Every other week on NHPR, Give Back New Hampshire highlights a nonprofit at work here in the Granite State. Today, our focus is on the Concord Makerspace. Their mission is to develop a safe, fun, and collaborative environment supporting makers of all ages and skills coming together to teach, learn, create, explore, and prosper.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Sandra May: Hi, my name is Sandra May. I'm one of the founding board members and co-treasurer for the Concord Makerspace.
Michael Thompson: And hello, my name is Michael Thompson. I am also a board member and a teacher at the Concord Makerspace.
Michael Thompson: So a makerspace is simply a community where we have members come in and donate through memberships so that they can afford a space and tools for any type of making that they wouldn't necessarily be able to have on their own.
Sandra May: People are apartment dwellers, people downsize, people might want to try using a lathe, but they don't want to necessarily spend $3,000 on a lathe to find out whether or not they like it. You come in, you get checked out on the lathe, you turn a couple bowls, and then if you're bored with that next week, you can go 3D print yourself a mask for your Iron Man costume for the cosplay convention that you want to go to.
Michael Thompson: Really, it's a space designed so that if you really want to be into woodworking or you really want to learn how to do a skill, but you just don't have the capital or the space, a makerspace kind of pools all of our resources to be able to come together and use that space.
Sandra May: I had never heard of a makerspace before, and the more I learned, I'm like, that is a fabulous idea. I myself have always had this wistful feeling that I wish I knew how to woodwork, but I'm not going to take over half the garage and start acquiring all these things that just doesn't fit in my life. This did.
Michael Thompson: I have been a maker for many years now. I've been a woodworker for over a decade, and when I moved to Boscawen, my woodshop space downsized significantly. So I really wanted a place to be able to do a lot of the woodworking I used to do. Part of it was joining for the woodshop, part of it was joining for the tools that I didn't have access to.
But the biggest thing I think, and the thing that draws me to makerspaces in general, is really the community. The makerspace gives us the opportunity to work on a project, but also learn from each other and teach each other things. There is a laundry list of things that I have started working on and then been unsure about, and another member with more experience than me has piped in and said, 'oh, have you tried looking at it this way?'
Michael Thompson: The more members we have, the better. I feel like that's one of the things that, on a month to month basis, we're always kind of looking and keeping track of. Having folks come in and join our community is really the biggest thing that we would need right now, not only for our ability to pay for the space, but for mostly just the ability to grow the community and to have a larger network of people and skills.
Sandra May: If you're new to an area and you're lonely, join a makerspace. If you have a whole bunch of knowledge and you don't have anyone to share it with. You could find yourself coming in and doing a demo on your Japanese saw collection on Saturdays. We do a lot of events like that that are open to the public that are free. Come on in and see how dovetails are easier than you think.
Michael Thompson: It's just a great place to be able to find your community and start making things and branch off from where you might be comfortable, and that was really what drove me to it.
Sandra May: People still crave things that are handmade, that are made well. In this age of mass production, cheap products, people still want to hold that wooden pen in their hands or have that quilt that can be passed down for generations. I just love being a part of that.
