TXRX grand opening

Anybody going to this? I wanted to be there but we had someone call out sick due to COVID yesterday so now I’m covering instead of driving to Houston for it. :frowning: If so, could you please take photos for me? I’m supposed to be scoping out the place for my dad to potentially join.

Aside: looks like we’re about to lose the “title” of biggest volunteer led Makerspace in America… That space is huge, and the colo space it’s in is even more huge.

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Video for new space. Around 1:04 you can see the place they are moving into. https://player.vimeo.com/video/371704820

I wish Dallas had a space with Maker studios that is not run like a Frat House on Fire. https://eastendmakerhub.org/leasing/

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Thanks. The video is pretty slick, but it’s hard to tell what parts of that are the actual TXRX Labs space and what is part of some or all of the colocated businesses and other ventures. (Which I imagine is by design, since the video is for the whole East End “maker hub” and not specifically for the TXRX Makerspace itself.)

The TXRX Labs website’s blog (https://www.txrxlabs.org/blog-1) does have a listing of what events they’re holding tonight for the grand opening, but that seems to be all the info it has for tonight; was just hoping for some in-person photos or video walkthrough or whatever that was specific to that space.

Their classes are quite a bit higher than ours.

I recognize that lathe. Its a Monarch 10EE. Non-ELSR

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Yes. Their classes are (by my understanding, heavily) discounted for members, but $50 membership only gets you 3-day weekend access; 7-day access is $90. So they’re more expensive no matter how you look at it. Bigger space and supposedly more tools, though (checking that out is why I was hoping for a “live” review).

But, y’know, it doesn’t have to be a competition… since it’s not, really. I doubt anyone will commute 4h to go there rather than to us, or vice versa. And it can be argued that if we were starting from (near-)scratch right now and didn’t have a thousand people that pay their dues but show up twice a year, we’d have to be far more expensive than our current ten-bucks-higher-than-Ladybird rate. I don’t think they’re unreasonably priced for what they offer, in any case.

(Besides, with classes costing that much, I bet they’re not hurting for teachers or having any issue with serial non-attendance…)

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That space is amazing, next time I’m in Houston I’ll have to tour it. I’m also curious about their industry partnerships, it seems they’ve done really well there.

Does anyone know if they have employees? That might explain their decisions around pricing and hours.

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Reading through their offerings, they mention “staff” a number of times, which would indicate employees to me. We would remain the largest volunteer-run makerspace :). Definitely will have to check it out when I make it down there.

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Perhaps, but from the calendar descriptions of the individual areas they read as pretty independent. Could be they have “staff” in the same way we have “officers” or “committee chairs”… probably a more accurate description in some ways too :slight_smile: staff doesn’t have to mean paid staff! (Edit: the individual areas get to set their own times based on when the “staff” wants to be open, or be by appointment only of they prefer - so the job seems to be one part trainer, one part “office manager”/logistics for the area)

Either way, I did say volunteer led, which I’m pretty sure they are, so at best our scope of notoriety narrows a bit :slight_smile:

Yeah, but maybe our board could learn a thing or two from them…

I’m actively researching grants, local foundations, and other forms of funding. If anybody has any inroads to corporate sponsorships I’m all ears!

Thanks,
Justin

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There are strings attached.

ilikemoney

We are working on a couple of things currently and we do work on opportunities when we find them. If anyone has any leads please email them to [email protected]. We could also use some help - @skyspook posted officer positions and we could use some help in other areas. Just cleaning helps us immensely - time that we spend cleaning up after people is less time and energy available to spend on fundraising and PR. :slight_smile:

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There are strings attached to most money… The thing is, can you live with the strings and actually do the paperwork required for it? Can you back up your proposal and complete the tasks?

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