By request, this is the thank you email posted to the list:
Hello all,
Last night’s Open Haus was such an overwhelming success that I didn’t
have a chance to thank everyone properly.
Thank you to Kwau-La-Waul Properties and the Zink family for leasing
us such a fantastic space. Steve Jr. did a great job doing the build
out for us. They put in the new walls, plumbing, A/C, electric and
replacement doors windows.
Thank you to bluegrass.net for providing the internet connection and IPs gratis.
Thank you to Matt Frassica at the Courier-Journal for coming out to
check out what we’re doing.
Thank you to the Collexion members who came up to help us celebrate.
Thank you to everyone who brought projects to show off!
Most importantly, thank you to all the founding members who’ve
contributed their knowledge, time and finances to make LVL1 a reality.
The contributions are too many to mention, so I won’t even bother. It
takes a leap of faith to try and bootstrap a community like ours
without any guarantee of success. You are heroes, every last one of
you.
9 short months ago, Brian and Mark put out a post to see who else in
Louisville was interested in starting a hackerspace like the other
spaces popping up all over the US. People showed up. And they kept
showing up. We self-organized and came up with a plan to bootstrap
this thing. The plan worked! 9 short months from nothing but an idea
to an awesome real physical space.
The first question I always get when I talk about what LVL1 is
doing… What exactly is a hackerspace? It’s a surprisingly difficult
question to answer. I think it has something to do with computers and
electronics… These spaces are so conceptually new, that there isn’t
a lot of history to help define them. The best I can think of is to
offer analogies. Musicians need venues to perform at. Basketball
players need courts to play on. Painters need galleries to show off
their work. Skateboarders need skateparks to show off their tricks.
Poets need open mic nights to read their work. etc. etc. Tinkerers,
makers, hackers, programmers and engineers need hackerspaces to work,
learn, share and socialize. Computers and electronics alone touch
almost every facet of our modern lives, so the breadth of possible
projects is incredibly large. And a hackerspace can be much more than
just computers and electronics. I think that was demonstrated by the
wide variety of projects on display last night!
Now that we have our space, let’s move boldly forward. Our success as
a hackerspace should be measured by the good times we have, the
friends we make and the great projects we create. Remember all the
things that have helped us build a great community and keep doing
them. Go out of your way to be open and welcoming to new members.
Share what you know. If you want something to happen, take the lead to
make it happen. Don’t be intimidated by what you don’t know. Figure
out where to start, be prepared to fail, readjust and try again. All
of the democracy and voting in the world is no substitute for a
healthy culture of learning and doing.
Thanks again. I looking foward to this time next year, when we can
look back and again be pleasantly surprised by what has been
accomplished.
I will now officially exercise the sole privilege of my office and
redesignate my LVL1 title from “Chief Tyrant of the Collective Will”
to “Micro Colonel”.
The dust is still settling and the space is still coming together, but please join us for our first open house meeting. Check out the space and see some of our member’s projects. Socialize with fellow tech-minded makers and hackers. Celebrate the end results of a 9 month sprint that took us from an idea to an actual space for Louisville to call it’s own!
We’ll be meeting tonight at Heine Bros in St. Matthews as usual. Lease details are being worked out for our new space on Broadway. We’ll be planning details for our move in to the space. We’ll also have a report from those who visited Maker Faire this past weekend.
As always; makers, hackers and curious bystanders are welcome to come check us out.
Tue, May 11, 2010, 8:00 PM – 10:00 PM
119 Chenoweth Lane, St Matthews, KY
The last round of space voting missed the “Go” vote on Hope Mills by only 1 vote! Could this next round tip the balance? A recent push for Okinawa Health Spa has made it a contender for the top spot. Could this challenger be a LVL1 game changer?! Come to the meeting tonight to find out!
This is a repost of the Google Groups announcement.
The hunt is on! We’ve crossed off some of the more
expensive options already. But we have a few contenders in the
running. Here’s the our wiki page with the contenders with links back
to their discussion threads:
So here’s how we’re going to make a decision.. Starting next meeting,
a quorum of our members will rank all the scouted options from most
preferable to least preferable. Results will be tallied to determine
the most preferred location. At that point, we have a brief discussion
about *only* the top pick. Whomever shows up, members and non-members,
can advocate for it or against it. Then members will follow that with
a vote to either “Pull the trigger on this location” OR “Pass until
next meeting” We will do this at every meeting henceforth, rinse and
repeat, until we get a space.
If you have a space in mind, it’s important to get it scouted before
the next meeting. No one can know if a decision will be reached next
meeting or not. Every meeting is a big meeting from now on… until we
are meeting at our new location!
My sincerest gratitude and appreciation goes out to everyone who has
contributed financially and otherwise. Progress doesn’t happen unless
people make it happen. And at every step you all have made it happen!
We’ll have a space soon! And we’re just getting started…
We are ready to find a space, but we need help doing so. It is time to commit to being a paying part of this hackerspace. It is also time to talk to those real estate contacts and find a great space. Read this post again.
