The Roadmap for Recovery
For us at TTL, we are very pleased to announce that the TTLMakerspace will be re-opening Monday July 5 for members. Thank you all for sticking with us through this lengthy pandemic ordeal.
This is what recovery looks like:
The TTLMakerspace will be open for members starting July 5th, and resuming the hours of 1pm to 10pm on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. As per usual, we are closed Wednesdays for cleaning and maintenance by our amazing volunteers. If you are an active member and would like to get involved with that effort, see the Toronto Tool Library website. On the weekend we are open from 1pm to 8pm.
What to know when you come to the shop:
You'll need to have an active account in Cobot, and each person is required to check in with the front desk upon arriving, as well as checking out when leaving. This is pretty simple - the nice person at the Tool Library will just take your name and check you in.
This is important, because we are operating at 25% capacity and must adhere to that to not be in violation of the provincial reopening requirements. However I think you'll find that with our redesign you won't be cramped for space.
If you want to see how many are currently in the space before you head in, you can log into your Cobot account, where there is a link on the left menu to see who is currently working in the shop. Likewise you can see what bookings have been made for tools like the CNC Mill.
In addition to Cobot, we have been running a Discord server for several months, and have found it an excellent way to communicate in real-time and share information about everything from space updates to current projects. Every member of TTLMakerspace will be receiving an inviation - the server is strictly for Makers and we can't wait to see everyone there.
Training schedule update:
With limited capacity during step two, we are able to introduce some of our training, and look forward to resuming full operation of our programs going into step three.
For the listing of training opportunities starting in July, take a look at the Courses page, where you can find a calendar and a link to the registration on Universe. With limited capacity we are concentrating on certification programs for those who want to get started in the woodshop, the 3D printing primers, and we've even got some of our popular turning workshops.
We will soon be listing the CNC training, and bringing back some of our tech programs like Game Development, as well as our fantastic hands-on youth program, the Junior Worldbuilders. (I can not wait for that!)
Thank you, and welcome!
The year of pandemic was particularly rough on TTLMakerspace, making it largely impossible to operate. We really must give a shout of praise to our friends and supporters with the Toronto Tool Library, and the Center For Social Innovation, without whom we would not have weathered the lengthy closure, no matter how careful we were.
As it is, we have our work cut out for us to rebuild the momentum we had going. In February 2019 we celebrated reaching 85 active monthly members in the makerspace, a figure that necessarily dropped to zero during the unique conditions of the pandemic.
If anything, this time has shown us just how important it is to be able to physically come together - how it facilitates the sharing of knowledge and experiences. Having spent a year online, we see the value of that (yay Discord! yay Zoom!) but the sheer enjoyment of hands-on learning and building is something we can never take for granted.
TTLMakerspace members are the heart and soul of the makerspace, and we can not wait to pick up the tools to start rebuilding. Thank you, and welcome.
