First I have to say that Mike and Mark have done alot for woodshop. The countless hours put in and volunteering has greatly impacted the woodshop positively. They are both great guys doing the best they can in the most trafficked area of makerspace.
I started membership after my wife found the space 3 to 4 years ago. I was too busy with work to do much with it but she took alot of classes. She told me Mark’s woodshop basics courses were hands down one of the top quality classes taught by anyone. She is a teacher (as a profession) and took alot of classes at makerspace so this is saying something.
I remember how active the space was and how many classes there were. The space from my view was great, but I didn’t have the necessary time to get into the woodshop.
Around the time the expansion starting going money for the space seemed to become a problem. The leadership who seemed to promote a fairly great environment for the space honestly to me seemed ill prepared for the financial issues a expansion requires. I am not trying to knock the board as I know volunteer positions like this for no pay that require this many hours are hard. To expect a volunteer that is into craftmaking to run an expansion that would truly need an experienced business person to deal with is expecting to much. Most people I know who have never had experience with large contracting projects get screwed over by the contractors in some way or the other the first time.
With the space financially in crisis and being too busy with life me and my wife let the membership go a while.
I started finding time for my hobby of ukulele building a few months later and was in need of larger tools to process lumber down. I had all the smaller tools but nothing large. I started membership back up in August last year and found the space very different.
The new board had taken over in a time of crisis and did the best they could with what they were given. With the class system newly changed I was worried I wouldn’t get the woodshop basics course in quick, but managed some how.
The breadboard class was taught by Mike that I took and was about 5 hours + I think in total. I learned alot even with a decent amount of experience with wood working. To expect a new wood worker to be able to do a project on their own without help would be crazy, but this is not a knock against Mike and Mark. They volunteer countless hours and new people really should find one of the many other experienced members to help them with tasks.
Wood working is a very popular hobby. It makes sense why it is so heavily trafficked by new and existing members. The machines are big, expensive, and dangerous. We don’t have the current amount of volunteers needed to properly police it as needed.
The new board to me comes off overly hostile to the woodshop leadership. I ended up finding some of the last essential tools needed for my ukulele building on craigslist very recently and decided since the woodshop was being so heavily stifled from the new board to not renew my membership in March.
I understand that money is tight, but Mark and Mike are volunteers. The board is treating them like paid employees that should somehow manage a task too big for them alone. The needed volunteers will not step up knowing they will get the same horrible treatment. Therefore the task will stay too big and then inevitably what leadership there is will burn out. I saw a resignation from the woodshop leadership a mile away.
I applaud Mike for all his time and effort. He was greatly under appreciated. Mark is also immensely under appreciated. If we lose Mark too I think woodshop is going to be a storage room of mostly broken tools and a waste of space for many months until the board figures stuff out.
Money is tight yes. The expansion taxed the space and it will probably take years to recover. I really hope things work themselves out and Dallas makerspace has more glory days in the future.
The new board faces alot of problems, but please be patient with volunteers doing their best. A few months ago I wanted to start being more involved with woodshop beyond my own making, but after seeing more and more hostility from the board I decided I wasn’t going to volunteer just to put myself through a bad time.