Idea for members exchange shelf (freebie shelf)

DMS General
#1

We will be having another meeting soon, But I wanted to get
folks input and thinking ahead of time.

The old freebie shelf is in the off site storage, I understand, We could
plant to use it, but it was not in great shape and it was fairly deep,
which made have helped encourage some of its problems
My first thought is that we need to see if we can get some help in
building a new one that is not as deep and that has bins for some
items.
I would like to have one for small, nice off cuts from the wooed shop
Another bin would be for various power and computer cables,

What else would be goo in a bin?
How large should they be?
plastic or can we make some with a
clear front?
We discussed making the shelves closer together to discourage
the dumping of some larger items (a monthly or bi-monthly face
to face exchange for larger items),

We need input from members, This is something a lot want so
please tell us how to design it so that it will be more useful

Thanks,
Cairenn and the committee

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#2

What about grouping bins by material and using the Talk Exchange for larger items that can be dead dropped if there’s interest in it? Face to Face sounds good but I wonder if people would want to hang on to things that long…maybe time one a month with the off site storage cleanout? I’ve heard from @Photomancer that they throw out some pretty useful/nice things but don’t claim them of their own accord because of ethics. Seems like a Zero Landfill approach with Pollination and a pickup day would kill two birds with one stone and get some help for those guys

#3

That would be very difficult. People move things from box to box as they dig through and look for things of interest. Also, folks just drop stuff in various places without looking. Anything like this would be “best effort” but realistically unattainable.

The bins idea was to make it easy to maintain the items on the shelf. Take the bins on the right half and dump them on a Saturday and relocate them to the left side of the shelf after sliding the full bins over. The next weekend dump the bins on the right half and repeat. The bins also keep the items hidden and the shelves cleaner looking.

Larger items would either be given away via Talk:MakerTrade or by a freebie exchange gathering on the 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month.

Unknown on offsited items. That is something that @photomancer and the board will need to weigh in on. In any case, it would only work with the smaller items that would fit in the bins. I would prefer to not have any offsited items to avoid any arguments, claims of theft, etc.

#4

That’s what I mean. We can coordinate the day they clean out offsite storage (or move items from the space to offsite storage) to be the same as the in person freebie exchange

Good points about people rummaging and not respecting the categories after the fact.

#5

Keep in mind that the Freebie Shelf existed for many years without it being perfect. Some of those who’ve been bringing up the pains of its upkeep have also shown amicability to its removal. Those who want to keep it going will be far more agreeable to putting forth the added effort.

If we try to address every problem that “seems” big to others, we will be kicking the can down the road for a very long time.

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#6

Before you get locked into the idea of only having little bins for little items, please remember that recycling older PC’s thru the freebie shelf was a very popular activity. Please keep a place for PC’s and flat screen monitors on the new freebie shelf.

I’ve personally put over a dozen PC’s that were serviceable with current OS’s on the shelf. All except for the last two were snatched up pretty quickly and used/upgraded/sold by other members. The last two were perfectly serviceable, intact servers that had drives and intact server licenses… and were both thrown in the dumpster by @Brandon_Green within a few hours of being placed on the freebie shelf (not on the floor). What a waste.

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#7

I do want to leave room for PCs and such, in honor of full disclosure
the computer I am using right now is one Stan made up from the
freebie shelf. It replace one that was over 10 years old!

I know that some see it as a ‘bunch of trash’, others see
it as a great source of useful materials, ie, my computer.

I am on several local area Buy/Sell/give away lists on FB
and damaged (cat scratched/dog chewed) leather sofas
show off fairly often. I will admit that after a friend s post
yesterday, I will be looking at those posts with a different
eye. Her neighbor had put one out for bulk pickup and
when no one took it, she went over and salvaged the leather
of various projects. Duh, I should have thought of that,
and NO that does NOT mean that the new shelf will accept
leather sofas!!! Just an illustration about how something that
most folks saw as trash was useful to a resourceful person.

According to those that followed the shelf daily, most items on
it turned over rapidly.

The bin idea for me is to control things like cords and cables that
end up looking messy. I see the bins on some of the lower, below
waist level shelves, easier to look in and the lower shelves seemed
to have been where some of the worst offensive stuff landed.

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#8

I like the Bins ideas or the little stuff so it doesn’t get buried -

I’d asked for a webcam looking onto the free shelf so I could see what was there without having to drive in - but was shot down.

Besides that - DON’T OVERTHINK THIS!!! - it’s just a freebie shelf - not K2…

And lastly - just trashing stuff seems SUCH a waste - so much could have parts/fasteners/metals harvested out of them to use or sell to scrap yards for the benefit of DMS. I wish that was part of this cycle less so than the dumpster.

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#9

An admirable goal, but man I hardly have time to do my projects at the space. It’s way easier for me to trash some stuff from the shelf that I’ve seen there for a few weeks.

#10

I need more feedback folks

Right now I am thinking the the 2 bottoms shelves
will be composed of bins, larger ones on the bottom
and smaller ones on the second from the bottom shelf

If we don t use the old shelf, we will need to build one and
we will need some help in doing that. We will need guidance
on how far to make the shelves apart and how high to go with them

#11

I think it should at least be considered that this be branded as the Ecology Interest Group with the objective of converting it to the Ecology Committee if it takes off. Its focus could be on responsible reuse and disposal of unwanted items.

You may ask, what’s the difference? Classes! That’s what.

The free shelf/member exchange shelf is a great thing. But it does not by itself provide much in terms of the educational mission of DMS. However, an Ecology Interest Group or Ecology Committee could.use the shelf as a resource to provide materials for classes on topics such as reduce/reuse/recycle focused training and repair/restoration of items that appear on the shelf. There are a number of other topics an ecology group/committee could teach classes on.

If it got enough people motivated, it could also become one outlet for community outreach. But that’s probably a little further off.

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#12

I love that idea! I have some white canvas that I got off of it, that I
intended to use last summer of the tote bag class

#13

The reason for the camera being “shot down” is we have apparently saturated the ability to put in more cameras without adding another server or other expensive IT things. I’ve heard this from the current infrastructure Chair, the former Chair -Brooks, Robert, Alex, and Andrew, folks that know a whole more about these things than I do and are people I rely on and trust for information and help for several years now.

Lots of committees want an extra camera - I asked for another one for Machine Shop, the above reason is what I was given several months ago. Other Chairs have gotten the same answer, so please do not think this is anything antagonistic towards the FS. I truly believe there is no prejudice towards this endeavor regarding IT.

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#14

Stan is in the process of moving the cameras to some spare servers (formerly Open Stack,) so we should soon have some extra capacity as well as more reliability.

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#15

At long last, the minutes from the meeting are up: https://dallasmakerspace.org/wiki/Member_Exchange_Meeting_20170415

I’m sorry it took so long, but I have been burning multiple candles on both ends in the last couple of weeks.

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#16

Thank you Bill, You have many irons in the fire,

#17

These slide back into place as a simple shelf when you don’t need to access the highest eschelons. Probably good use of vertical without the liability of a librarians ladder

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#18

That looks dangerous

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#19

Ours is pretty sturdy. Probably would add a safety rail for a publoc setting

#20

Interesting, I was thinking not making it real tall
since we want it easy to purge,

Reminds me of the way I used to get into the top
cabinets in our kitchen when I was small, I used the
drawers that way