Starting a makerspace in conservative Louisiana city; need tons of advice

1 points by crawfordcomeaux ↗ HN
If you're familiar with hackerspaces/makerspaces, you know that the core group and the culture they establish can make or break them. And the values/norms of most places like that are pretty different from the standard right-wing worldview.

With that in mind, I'm looking for people willing to help us define and protect the makerspace's culture from ourselves. We're setting it up as a non-profit, so we've got a board of directors. One idea I'm exploring is writing bylaws that say for every local board member there must be 2 others who have experience organizing similar spaces/cultures. Not set in stone, of course...just an thought.

Anyway, we're running a small crowdfunding campaign right now at http://www.lftum.com (the description could use some filling in, I know).

We're only just getting things rolling and while we don't have equipment or a community to use it, we do have a 10k sq ft warehouse whose rent's been guaranteed for a year by renting out a portion of it to a theater group for rehearsal and set building. I'm the only one deeply involved who's been to a hackerspace and researching what needs to be done for it, so I can use all the help I can get. That includes advice on anything/everything, such as how to get people accustomed to having tasks assigned to them to start working in a self-organized collaborative manner.

Also, if anyone's interested in joining our board of directors as a remote member, email me at crawford.comeaux@gmail.com or give me a call at 337-739-2846.

So any questions/suggestions out there?

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