Chairperson’s Report for June/July 2022.

This past month at Techworks has been another whirlwind. The last time we met, we were talking about finding a renter for the front space. Within days we had one!

The biggest changes in the past month, though, are in the woodshop. (aka “Dirty Room”) If you’ve been in there, you will notice that most of our tools have been replaced with better ones owned by Barrel Town. Yes, members are permitted to use their tools. (With proper training, of course.)

Most of our tools have either been returned to whomever loaned them to us, or placed into storage in case we need them again. (If you’re missing something, talk to us. We can get it back.)

Our 3D Printer Farm continues to progress. We have three working Ender 3s and Braeden is close to having Octoprint working on all of them. (and, hopefully, on the Makerbot soon.)

Membership has been stable for the past month. We signed up a few new and returning members and have a few who have fallen behind on dues but haven’t officially let us know they are canceling.

That said, costs are rising. Our occupancy gets recalculated every July, and our rent cheque has gone up a bit for July and August. With the new lease in September, it looks like rent will go up about $250 per month. We need to continue promoting our space and signing up new members to replace leaving members and to cover the increased costs.

Our next big event will be MakerFaire on June 25th. If you are willing to help out and haven’t already spoken with Rylan about it, please do that ASAP so he can make sure we have volunteers to staff our displays throughout the day.

Two weeks after MakerFaire, on July 9th, we will hold another open house! This open house will be promoted at MakerFaire, so hopefully we have a good turnout. If you are willing to help out with that, please talk to me.

July 2022

Maker Faire: Thank you to all who showed up for MakerFaire. I can’t speak for everyone else, but I was able to talk to a lot of people about TechWorks and handed out brochures. Sadly, we lacked the planning to make the most of it and entirely failed to promote the open house we had planned for two weeks after Maker Faire. Time will tell if we see any new members from the exposure at Maker Faire.

Open House: With near zero promotion, just a post on our website, I wasn’t expecting many people to show up. But, I figured someone might, so I spent the day at the space. Two people dropped in and were very excited about the place. They were nearly ready to sign up, but decided to take the application forms home instead. Hopefully they return.

I believe a big part of our failure was due to having missed quorum at the June meetings. Meetings are where decisions get made. Without them, nothing can really happen. Please, if you care about TechWorks, make an effort to show up for meeting nights. We are a member run club. The board can’t do everything by ourselves.

CNC: A computer was purchased for the Laguna CNC machine. If you were previously trained on Goliath, please talk to me about getting a quick checkout on the Laguna as the software is entirely different.

Membership Fees: Ever since TechWorks began (or, at least, as long as I’ve been around) our membership fee has been $50 per month. A few years ago, our revenue reached the threshold which required us to start collecting GST. At that time, the board decided to keep the membership fee at $50/month, but with GST included. In effect, this means we reduced our membership fee from $50 to $47.62/month. With costs rising, the topic of raising our rate was brought up again. Many of our existing members are on recurring payments via Paypal and Square and it is a small hassle to change these recurring payments. As such, the board has proposed that we increase the membership fee to $50 plus tax (currently 5%) for any new members or returning members as of September 1st. Our bylaws seem to suggest we require a Special General Meeting to accomplish this, so this change will be voted on at our August monthly meeting.