So I have been trying to host this event called show and share. Been away the last few due to travel and illness but the turnout hasn’t been the best so I figured I’d ask the community their thoughts.
So far it has been the same 4/5 of us showing up and I keep being told it is a great idea and I’d love to come but I have not see those folks yet.
I guess my question is for the community is if this time is good or not or if there is something else or some other time to try? I’ve been offered an amount to budget for food if that entices people more but don’t want to get food if no one shows up.
Currently it starts at 6:30 on Thursdays but goes on until everyone is done. This isn’t to say you have to show up at 6:30 it’s just a time to put on the calendar.
Some folks might not be aware of what show and share is somehow. If you have missed the signs, it is just a time for makers to get together and talk shop and mingle while showing off their past, present, and future projects. Successes and failures. This was something I used to do at my makerspace in Knoxville.
Again open to suggestions and feedback. Maybe this isn’t the right thing for our community or maybe the time or day is bad. I would love to hear back from you all.
Thanks for hosting show and share. I thought about attending, but decided not to. Here is a list of similar* social/maker events that I attend and benefit from:
tool time with Tim on Thursdays (also on Thursdays)
various committee meetings (3d fab, metal, machine shop)
electronics office hours
Via the Internet, I also post on 3d printer/CNC Discord channels and use this talk. Also, I usually just bring my things I’m working on to these meetings, even the regular committee meetings, which stops annoying people from sitting next to me. (jk )
I have three reasons or categories or motivations to participate in these;
Social needs, we are social people so I attend meetings in order to feel like part of a group and to relate to people and get a sense of belonging and stuff
Introspection and organization, in preparing for these meetings I have to think about my progress since the last meeting and it basically keeps me accountable and allows me to think about my long-term goals, like having a calendar. For the online groups, I have to document my progress with pictures.
The obvious one: I attend in order to learn from people with more experience. These groups are all non-profit, there’s experienced people who are genuinely interested in sharing their expertise for reasons that are not entirely known to me. (lol)
So to summarize, there’s like 400 years of professional experience spread across a dozen countries which I can benefit from without ever leaving the comfort of my office chair. From a purely cost/benefit standpoint, the limiting factor has never been getting qualified, enthusiastic people to look at my projects. It’s analogous to the thousands of 1/4" carbide endmills lying in the tool drawers. There’s no point trying to increase your productivity by having more endmills, when the limiting factor is, how effective are your workholding setups or how expensive is the raw materials.
Anyway, I decided to focus on the meetings I already (spottily) attend, and for my goals it would be extraneous to attend another meeting. Also, this is definitely a “me” problem but I feel like everybody schedules their events on either Thursday night or Saturday morning. They should just replace the first two rules of fight club with
You do not schedule Fight Club on Thursday evenings
You do not schedule Fight Club on Saturday [late] mornings
I can’t speak for everyone else, but with my projects, they generally take a while to make, so I frequently don’t have anything to show. Maybe cutting back the schedule to biweekly or monthly might help? Would also be easier on you mentally. I remember doing the same for teaching (though I was 2 classes biweekly), and going to once or twice a month helped me a lot.
It’s not just you.
Here’s a short list of the things vying for Thursday evenings, in no particular order:
School Board meetings
City Council meetings
PTA meetings
Sports events (e.g. JV football games)
“Happy Hour” with colleagues
2nd job
Church Governance Committee meetings
Neighborhood Association Meetings
I’m with you; it seems EVERY ONE wants their meeting to be on a Thursday evening…
In fairness, whenever meetings I want to attend DO get scheduled for some other time, I rarely make because daily life sucks up so much of my time (not that it shouldn’t; family and home life are important).
When I schedule events I host, I usually do Monday evenings. It works as well as anything for me.
Fridays don’t work for me personally, I have events that night. I think the first half of the week (Monday - Wednesday) generally tend to be a lot more open on calendar. Usually I see some classes in woodshop but it’s not as packed. If I had to pick a day, maybe Monday or Wednesday?
For time, 7 usually is good. It gives people enough time to get home from work, unwind a bit, then head to the DMS. 6:30 also isn’t bad as well. Weekends would give you more time flexibility, but a lot of people are busy then.
I’m my opinion just stick with it. There will always be something going on regardless. Pick any day of the week, oh Monday is Service night. Tuesday is taco Tuesday. Wednesday is wingsday, etc…
Just keep it consistent no matter which day.
Take Machine Shops committee meetings. We consistently have about 15 people in attendance.
Laser, when they had their maintenance/committee days with food, they had good success because it was pretty consistent.
Traditionally, no. Date night/drinking night/family game night/first taste of weekend.
Obviously, I think another night would be better, but honestly, pick what works best for you and see if it works for others. Maybe try a rotation thing…
For my $, something like “always the 3rd Thursday of the month” or “2nd Tuesday” or whatever works pretty well (but I have no hard evidence such events see better attendance).
Timewise, weekdays, after 5:30PM seems to be the key, so I think you’re good there, but we tend to have the “evening” crowd and the “overnight” crowd, so…
Me neither, but I really appreciate your trying! I hope you can hit on a winning combo!
I suggest this, because, not that I attend with regularity, but I really appreciated the efforts of the Board, for example, to hold mtgs on a variety of days, making it possible I could attend.
Maybe “the 20th of the month” every month would work?
I dunno. Spitballing here…
Sounds like weekly is too much, though my intention was not to have everyone show up every week but to make it a consistent thing that people could come if they want to.
Maybe the key is to do it less and build up the crowd and if the feeling is people want to do it more then we can go from monthly to bi-weekly, to weekly. The slow burn.
Do they have to be in Interactive? That is the room I use for Dye Sub 101 classes, due to the multiple electrical circuits for heat presses, and from September through May my ONLY availability for teaching classes is Monday and Thursday evening. If Interactive is booked every Thursday evening then that means I only have Mondays available. If it was changed to bi-weekly then I could work around it, as well.
I’d also say keep at it if you have a good group of regular people. My Python class shrank from 12 in 2 sections to just 3 in one section over the span of a few months. I only stopped due to some health issues, but I kept on teaching for them. I’ll try to attend one of the next ones you host, if you do, now that I have a few projects completed and ready to share.
I’m going to agree with giving it a try on a monthly schedule. We do a (roughly) once a month/once every two month Clay and Coffee get together for Ceramics with a decent turn out. We tend to have a “Feature” to give people an idea of what the event is going to entail in case they are new/unsure but it is just a small part of a generally laid back get-together. It helps people make the decision to carve out a spot on their calendar. For a lot of folks, their ‘spare’ time is pretty slim so they tend to be risk averse to nebulous social events.
Some greater clarity on what will be happening might help foster interest. Or perhaps, co-hosting each month with a different committee to take advantage of existing social groups.
Hi, I have enjoyed the projects shared on this forum, and IMHO - I offer you this suggestion and the DMS Powers of Be:
Offer Show & Share and a General Meeting on Sunday afternoons from 4:00pm to 5:00pm with light refreshments on a Quarterly Basis.
This timing would not only provide the opportunity for the general membership to meet who is running DMS and offer the opportunity to voice praises and suggestions.
It would also be a great “deadline” to get projects completed without feeling “rushed” to share every single week or month.
I feel like Show and Share should get a shelf in the lobby!
If members want to leave their stuff on display for a week/month/time Period/ it’d be a great way to showcase what’s actually being made at the space, and the display rotating out would help people remember to show up.
Also thursday is the night w/ the most conflicts. Followed closely by Wed.
That’s actually a pretty good turnout for this type of thing, especially on a weeknight.
I saw another thread talking about getting weekend tours back on event calendar. I suggest giving scheduling S&Ss on a weekend a try, in sync with tour days/times and see if that helps a bit…would give folks on a tour something to observe/experience for themselves beyond just the tools and committee areas.
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