Future Gazing 20260120
Given our not-great financial situation we started with a review of where things are. Mostly that was a run through of the most recent financials report, the Cost of Doing Epic poster and the income breakdowns
We then had an idea generation session where everyone checked out a handful of prompts and noted down ideas/responses/etc. on large sheets of paper; discussing them with others nearby as they did so.
How do we bring more folk in? What sort of people do we want to join the community? How do we find them?
- Calendar of events
- Targets e.g. 'world X day' or aligned to school/college/uni curriculum
- Relaunch
- Interns
- Show more of the things people make/do here -> recent makes
- Advertise to group organisers - organising the organisers
- Can we partner with someone else? e.g. people who need space... skills... community... machines...
- Discount/scheme for X reason, e.g. young entrepreneurs club
- Rich activists 😀
- Bring in more students. & schools?
- Interns/work experience... to help
- Advertise at uni events
- Community organiser boost membership
- Make the main space more inviting - it's a bit chaotic and intimidating 😄 (+ dusty)
- I want a more diverse mix of people - maybe advertise in different places to target different communities
- Worm your way into different networks - and tell everyone about DoES!
- Community activists & political groups that align with DoES e.g. Your Party
- Host a Hackathon! (prizes could just be DoES related like a membership)
- See other sheet but tl;dr more user-led workshops
- How do we fit more storage in?
- More workshops that the community can access e.g. intro to sewing - you can ask for a small cost to put your name on the list
- Space to build stuff
- Use less products on the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) list
- More labelling of areas/workstations/appliances, etc. for newcomers to use the space independently (Ideally a newcomer may not need ask a single question if the answer is either "it's there" or can be demonstrated via a short youtube video) (machines or areas may have a QR code linking to a video of what they can do on youtube, etc.)
- More stuff people can't get at home e.g. bigger 3D printers
- Co-working space should always be in a "sit down and work" condition. Should immediately recognise a space to work upon entering at a glance and not having to "make space" since a space should already be available (also not having to de-clutter before working) (and maybe evenly-spaced monitors and chairs)
- Encourage folks to keep space tidy
- More: storage; Less: clutter
- Moderate de-cluttering would allow us to fit more in the same space
- More emphasis on the collective + individual responsibility + obligation to keep the space clean + tidy for everyone
What processes are working well within the community? What could be better? What has outstayed its welcome?
- Retention of members
- Maker night + maker day
- Repair cafe
- Variety of 'surface'/'ways in' + community
- Identity
- Hack the space could be better - more folk involved, etc. (but is a great concept!)
- Clear labelling of non-working equipment
- Maker night is great ❤️
- Getting people to stay (and pay) when they come in
- ? The directors - more? new?
- ? What paid person is paid to do
- ? Review what DoES stands for?
- Visibility
- Comms
- Heating
- Getting people involved
- Community organising
- How do we onboard people into helping out?
- Help people to find the market
- Counting people! Count people who attend maker night + day, workshop attendees. Good for applications and advocacy. How many friends/members do DoES have?
- Calendar for upcoming year: e.g. plans for tidying
- What stops people from staying after coming in once (through coworking, maker nights, etc.) What about the space doesn't work for them? Are they intimidated? Can't use equipment? Don't have ideas? Need a 'better' co-working space? etc.
- Stock photos on website
Following the idea generation session, we did a round of "dot voting": everyone reviewed the sheets of ideas, etc.; placing up to five ✔️ votes against the ones they were interested in; and we tallied up which were the more popular.
Then those were discussed as a group. There wasn't a lot of time left to discuss things so we only covered a couple of items. If there's anything of particular interest to discuss further we can pull it out as an item in a community meeting.
- We discussed Room 29: how to make it easier for newcomers to know which desks are available or not; whether monitors are available to use; etc. Maybe have a hack-the-space focused on those sort of topics?
- There was talk of getting more students into the space. Maybe approaching the societies, who are generally on Instagram.
We didn't get too many things discussed in the group discussion, but people are welcome to pull items that were discussed out for follow-up conversations in a community meeting.