How Winchester — and you — could benefit from a ‘Makerspace’

I often hear from folks in town who want more third spaces that fos­ter cre­ativ­i­ty, engage­ment, and com­mu­ni­ty build­ing. We have restau­rants, a few the­aters, a read­ing room, and a pub­lic library, but one thing we seem to lack is an afford­able loca­tion to breathe life into projects. With the increased use of preda­to­ry AI, many peo­ple are look­ing to escape the slop, get off the inter­net, and learn new skills the old-fash­ioned way. 

I’ve writ­ten before about how reduc­ing con­sump­tion through choic­es like pri­or­i­tiz­ing buy-noth­ing groups, tool shar­ing, and com­mu­ni­ty teach-ins can change how we inter­act with one anoth­er for the bet­ter­ment of our com­mu­ni­ty. Though not often talked about out­side of big cities, oth­er towns are already build­ing Makers and Hackers spaces to empow­er one anoth­er to take up tools from var­i­ous crafts and trades and pro­vide hands-on learn­ing expe­ri­ences. For those unfa­mil­iar with the con­cept, let me share a few details about how these spaces change towns for the better. 

What is a makerspace? 

A Makerspace can take many forms. It can be adapt­able. It can change over time, but ulti­mate­ly it is a space where peo­ple can use tools, book time to work on projects, and craft beyond what they may be able to accom­plish at home or with lim­it­ed resources. For some, it’s sewing machines, team­ing up with oth­er quil­ters, and stu­dio space for mixed-media art. For oth­ers, it’s CNC machines, wood­work­ing tools, per­haps a forge with lessons from a local black­smith. Examples near­by can be found in Lexington and Berea. 

The Lexington Makerspace con­tains a wood­shop, pot­tery wheels, and 3D print­ers. They offer class­es on a rotat­ing sched­ule, and mem­ber­ship starts at $65 a month. A bit cost­ly for many of us, but they’re focused on their local mar­ket. There’s also The Eastside Branch Makerspace, part of the Lexington Public Library net­work, that teach­es every­thing from sign mak­ing to sewing to engraving. 

At the Berea Makerspace, the focus is on tools, resources, and knowl­edge. Their mak­er­space has a robust tool library that pro­vides peo­ple with oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn how to repair things and work safe­ly. The forge class­es stand out as a unique offer­ing where mem­bers can learn from local black­smithing leg­end Bob Montgomery, who has had a long and fruit­ful career cre­at­ing beau­ti­ful met­al­work fea­tured through­out the region. 

All of these spaces have pro­gram­ming that helps to not only cre­ate life skills but also long-term skills that can ben­e­fit us all. Because it is unrea­son­able to expect many Clark County res­i­dents to dri­ve out of town to access these resources, I believe we should have our own space, and I hope to be part of the net­work that builds it. We have so many tal­ent­ed locals who, with a lit­tle sup­port, could help build our cre­ative arts scene into some­thing that ben­e­fits all of Winchester through increased events, tourism, and cul­tur­al development. 

Are there pros and cons to creating a makerspace? 

Absolutely. Makerspaces require ded­i­cat­ed staff, vol­un­teers, and teach­ers who are pre­pared to invest in the long term. It takes trans­paren­cy from mem­bers and strict enforce­ment of safe­ty pro­to­cols to pre­vent novice mak­ers from poten­tial harm. Often this includes the use of closed-sys­tem cam­eras (CCTV, not Flock or Ring), tool check­outs, and ded­i­cat­ed chore charts for main­te­nance and clean­ing. It also means each mem­ber has to take on some per­son­al account­abil­i­ty for their own safe­ty and the well-being of them­selves and others. 

Back when I lived in Texas, I vis­it­ed the Austin Hackerspace many times with a friend who was a mem­ber. Their high regard for safe­ty is what kept me com­ing back as I learned new skills week by week. If you vis­it a mak­er­space that doesn’t enforce use of PPE, get out while you still can. Cutting cor­ners dur­ing pro­duc­tion and half-ass­ing safe­ty pro­to­cols tends to get peo­ple hurt. 

Depending on how grants and fund­ing are struc­tured, the cost of oper­a­tion is often paid for in part by mem­bers. Sometimes those costs can be sub­si­dized by strate­gic invest­ment funds, city grants, or oth­er forms of sup­port. As with many local-lev­el ven­tures, egos and self­ish inten­tions can come into play. 

All the more rea­son to pri­or­i­tize trans­paren­cy and oper­a­tions protocol. 

The biggest pro is, of course, the imme­di­ate return on social invest­ment. Makers come in many forms and from many back­grounds. At a time when so many things are cul­tur­al­ly divid­ed, find­ing what we have in com­mon is what keeps our com­mu­ni­ty strong and unit­ed. Who knows what you could learn or who you could learn it from! Some sur­pris­es are good ones, espe­cial­ly with­in the cre­ative process we humans love. 

What’s the difference between a makerspace and a hackerspace?  

Some of you may be famil­iar with both of these terms, which are often used inter­change­ably. The terms “shop” and “lab” are also used in sim­i­lar ways, but there are some distinctions. 

Hackerspaces tend to be tech-focused and rely on the inter­ests of pro­gram­mers and coders. Not “hack­ing” in the sense of those Scam Likely calls we all reject every day, but more the devel­op­ment of open-source pro­grams, acces­si­ble resources, video games, repair of hard­ware, ag tech, and small-scale apps. Some mak­er­spaces will ded­i­cate a cor­ner of the work­shop to tech, but, real­ly, the use of the space is dic­tat­ed by each com­mu­ni­ty’s needs. In Winchester, there is an obvi­ous need for more acces­si­ble tech out­side of the clutch­es of Altman, Elon, Zuckerberg, and friends. 

Shops and labs are often larg­er work­shops that focus more on laser cut­ting, CNC machin­ery, and large-scale pro­duc­tion. While this could seem like an inter­est­ing ven­ture, it is an extreme­ly heavy lift for a com­mu­ni­ty our size. Often, these are the hard­est to fund and require the most per­mit­ting to get start­ed. They are also the most vul­ner­a­ble to finan­cial col­lapse in the event of an injury or lia­bil­i­ty issue. 

So how do we get a makerspace going here? 

The first step is learn­ing from those who have suc­cess­ful­ly done this before. This is a jour­ney I’ve already begun, and I encour­age you to do the same. Take free class­es, vis­it open hous­es, ask your crafty friends where they go to learn, and skillshare. 

If we find there is enough inter­est to launch, then we talk to our offi­cials about what per­mit­ting is required and which indus­tri­al spaces might be open to estab­lish­ing that rela­tion­ship. If you are inter­est­ed in help­ing build a new chap­ter in our city’s his­to­ry, please reach out to me for more infor­ma­tion and updates on the devel­op­ment process.