Freemont Space - Shop (Image by Daniel Hess)

We’ve leased a space at 2203 Freemont Rd! We’ll be handing out keys to all paid members at the 12/17 Friday meeting at Republic Coffee. Google Maps: 2203 Freemont Rd. Memphis, TN 38114. If you are not yet a full member you can become one by paying dues for December. We’ll be discussing our initial move in plans at the meeting on Friday, we look forward to seeing you there.

The LAN party last Saturday was a great success, thanks to everyone that was involved in setup / clean up and a special thanks to our host, Jeff Leath and our very own Kevin Dunn for some really tasty chilli. Thanks to everyone that showed up even if you didn’t play, was great to see everyone.

Looking towards the front of the space

Fellow Members, Builders, Tinkerers, Creators, and Makers,

Today, four of the board members met with a real estate agent, Bud Worsham, to scope out a potential space. We wanted to give Bud an idea of what we were about and what kind of space we were interested in. He showed us a small 1800 square foot warehouse at 132 Cumberland St. pictured is the inside of it. This did a couple of things for us. It gave us the feel of what we might be able to obtain as a group, a little better understanding of the interactions needed to obtain such a space, and an idea of cost that we could expect. The cost is slightly daunting at first, but is certainly not out of reach if we can all pull together to accomplish what we want.

At first glance it seems that everyone is very interested in the idea of having a space to work on projects and various other events. The catch is that everyone seems very interested, but lacks the interest to assist in the formation of a location of our own. This puts us in a very strange position. We need members to have funds, we need funds to have a space, and we need a space to have members. It becomes cyclical very quickly, and if we are unable to break that cycle, we will stagnate equally as fast. All of this means that we simply cannot do anything without biting the bullet, pulling together, and building our funds before we have a space.

With that being said, everything that we have asked for thus far in the way of dues is not mandatory. Since it is very obvious that we do not have a space to provide in turn for a fee, we are unable to set any sort of dues that could even remotely be considered mandatory. In fact, we never have, and never will set any type of mandatory payments so long as a space is not provided. It is best to instead consider this a pledge or donation to the group for a means to accomplish the goal that we have all expressed interest in, and of course If you need a good conveyancing service then my conveyancing specialist will be able to help. So currently we ask that anyone who wishes to assist us in moving forward, make a donation to the group. If it is a monthly pledge, fantastic. If it is a one time thing that you can do, wonderful. Every little bit helps, and we can’t make any of this possible without the help that you can provide.

Well we have things together now.  We have a site up (with a wiki and forum), we have e-mail address being doled out, we have a monthly meeting scheduled, and we even have someone from a hackerspace in Chicago coming to the city for a trip that is interested in meeting us.

It is now time to work on our next step.  We want to obtain non profit status to provide us a few advantages.  The biggest one being an incentive for someone to let us borrow some space to use.  The other portion of this is once we are incorporated we will be able to have a bank account to collect money into to continue all our other plans with.  The tricky part is that we do need money in order to do this.  We need a total of $100 to file all of the paperwork (a page or two) with the state.  This will not hold things up for long, but I did want to offer everyone an opportunity to chip in what they can if they want to.  There is no specific amount that anyone has to donate, the more important thing is how many people are willing to help.

If you wish to contribute anything big or small, feel free to contact me here.

We officially now own the domains midsouthmakers.org, midsouthmakers.com, and midsouthmakers.net.  The .org will be our primary residence, but to prevent any others from moving in and trying to take our name we have them all!

We are officially one step closer to ruling the world with an iron fist or a can of cheez whiz, which ever we can get first.