Derby City is an amazing place. Home of the industrial revolution and now a growing industrial, technology and artistic revolution in England.
It is missing one thing though.. A place where tools and work space is accessible to the general public every day of the year. That is what we want to fix with the creation of the Derby MakerSpace.
What is a MakerSpace? It is a facility, which as a member, you can use and get access to the tools and the work space and resources you need to work on your own projects from making your own wooden furniture to 3D printing and laser cutting your own electronics box to painting and molding your own ceramics.
What do we plan on having at the MakerSpace? We have split up the MakerSpace into 3 areas. Our Technology Lab will host 3D printers, Laser Cutters, Computing and Electronics. Our Workshop will have Wood Working, Metal Working, Machining, Spray booth and General Fabrication. And finally our Art Studio will have all your Arts & Crafts (there are just too many things to mention here).
What equipment? The MakerSpace is a community project which heavily relies on equipment/tool donations and loans from members, the public, local and national business, organisations and brands. We wont necessarily have the funds to buy any large bits of equipment so fundraising the running costs is only 50% of what we need to do.
How is the MakerSpace funded? We are a non-profit organisation which relies on membership fees for its day to day running costs (facility, utility bills, insurance etc). Extra funds raised from donations, grants and fundraisers will go towards improving the MakerSpace, allowing us to offer more services and buying equipment and tools members need at the space.
Why are we Crowdfunding? To get the MakerSpace going, we are crowdfunding the first year's worth of running costs as well as startup costs to pay for construction of stud wall partitions, 2 rooms (Shop and Storage room) as well as a toilet and small kitchen area. Extra funds raised will go towards improving the facility allowing us to replace the old fluorescent lights with modern, energy saving LED ones for example.
What do I get in return for supporting this project? You can select what you want in return for supporting this project through the "Rewards". Our main rewards are memberships to the MakerSpace for 1,3,6 and 12 months. Anyone who pledges for membership during the crowdfund, no matter how much or how little, will get their name inscribed on our "Founders Plaque" located inside the MakerSpace.
What does businesses get in return? We have multiple tiers of rewards for businesses and organisations that would like to sponsor the MakerSpace. From £250 you will get your company logo on our "Sponsor Wall" which will be located inside the MakerSpace to show off all of our supporting partners. This includes social media coverage on our growing social media pages as well as website listing. £500 and £1000 tiers grant larger exposure on our Sponsor Wall and much more social media coverage, with £1000 tier being heavily prominent on the website and any print media such as flyers, posters etc that are handed out or put up to advertise the space.
Would like to donate equipment, tools or raw materials? We would love them! As long as it is usable and is valuable to our members we will take it. Please contact [email protected] and list items available.
Our facility
We plan on occupying a 1,600 sqft business unit located near the City center area on Siddals Road. It is less than 1,000 feet away from the bus station, has a bus stop right outside and plenty of parking with up to 5 free spaces just for the MakerSpace. If the car park is full, there are over 100 spaces within the main car park that are pretty cheap. After 6PM, there is free parking on Siddals Road and Copeland St.
The unit is comprised of a steel portal frame with 6 large skylights making it nice and blight on the inside. The floor is car showroom quality and is serviced with three phase power, water and internet service. There is enough room out front for loading and unloading projects, raw materials and donations.
The front shutter door will be replaced with a shop like frontage and double doors allowing members to access the building 24/7 using RFID membership cards.
The facility will be split into multiple work space areas with the social space being an overflow when needed.
The shop will have a wide range of items for sale such as consumables for all the work spaces, raw materials, paint, safety gear etc as well as food and drink to keep you going while at the MakerSpace. Prices will be low and profits made from the shop will go towards buying the basic consumables needed in each work space and will hopefully pay for services such as waste and recycling collection.
Member Storage will allow you to temporarily store projects and raw materials at the MakerSpace to save having to take them home with you.
The social area will comprise of multiple tables and chairs as well as a computer area to access the internet and software for project work.
The kitchen area will allow members to make hot drinks, heat food up in the microwave. It's not there for you to cook the Sunday roast..
Growth Plan.
As with any organisation, our plan is to grow. While the first year will be us trailing out the concept of there being a MakerSpace in Derby, we hope to grow the organisation as well as our member numbers over the course of 2-3 years. We hope that within that time frame we are able to grow enough to need to move to a larger facility that will cater for more members but also allow us to offer private studio/work space for members. These private spaces will be low cost and provide access to the shared work spaces of the MakerSpace to those who need dedicated private work space for their hobbies or small cottage industry businesses. Having a larger facility will also allow us to house more equipment, tools and resources as well as host events, add more dedicated rooms for things like ceramics, spraying, machining etc.
Year 2 will be funded 100% by member fees. If encase we are not able to fun the full amount required, we will use reserve funds.
We we constantly be working on getting more sponsors and members as well as accessing grants and funds made available to organisations like ours.
How the funds will be spent.
We are crowdfunding for our first year of operation. This includes all facility bills and initial construction costs. This breaks down into the following;
Facility rent - £10,000
Utilities (Electric/Water) - Upwards of ~£1,500
Council Tax - £0 (property value under £12k = £0 to pay)
Insurance - £400 (Liability and contents)
Internet - £300
Totals to £12,200 per year
Budgeted construction cost is estimated to be around £1,500 for the absolute minimum needed to get going. This would include;
Construction of the frontage with double doors and RFID access control
Basic fire detection, prevention, emergency lights and signs.
Extra funding would allow us to do the following;
- Workshop partition wall to prevent noise and dust entering the rest of the facility
- LED lighting to replace the T12 8ft fixtures currently in place
- Full Fire Alarm system and prevention and emergency lighting
- More electric points throughout the facility
- Paint for internal partition walls
- Worktop
- New tables and chairs
- Waste and recycling disposal (£440 per year for a 1100L bin collected every 2 weeks)
We are also applying for grants during this crowdfund to help fund the project in the region of £5,000 to £10,000. This will allow us to do the extra work such as making the MakerSpace safer by installing a fire alarm system and more prevention equipment if not already donated.
Payment and Platform fees total 8% of our raised funds. This totals £15,000 for our crowdfund campaign.
Ideally we would like to raise an extra 20% on top of what we are asking for finical security and emergency funds.
Membership
Membership to the MakerSpace allows access to the facility 24/7, 365 days a year. You will need to sign up on our website and upload an ID photo for your ID card which will let you into the MakerSpace and user certain services such as the shop and access the storage room. Full name and Address is required by law as well as agreeing to our Terms of Service, Rules, Members Agreement and Waiver. Membership can only be bought and used by those over the age of 16. Anyone under the age of 18 needs parent or guardian approval.
We plan on making the standard membership from £15 per month. For those who use the MakerSpace a lot, we ask that you increase your membership fees to as much as you feel is fair. We advise that if you use the MakerSpace more than twice a week that you do this as membership pays for facility costs which include the electricity, water and resources you use while you attend the MakerSpace. Ideally we need to average £20 per month with 50-70 members in total to keep the lights on.
Once we are able to, we also would like to have membership made available to those on low income as well as college students. These memberships will be low cost and funded by grants, donations and extra funds raised by the MakerSpace.
While membership is "Unlimited", we do have a fair usage policy to prevent equipment hogging, preventing others from using equipment and behavior that negatively impacts the organisation financially. Certain equipment such as 3D printers will have exceptions to this due to some prints taking many hours.
Commercial use of the space is fine for small cottage industry types. We are not kitted out or have the space for medium to large business use. We do ask that if you intend on using the space for commercial use as a small/cottage industry type, that you increase your membership fees to help support the MakerSpace.
Using equipment and tools at the MakerSpace
Membership includes access to the whole facility and the equipment, tools and resources made available unless stated. You are only to use equipment that you know how to use in a safe manner. You are not to use equipment or tools in a way the endangers yourself, other members, staff or the facility.
If you do not know how to use a piece of equipment, ask other members to show you how. Online resource will be made available to help with this, and work space workshops/guides will be done on a monthly, or fortnightly bases to help members with learning new equipment and tools.
If you break equipment, tell staff immediately. If you have used the equipment correctly there will be no charge. We don't intend on charging for fix equipment, poor or in-properer use may result in a small fine to help fund the replacement or repair.
Crowdfunding risks
As with any crowdfunding campaign, there are risks involved. We are doing as much as possible to prevent anything going wrong but in the unlikely event of something going wrong, we will be upfront and transparent.
As we are crowdfunding for the first year startup costs, we have not yet signed the tenancy agreement with the landlord until we reach our target goal of £15,000. If the property becomes unavailable before we reach this goal, and there is not a similar or better property available before the end of the campaign, we end the crowdfund and refund 100% of the funds back to the backers.
There is no guarantee of there being equipment, tools or resources available at the MakerSpace from day 1 due to these items being sourced from donations and loans from members, the public and businesses.
While the MakerSpace is due to be open 247, 365 days a year. We might have to close on certain days or nights if there are works scheduled to be taking place, and incident happens or if it is deemed unsafe until the risk is amended.