I had a lunchtime chat the other day with @Andrew_H and a few ideas came up about things we might collectively do as Tech Shed, or as closely allied events.
I think we agreed TechShed can do things which go beyond the monthly meetups, and it would be good to. We also agreed there must be quite a pool of technical people in and around Frome who would be interested.
Among other things, my increasingly vague memory remembers these points arising:
some informal meetups perhaps of a weekday evening
maybe some more structured events, whether talks or demonstrations
we could build a mail list using a google survey, with the aim of reaching more new people, and seeing what interests are represented (software, electronics, robotics, 3d printing, learning, general socialising)
we could reach out with some publicity perhaps using noticeboards, frome times, existing whatsapp groups
And then there were some ideas more like projects
the idea of air quality monitoring in Nunney (quarry dust being a concern)
the idea of free wifi in public spaces, maybe by using nearby existing wifi networks
maybe something by way of digital inclusion, or events for young people
While I’m here, I’ll also mention a project @p.j mentioned:
a local scheme for recycling filament for people who do a bit of 3D printing. (Local partly because shipping costs tend to dominate.)
Would be great to hear any additional thoughts or comments.
Some informal evening meetups could work well. Currently we’re paying for a technical space that we’re not really able to make full use of, so perhaps we could do chats and planning at regular evening meetups and the monthly Edventure space ones for something more structured (i.e. show-and-tell, working on projects, etc)?
We could do with getting more technical people in, but we probably would need something solid to offer, such as projects, equipment, and such. Which is somewhat tricky since we don’t have a lot of people to do that with yet, and so the vicious circle keeps circling. If we can make a plan for what we want to do, we could try getting the word out a bit more - other suggestions for locations might be the noticeboard outside Sainsburys and the Frome Facebook group. Another thing we could do is to make ourselves known in other town groups, such as whatever Green and Healthy Frome becomes post-funding, groups that could suggest useful projects that they don’t have the technical expertise. Also I imagine there’s a few artists out there who might like a bit of electronics for a dynamic art piece or something maybe?
I like the idea of filament recycling too, I usually end up with waste bits but it probably isn’t worth me trying to find out how best to recycle them, but if there’s a local collection, that’s be helpful. Helpful to enough people to make it worth doing I don’t know, but it’s worth investigating at least.
Sorry, I’ve been idle on this front. Which might be part of the situation: I am not full of energy!
My feeling is that we’re in a phase of ‘be the change you want to see’ - anyone with energy and ideas can use Techshed to reach out and perhaps two or three people together can make a given thing happen.
I have in the past been a bit cautious about reaching out to the public for new members because our offering seems a bit nebulous - it’s not a book group or a cycling group.
One approach would be to create an event and do the reaching out so people come to the event.
Another approach would be to treat it as starting a new thing, and reaching out so people come to help shape the new thing.
Sorry this is all a bit non-specific.
(Edit: two sorries, and I might really only have reiterated what @MartinP said!)
Does the technical space have a screen for presentations? I’d happily put on a technical talk about.. something software development-y - AI or my Nix dev server setup or something like that - if it’d be of interest!!
For context, my outside perspective on all things Tech Shed is here:
There is (or was) a big wheel-about LCD screen we can use. Will need to check if it’s still around. Might need to bring your own HDMI cable (and any necessary adapter)