Latest member news 16 September 2016

Dear all,

Here's the latest news from Makespace.

Forthcoming events

Clean-up, Sun 23 October

It's about time we had a big clean-up, so come along from 11am and help sweep, clean, tidy, arrange, and throw away. Thanks in advance for your efforts, which will be rewarded with pizza.

Open Day, 29 October

There will be an open day on Saturday 29 October from 12 noon. Activities, exhibits and helpers are sought! Have you made something you're pleased with that you'd like to show off? Can you help demo a piece of kit on the day? Or would you like to just generally help out? Contact Jo Brook to get involved.

Equipment

Electronics owner

The electronics workbenches are well used but not so well looked after. They have only one owner at the moment, Rob K, who would welcome help in the form of additional owners. If you are interested, e-mail electronics (at) makespace (dot) org.

CNC owners/trainers

There are quite a lot of people asking to be trained on the CNC router. But at the moment, only Robin is running inductions, and he can't keep up with demand. Can anyone else take on doing some training? You should have used the router but don't need to be an expert. Robin or another owner can meet up and go over how to run an induction with you.

Wood lathe open for business

The wood lathe is now commissioned and its new owners are running inductions. Check Meetup or ask on the mailing list if you'd like to be trained.

Bits and bobs

Adjustable height table

At the suggestion of the city council's Accessibility Officer, we've got an adjustable height table, which is now in the bank of tables in the main space. There's a plastic cap at each end (please don't lose them) which, if removed, reveals a crankshaft. There's a crank handle (don't lose this either) in the drawer of the adjacent desk.

Honesty boxes

Cong kept some records for the kitchen honesty box which revealed that, unfortunately, there was money regularly going 'missing'. Replacing the box with a locked box with a slot seems to have fixed this problem. The other honesty boxes will shortly also be replaced with lockable ones. This does have the downside that it is not possible to take change. Apologies for this. If you have a suggested solution, please shout - meantime, remember to stock up on change when coming in to Makespace.

Community bank account

There is now a bank account for community funds from the various honesty boxes. If you want to buy consumables, get the agreement of a relevant owner (who should check that the relevant kitty has enough funds as well as that the purchase is sensible), and then e-mail signatories (at) makespace (dot) org to arrange repayment.

WEEE disposal

Cambridge Computer Recycling recently came and collected a huge supply of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). WEEE can't be thrown in the bin so it's great that they do this - they do it without charge as a commercial venture and then recover as many parts as they can. Apparently they have a warehouse of unlikely and elderly components, so if there is something you're looking for you could try contacting them! If you do have any WEEE to get rid of at Makespace, please find someone who can put it in the office, and when another pile has built up we'll call them back.