Town Hall - April 16th, 2021

Welcome!

• Town Hall Agenda

• SOTU

  • We have over 250 makers with active memberships!

  • Continuing to follow Provincial Health Orders to ensure we remain open while vaccines are still being developed/distributed

New Staff

• Haleigh (Fabrication)

• Alicia (Part-time Front Desk/Community Coordinator)

• Most of our staff now have updated first aid certifications

Member Services

• Slack is doing well! Please help encourage other members to join if they haven't already.

• Member feedback results

  • Survey was very helpful in making actionable changes. We plan on doing this about a month before each town hall moving forward, so we can have answers for members.

  • The top concerns and what we have done so far about them

    • WoodLab is always busy

      • There is a high demand for our WoodLab classes at the moment with classes filling up a month in advance. Many public woodworking spaces are still closed due to COVID, so our space has been busier.

        • Trying to maintain a good balance of providing enough classes but also plenty of open workshop time for members

        • The first half of WoodLab 101 has been moved to the loading bay, to make the WoodLab more available for members.

        • Utilize the communication board in the WoodLab as well as checking out the class schedule online to better plan around when to come in

        • We attempted to make a workbench booking system, but it doesn't work with the current booking system we have.

    • Tool maintenance/status

      • Eamon is regularly checking on our tools and performing repairs when he is in and has gone through most of the outstanding repairs

      • We do have a few tasks that require more than just ordering a part and swapping them so they will take a bit longer for us to get to.

      • We have simplified a status view of our available tools

      • We have also included weekly updates of tool repairs in the weekly newsletter

    • Clutter in the common areas

      • Through volunteer efforts we are tackling each area.

      • Thank you to our volunteers:

        • Darran, Simon, Manuela, Sheila, Darla, Will, Grant, Rachel, Kseniya, Troy, Thanh & Wyatt

      • Co-working Space & Electronics Lab have been re-organized and cleaned up. There's still a bit of work left to do, but it is mostly finished. Electronics recycling pick-up is happening again on Tuesday.

      • Progress was being made in the lounge, but with some new tools that have arrived and the new store being built, it will be a bit chaotic for a little longer.

    • Building is cold

      • The old units were actually labelled as dangerous by LowTide so we did have to keep them off during the cold season until the new ones were in place.

      • New unit heaters have been installed in both the second floor and in the WoodLab. We are a warehouse, so it does take a while for the building to heat up, and we don't run the heat overnight because the expense would be too great.

    • Mouse problem

      • We have been catching more mice with traps and have been able to reduce their numbers greatly without the use of toxic chemicals.

      • With some members moving out, it became apparent that mice were living in studios that members were keeping food in. If you have any food in your studios, make sure it is kept in sealed plastic containers. Please do not openly store food in studios.

      • We will be locating the appropriate lids for the trash bins so please close the bins instead of leaving the lids on the floor.

    • 2nd floor Electrical

      • We are going to be doing some major electrical work at the end of April. It may require there to be rolling power outages and the power may be off in the whole building for short periods of time. We are planning on doing this on a Friday, as it is typically not as busy, and will announce a date as soon as we have one confirmed.

      • We would like 2nd floor members with electrical concerns to please document which outlets they use and the equipment they generally use, and relay that information to the community team so we can communicate it to the electrician

    • WiFi

      • Looking into new hardware and acquiring additional access points to improve range and connectivity

      • Darran is providing very helpful input and feedback on the situation. Thank you Darran!

    • Tools Status

      • New View, including router bits

Space and Tools Upgrades

• New Metal Laser Cutter Machine

  1. For now, it's just for fabrication while we work on getting everything set-up properly.

  2. We plan on teaching it and opening it up to members further down the road.

• New Laser welder

  1. Also currently just for fabricator use until we have it all set-up properly

  2. Eventually there will be classes on it and will be made available for member use.

• Ceramics space for late summer

  • Located upstairs outside of the bathrooms

  • Walls will be constructed and sealed off from dust

  • Space to be built in early July

  • Kiln ordered and due to arrive sometime in July

  • Just hand building to start. Maybe we will get wheels further down the road.

• New Powermatic Jointer has been ordered. Set to arrive in June.

• New Multitool available at the front desk

• New Bench Grinder set up in the MetalLab

• New Router Bit Set for the hand and table router available at the front desk

Education

• We have several new classes

• New Safety & Orientation Class:

  1. Tool Sharpening 101

  2. Textile Lab classes have been split into 101(domestic) and 102 (serger, industrial).

  3. We have a fibre laser for engraving that is currently a fabricator only tool. We will be teaching a class on this, probably to start in late spring.

• New Member Run Classes:

  1. Side Table Workshop - Patrick

  2. Introduction to Joinery - Bryan

  3. Painting Classes - Darla

     1. Introduction to Acrylic Painting

     2. Alcohol Inks

  4. Leather Working - Alex

  5. RGB LEDs - Marc

  6. 3D Modeling with Blender - Thanh

  7. Wire Wrapped Jewelry - Alicia

  8. Monster Workshop - Darla

Program Updates

• TFW

  1. Applications for summer will open in early May

• CTech

  1. This residency was relaunched, and applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

Policy Changes

• New memberships are $160/mo

  1. All pre-existing members prior to April 1st will remain at $150/mo

• Welding rates were increased to $10/hour to cover gas costs

  1. After setting it to a flat hourly rate to measure easier it was found we were only covering an average of 60%~ of the cost of gas from welding fees collected from users and fabrication customers.

• Use of Impact Drivers are restricted to the WoodLab or Outside of MakerLabs

  1. They're too loud compared to a regular hand drill

• Privacy and Intellectual Property Policy

  1. Items have been added to our Code of Conduct page regarding privacy and intellectual property at MakerLabs

• Donations Policy

  1. We are steadily decreasing the amount of clutter at MakerLabs and we want to keep going in that direction instead of amassing more.

  2. There is now a dedicated page outlining what to do with Donations at MakerLabs

  3. We also plan on including recommendations on alternate solutions/businesses to help people determine where to take their recyclables/wastes. Anyone with recommendations of their own are welcome to contribute; send us a slack message or email with the business information and we'll add it.

Lightning Talks

• Thanh - Running classes on Blender!

• Richard - Talk about Awen Haus - the collective member-run retail space

Q&A

Q: Can we prioritize the security camera for the side exit door?

A: We now have the cameras, we just need to install them

Q: Heat on the second floor is pretty unbearable during the summers. Can we look into solutions before it gets boiling hot up there?

A: We are aware that it gets comfortable hot on the second floor during peak summer season. We are researching ways to help alleviate that stress and are open to recommendations for review.

Q: The drone noises are becoming increasingly loud.

A: Noise is generally hard to regulate, there is a fine line of what is considered nuisance noise or not, and there could be a factor of someone being extra sensitive to noise compared to the general mass.

If anyone is bothered by the drone noise or high volume noise on the second floor, please let us know as we can't address what we don't know.

Q: Can we get a new honeycomb bed for the laser cutter?

A: The honeycomb bed has definitely seen some better days. Due to repeat incidences where the bed is run into the laser head the bed has been damaged.

We're looking into the cost of replacing the honeycomb bed.

Q: Will there be a way for members to check their laser/cnc minutes on their own?

A: We're looking into a way to publicly display the information members log for their minutes so they can self-track. We have to ensure that the information released does not include any sensitive information.

Q: It sometimes gets very loud when people use the boardroom for their meetings. Is there a way to decrease the noise level?

A: Unfortunately due to the nature of the space, we cannot guarantee or police the sound levels in the boardroom. While we can encourage individuals to be mindful of their volume for the surrounding studios, given that is an open space with no sealed walls we will not be able to ensure that volume levels are kept down.

Q: Can we have Electrical Cords strung from the sanding booth ceilings instead of dragged across the floor?

A: Excellent idea. That should be easy enough to remedy and make happen.

Missed/overlooked during the Town Hall:

• Select Fabricator tools available for use now

  • They can now access a select few fabricator-only tools (thickness sander, domino joiner, polisher to start)

  • Just have to review the manuals, provide the consumables, and schedule a test with a community staff member before they can use it

Video Recording

Want to watch the town hall? You can watch it through this link here: