wrapping it up with a Rock the Block party that starts around 1pm on Saturday, the 18th, and goes until the early evening – the official end is 9pm, but there are after-parties galore!

And WE’LL BE THERE!  (Where?  25 Exchange Street is the central location, but all up and down Mt Vernon, too! – we’ll be packing up around 5-6pm, so don’t be late…)

Here’s what we’re planning:

• A Maker’s Market – meet the makers, see their stuff, maybe take some home!
• A Maker’s Flea – supplies, hackables, re-usables and extras, at flea market prices.
• Learn to Knit!  Hands-on knitting workshop will get you knitting in a minute!  …or two.
• A FREE Bike Clinic – bring your ride down and get a tune-up and learn the basics of bike maintenance – keep it safe, keep it reliable.  If you’re planning on coming for the Bike Clinic, please register here: EventBrite
• A SUMO Robot battle!  Pick up the controls and test your driving skills against your buddies!  Pick a robot, maybe add some character, and go into battle…  Pikachu robots anybody?

In the meantime, got something to sell, teach, or share?  Send us a note!  We’re not charging fees to participate, but you must bring your own tables, chairs and tent.  Please let us know at least a week in advance (that’s, like, NOW!), so we can be sure we have space for you and get the word out!

For the most part, we trudge through days, and tasks, and projects focusing our attention on the minutiae we need to, in order to get the work done. It’s kind of like hiking a rocky trail.  You have to keep your head down, mind the boulders and logs, keep moving in the right direction, and keep from tripping up.  Every once in a while, though, you need to stop, and look up.

This past week we crushed it, putting together a proposal for the MassDevelopment Collaborative Workspace Program.  Early on, we went over the requirements and came really close to passing on it, simply because they require a 1:1 match, and we didn’t have much in the way of financial backing.  Or so we thought.

We were talking, and one thing led to another, and a sponsor stepped up.  He said he’d match any funds we could raise.  We also read a little closer, and donations of equipment counted towards matching, as did donations of services.  Suddenly, we had something to grab on to.

With only a week to go before the deadline, we launched a crowdfunding campaign and started spamming, er, emailing all our contacts. Remarkably, we got no complaints, no spam flags, and no unsubscribes either.  Everyone seemed to be tolerating us. Word got out, well, we pushed it out on Facebook and it got shared all across the North Shore creative and business communities.  Donations started coming in.  Words of support and encouragement started hitting the inbox, the comments on Facebook, and we made new friends and followers.  By the time we hit the deadline, we had over $56,000 of matching funds, equipment and services we could claim.

Once you hit that “Send” button on a grant application, you have to just sit back, wait, cross whatever fingers or toes you like to cross, and believe you gave it your best shot.  We gave it a hell of a good shot, and it came from the community.  You guys.

Yes, there’s a sense of satisfaction that we put this together in a week.  Yes, the money that came in is sweet, and will go a long way to get us into a space.  Yes, we’ll do even better next year, and, yes, of course, if we get the grant it will be awesome.  But what really came out of this was the understanding that we have a lot of people supporting us.  We have a lot of people who want us to succeed.  We have a lot of people who are counting on us.  We have people who are, in fact, depending on us making this work.

It’s inspiring and gives us a push – a big push that we didn’t even really know we needed.  We’re picking our way through the tasks and obstacles over the last year, through the rocks and tree stumps and branches, with our head down and our attention focused on what we have to do that step, that day, that week.

You told us, with everything you’ve done, all your help, to stop for a second and look up.  Look up at where we’re going.

Thank you.

 

 

 

Ted

Keep making stuff. Take care of people, play nice and clean up after yourselves.