With permission, I’m sharing an enquiry from Martin Hayes, who is active in Glastonbury (for example, in digital inclusion) and who is interested in sharing experience:
I am part of a group of people who want to set up a Tech Hub in Glastonbury. I had a conversation with someone from Frome Men in Sheds on Monday who suggested getting in touch with your group.
Would it be possible to speak to someone in your group to hear your story and your experience of running a techshed?
He and I did have a chat on the phone - I failed to take notes, but I’m pretty sure several nearby ventures were named, whether share and repair, tech sheds, mens sheds, or make spaces.
I noted that we did visit a shed in Trowbridge, which is of course near to us but less so from Glastonbury. But as it turns out I don’t think we’ve made any enquires with any efforts in other surrounding towns.
My description of our situation is that we get 5 or 6 attendees for a monthly meetup at a venue which we hire, where we also have a bit of storage space. There used to be three large tables in the room which allowed for several clusters of chat or activity, but presently there’s just one. (Or is it two? You’d think I’d remember.) We don’t have any shared projects at present, we did have a funded project (the air quality sensors) but that’s now a little while back. We often have one or two things-to-bring to chat about. We don’t usually do any project work in the two hours we have. There is access to a 3D printer, a milling machine, and a laser cutter - or there was until a recent reshuffle - but a two hour session is a bit short to make use of them. (We do own another, slightly older 3D printer which I think is presently under wraps.)
Hi Ed and thank you for agreeing to share your experiences with me. I currently run a digital cafe in Glastonbury with the support of Spark who operate all over Somerset. We have a table in St John’s Church for 2 hours on a Monday, providing support for mobile phones and laptops. We offer refurbished devices to people in need, provided by DonateIT and free Vodafone data SIMs from Spark.
Glastonbury also has a Repair Cafe which hires out a scout hut once a month and makes a decent profit, although not having storage is a bit of an issue. They repair household items for a donation.
I’ve had the idea of setting up a tech hub for quite a while as the digital cafe is limited in what it can do. My vision is to have a hub where people share their skills, offer classes, make things, refurbish tech and offer support to local businesses. So far I have had two introductory meetings and and have 14 people who would like to be involved.
We are at the stage where we are researching how to get started. The group will probably be a constituted group to begin with, we don’t have a venue so are looking at possible sites, although funds haven’t been looked at yet.
We would appreciate any advice and tips you might. I think networking will be extremely important for us to get up and running.
Other items to research are funding, equipment, local collaborations.
Martin, I’d be happy to share experience with you. I am a member of the Frome Shed and I have been a Trustee (Treasurer). I also did repairs for the Frome Share Shop (which is now temporarily closed) and I volunteer repair on Saturdays and Bath Share and Repair. And I am a member of Frome Tech Shed. I don’t have a car and I’m not sure how easy it is for me to get to Glastonbury (always worth a visit). I’ll investigate. If you come to Frome, or an intermediate place (Shepton Mallet?) that might work. Good luck with your venture.
Thank you for the offer. I am arranging another local meet to clarify what everyone would like to do and agree the next steps. I’ll see if anyone else would like to meet up in Frome and get back to you.