Author: brian

Upgrades and Improvements

Spring is arriving, vaccines are rolling out, and more people are able to imagine restarting their lives. For the makerspace, that means we are able to consider starting up some classes in a limited, safe fashion. 

We have had requests for welding and woodworking classes particularly, and we are thinking about what we can offer. We are also planning a class sponsored by Partnering with Abi, details to be determined and announced later. Let us know if there’s something you’d like to learn!

As usual, our calendar is updated with our training classes and orientations. Stay tuned for new classes for both members and non-members.
https://bereamakerspace.org/calendar/

Membership Discount Options

We have been in existence for a year and a half now, and have been in the black for one year! Thanks to all of our current and past members and donors for making that happen.

Because we are meeting our expenses, we are introducing  5% and 10% discounts for members who pay their memberships 6 or 12 months in advance, respectively. This option won’t appeal to everyone, but we wanted to make it available and our membership voted to introduce it. Monthly memberships at $35 for individuals and $55 for a family are still available, of course.


Makerspace Upgrades

We have kept busy through the winter and have made some improvements to the space.

We cleared out the front room and resurfaced the floor, creating a much brighter space that is easier to clean, with more room for general purpose making.  In the process we continued the reorganization elsewhere and have cleared out some of the cluttered corners that made the space look cramped.

In the wood shop we have gotten the router table up and running with dust collection and a beefy 3.5 hp Milwaukee router in a router lift, and built a downdraft sanding table to reduce dust when hand-sanding.

We rebuilt the blacksmith forge and cleaned out and reorganized the metal shop with more material storage and easier access to machines. There is a new fuel line for the forge so gas can be stored outside of the shop.

Jess has acquired and set up a large format 3D printer and a resin printer. Classes are on the calendar.

Upcoming projects include a new kids’ area and general-purpose tables to fill out the clean area. The space is always changing as our members have new projects and ideas. Come join us!

Victory Garden Blitz

Sustainable Berea’s annual Victory Garden Blitz is coming up soon, and volunteers are needed! https://www.sustainableberea.org/victory-garden-blitz

Every year Sustainable Berea helps to bring awareness of and solutions to food insecurity through its Victory Garden Blitz by constructing 3×5 raised garden beds for people to grow their own food. This year Berea College is unable to participate and there is a shortage of volunteers. Here’s a blurb about their needs:

We’d like to get a few volunteers to help the Berea Urban Farm with their Victory Garden Blitz. It is scheduled for Friday March 26 from noon to 4 pm, and Saturday March 27 from 9 am to 4 pm.  Volunteers for just part of the time are welcome, too. The Urban Farm gets about 200 8 foot, 2×6 cedar boards delivered to them.  They need a few folks to help cut them into one 5 foot piece and one 3 foot piece, then bolt them into a 5×3 rectangle,  If you are interested contact Ed Clautice.
Home email – Clautice@verizon.net
Phone – (703) 463-0490

If you can lend them a hand, contact Ed!

One last note:

We are now using mailing list software to send emails, so we have an Unsubscribe link below if you don’t want to get these updates anymore.

Stay safe, and Happy Making!

Brian, Meg, Joe, Jess, Ria, Leah

1 Year Anniversary Update

We’re still here!

Hello! It has been a long time since we have communicated with you, and we wanted to send out an update on everything we have been working on this year. Due to the pandemic we have stopped our regular in-person membership meetings and open houses, but members still have 24/7 access to equipment, and we have recently restarted limited open house times. If you want a tour, see how you can visit. We are at 116 Spring Circle Dr, Unit 3, in Berea.

We are 1 year old!

In August we passed our 1-year-of-paying-rent date! To all of those who have been or are currently members, or who have supported us in other ways, thank you! There’s no way we would have made it to this point without our members’ support. We have understandably lost some members, and we have gained new ones, so right now we are hovering right around the break even point, and have been since February. We have enough of a bank account that we are not in danger of one or two bad months, which is great, but in order to expand our capabilities and offerings to our members and the wider Berea community we are looking to grow over the next year. Come join us!

See what is included in membership!

Earlier this year we collaborated with Kre8now Makerspace in Lexington to make and distribute almost 2000 face shields, distributed from Lexington all the way to Virginia, with plenty ending up in Berea. The gofundme we initiated shortly afterwards raised $1600  (including a generous contribution by Partnering with Abi) to help us get needed equipment for our wood and metal shops. See below for some of the highlights.

Upgrades

We have a sign! We are still working on having more information for people who walk up to the space and don’t realize we aren’t generally open to the public, and this sign that Jess made with the CNC goes a long way to improving the outside of the building. We’ll add open house and contact info soon.

Our woodshop is now fully equipped with all of the basic power tools and machines and we are still adding more and planning future upgrades, like a downdraft table, better table saw, hand tools, and more organization. Thanks to the donation from Partnering with Abi we added an oscillating edge/spindle sander, and Duane Kriebel donated some hand sanders. We also installed french cleats for organization and wood storage.​​

We also have a new welder! Our donated welder had mechanical trouble and never got off the ground, but we can now do mig, stick and dc tig welding in our metal shop. Also, Eric built an outdoor cabinet for fuel and we are installing a direct line to the blacksmith forges, so we don’t have to store fuel inside the building. The metalworking shop (including blacksmithing tools) has come a long way and is about ready to be opened up to wider usage. Training and orientation plans are in the works.​​

Future Plans

Plenty more space and equipment upgrades are in the works. We are planning an overhaul of our entry room to remove the bar and the carpet and tile flooring so we can better organize the vinyl cutters and 3d printers, and the sewing, kids, and general work areas. Jess has gotten a new large format 3d printer (450mm^3) that he is integrating into the space, and we need to make room for it!

We are also looking at what kind of classes we can offer to both members and non-members that would follow recommended health guidelines. Both virtual and in-person options are being considered. If there is something you or your kids would like to learn here, please let us know!

Membership

I mentioned it at the top, but hey, you’ve read this far, so I’ll say it again. Our community of members is the key to our success. We are entirely funded day-to-day by member dues, the decisions about the makerspace are made by our membership, and the energy to make things happen comes from our members’ passions. There is no makerspace or ‘we’ to speak of without the members who are paying to make it happen. So to our current members and those who have been a part of the space in the past year, THANK YOU!
Whether you are a maker at heart, want to be part of a maker community, or just have a project you need to work on, come be a part of what we are doing here and make the space your own!

https://bereamakerspace.org/wiki/membership

Berea Makerspace