Blog

Yep, it’s happening!  We’re almost tight on a workshop schedule, and we’re putting together a meet and greet and signup.  Meet the instructors, learn more about the workshops, and sign up for the ones you’re interested in.

 Check back in as we update the listings!  Here are the deets for now:

In the spirit of “Save a Tree”, as well as, well, the cost of printing up nearly 100 copies of these (pretty interesting) documents, we opted for posting the PDFs of various resources and handouts here.

First up, the slightly abridged version of our overview/proposal.  You can see the vision here, as well as some of the down-and-dirty numbers.  Here’s that: Brickyard-Collaborative-Proposal_handout

Here’s the Brickyard Mission Statement, and the FAQs – some handy quick answers to common questions: Brickyard Mission Statement  /  Brickyard FAQ

Our proposed equipment list, which will show you what we’re planning to have available to members: Equipment List

There’s a great piece on how a MakerSpace aligns with education, especially Common Core standards, here: OPP_ResearchBrief7_SurveyofMakerspacesPart2_final

Sarah Beese of the Haley Pilot School put together this piece, describing their boat project: Haley Boat Building Overview

There are a couple of detailed articles talking about how MakerSpaces create opportunity.  From the Harvard Business Review, Is Collaboration the New Innovation: Appx2-CollaborationInnovationHBR  From The National League of Cities, How Cities Can Grow The Maker Movement: Appx1-CitiesGrowMakerMovementNRC

Made in Place is a piece about “small scale manufacturing” contributing to urban revitalization: made-in-place-small-scale-manufacturing-neighorhood-revitalization

The Working Cities Challenge website has probably the most compelling statement regarding “resurgent cities”, and is the quote we use to close the presentation.  The link to the site is below.

“Small cities in Massachusetts and across New England possess unique assets and face a unique set of challenges. …Notwithstanding these challenges, research on small cities conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has found that eight cities out of a peer group of 26 nationwide have been able to either maintain or recover much of their economic stability, as measured by income, reduced poverty rates, population, and economic vitality.

Several factors drove the rebound of these “resurgent” cities: collaborative leadership, the role of anchor institutions, investment in infrastructure, and extension of benefits to the community as a whole.

Of these, collaborative leadership – the ability to work together across sectors over a sustained period with a comprehensive vision – was most crucial.

The findings are strikingly similar to those of the Living Cities Integration Initiative, deployed in five larger cities with substantial inner-city populations. Both sets of findings elevate the importance of collaborative leadership in creating systems-level changes that will enable small cities to reach their full potential as places to live, work, and raise a family.” (From Working Cities Challenge website.)

Also the Email Subscription link.

 

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We’ll add more as we find them, so check back.

Folks, it was awesome.  The interest, engagement, ideas and excitement we saw yesterday were absolutely inspiring.

We got over 50 people coming and going throughout the cafe.  We got a solid 25-30 people who stayed for the whole presentation and longer – several conversations lasted into the late hours of the afternoon.  We got almost 20 signups for the email list, and the same number of people interested in taking, or teaching workshops. We got several members of our city council and other elected government folks.   We got a couple who came from Marlborough MA just to see what we were up to.  We even got some press in LynnHappens.com: read that here.

For a first-time, seat-of-the-pants come-what-may coffee social, it was a resounding success.

We may not have a facility yet.  We may not have funding in place.  But support and interest?  You bet.

Just for fun, we showed one of the first cuts of a video we’re putting together for the Stakeholders Meeting.  If you missed it, you can see that here:

See you next year!  It’s going to be a year like you’ve never seen before.

Keep building, keep making!  Play nice and clean up after yourselves.

 

We’ve got a few handouts prepared for you tomorrow, but if we run out, or you can’t make it, here they are:

First, the FAQs: FAQs

Next, our proposed equipment list, which will show you what we’re planning to have available to members: Equipment List

There are two other things we’ll have there – a signup sheet for our email newsletter, which you can access directly here: Email Subscription

…and a volunteer/member signup (no obligations, we’re just trying to get your name on the list as interested).  You can do that via email, here: Email TBC here.

See you tomorrow!