I've just had a phonecall from the Arts Council
Looks like I'll be getting a letter confirming funding for my summer of hackspace type stuff towards the end of the week
As I mentioned at Rutland, I'd proposed that the launch event was an overnighter on the longest day where people are invited to rock up and spend the night learning something new. (The revised version after mentioning this at Rutland involves some rudimentary picks, a series of increasingly seriously locked doors and people coming out when they've become good enough!
)
Since there's so much overlap between our skills sharing plans here and the sorts of things I'd like to support happening over the summer, I'm entirely happy to flex the latter if it can help make the former happen. Things like making it a weekend event later on, for example.
It'd be a slightly different beast in that it would also be open to the public, but we'd have a big indoor space, electricity, internet access, loos and showers, tables and chairs etc. Downside: it's in
West Bromwich Presumably I'll be meeting with the host venue next week to pin down the programme a bit more, so we've some time to explore here whether this could be help or hinderance. What do you think?
The main sticking point for them is likely to be the overnight bit and cost implications for staffing, so my main concern at this point is are there alternative accommodation options nearby in case we can't camp in the gallery? Take over a local BnB? Camping out Dudley direction somewhere?