Our committees areas are open and many of them have already grown.
In fact, we have a couple new committees.
I think progress is important but I’m not sure why someone would leave over it.
How is the lack of finishing expansion contributing to membership loss?
Why does finishing expansion need to be focus number 1?
Without expansion we cannot expand many committee areas. These are areas we see a large amount of members joining to use, but don’t always get that ability. It could be wait times on equipment, the lack of available work tables near the woodshop/machine shop, etc. I’ve seen packed committee spaces with little room to move in the 104 workshop and I’ve personally had to wait hours to get a worktable in there. Having the other work tables in the Flex area become available for people using those committees will make a huge dent in complaints such as those from members as right now it’s too impractical for members using resources in 104 to make use of such tables.
I see that with the extra space and equipment operational, we’ll be able to draw in more members with the machines that we cannot currently operate even though we have them, and committees better able to handle the movement of members between them since a large number of projects rely on using multiple committees simultaneously.
So, how many people do you think left because they felt they didn’t have enough space?
I can’t give a number off my head, but negating the membership loss due to the usual suspects (income changes, moving, time/job interference) here is the ballpark order of reasons people leave:
that second item is where this comes in. With more space this also means the ability to have additional equipment, and the ability to ensure more resources are available for the members that need them.
I haven’t had time to track every case of it, but it is additionally a reason I here on tours when someone doesn’t sign up is they see all the tables are full and don’t feel like they’d be able to work on what they want.
A large improvement in projects came when the project storage rules started being enforced, as it became available for regular members to use rather than the cliques and repeat offenders. I suspect that worktables and equipment becoming more available will help as well though it is a hard item to track.
This is very true. There has been a reduction in the number of people who drop for inability to find a work space since enforcement started.
I believe this also reduced the personal dispute problem. Many of them stemmed from people that were abusing the system being confrontational with the people that needed space to work.
Some areas where expansion delays have been mentioned as concerns to me are:
All three of these will be addressed when we reopen because they are all dependent on the electrical work being done right now
Well, a big fat reason would be that the north warehouse keeps migrating toward being a really costly junk drawer. Stuff gets put there with the best of intentions, but then turns into pallet-loads of albatrosses.
As @mrjimmy noted, when the electricity and venting projects are completed, a lot of of cramped committees will be better able to serve their members, almost immediately upon moving. Machine shop. Ceramics. Jewelry. Lapidary. Glass. Blacksmithing will be a giant step closer to their dedicated space, which in turn will in turn open up floorspace in the Metal shop.
But really important to me (despite not being a regular user) is that the woodshop committee has outgrown their space. All of the “updates” made to keep it useable are really just band-aids. But, due to the necessity of doing the expansion upgrades in stages, and actually being like a make-ery version of Tetris, their expansion is near the bottom of the list. Which is unfortunate, given the number of people who have joined DMS specifically for woodshop access. In the woodshop, workspace is at a premium. Ventilation sucks. It’s near-impossible to keep the summer temperatures in that room at a near-comfortable level.
Sure, we could spend money to improve that particular area, but IMHO, spending a butt-load of money on temporary fixes due to holding patterns in the expansion process is just not good use of membership dollars.
I think no matter what area we have for storage, albeit an off-site storage or the warehouse, we will always find a way to fill it up with stuff.
I also don’t think keeping the a/c clean and working should be called a temporary fix as it needs to be done in any area that woodshop sits. I do wonder when the best time to close down woodshop to move it would be. It is never going to be ideal.
We also have considerably less members right now. The size of the old space worked well up until we grew but now that we are back to around 1600ish, space might not be as big of an issue.
Historically any time we are “mid move/build out” we lose members and see a large jump upon completion. (Covid19 related losses and jumps not included)
Finishing expansion will help everyone in the space tremendously. 102 Electrical will be a huge step in that direction