We have been helping to create the new Lancaster District Green Spaces Website! It includes a handy map of all the Green Spaces in Lancaster. Take a look!
Green Spaces Website now online
Blog
Spoon carving – April 1st
We have a fun spoon carving event on the 1st April at 1pm https://opencollective.com/lancaster-and-morecambe-makers/events/spoon-carving-bb64e94a – come and practice some whittling, indoors, at our workshop on White Cross! It is £20 to attend, but we encourage you to pay what your can afford (minimum £5).
All materials, tools and safety equipment will be provided for you and your get to take your spoon, spatula or mushroom home! Under 18s must be accompanied, min 10 years old.
We have other events coming up in May and June and beyond: https://opencollective.com/lancaster-and-morecambe-makers/events
Wood carving crowdfunding
We have set up a crowdfunder at spacehive.com, to buy a variety wood carving equipment, which will be matched pound for pound by the Lancashire Sport and Culture fund. Our goal is to generate a total of £395, but if we can raise £200 ourselves, then it will be matched by the fund and we’ll get the new equipment paid for. The equipment will be accessible to all members of LAMM, but also the public when they are attending classes at our space.
Once we have the equipment, we will put on some courses in wood carving and whittling – any donation of at least £15 will get a place in one of these classes (they will be £5-20, pay-as-you-feel, should you want to pay later).
- Set of 6 wood carving gouges (for use with a mallet for relief carving)
- A brass headed carving chisel for use with the above
- set of 10 wood carving knives (for whittling and spoon making)
- 2 “safety” wood carving knives, for use by kids or novices.
- wood threading kit – essentially a large tap-and-die for making parts for vices and presses
Every donation, from a minimum of £2, is worthwhile and we are already up to £75 out of the £200 we need to raise ourselves! We do need at least 20 discrete donations, so small contributions are still very important!
New IT for local Heritage Centre
Graham and Lin Dean, from the Friends of Heysham Heritage Centre, receiving a “new” PC from us. This machine will replace a knackered old laptop that they, and the other volunteers, were using, that was no longer fit for purpose.
We refurbish computers, mainly laptops, and pass them onto schools, refugees and other local community groups.
2023 review
We had a surge in membership, partly due to a grant from Lancaster University, allowing us to give out free or cheap memberships at different times!
- Number of members: 35 in December (best was 59 in June)
- Total subscriptions: £447.12 in December (best was £468.67 in June)
- 85 unique human people were actually members at some time in the year!
We got a new, electronic kiosk to allow you to buy food, drink, laser time and materials… Finally without us having to handle cash and keeping manual records
- Shop takings: £237 in December
- Shop sales made: 33 in December (best was 42 in May)
- Shop transaction fees we paid: £4.30 in December
We got a new, easy to use, quiet diode laser, just in time for making xmas presents (thanks John!)
pew, pew, pew
- Diode laser time in November: 192 minutes (3 hours 12 minutes)
- Diode laser time in December: 766 minutes (12 hours, 46 minutes)
- This raised a total of £192 for us!
We collaborated with a great local charity, Escape2Make, to design and create a myriad of fun items for sale at the heritage market in December
We ran over a dozen free activity stalls, all over the area
festive maps
- West End Gardens, Morecambe (Creative West End): 2
- More Music, Morecambe (Creative West End): 1
- Market Square, Lancaster (Food Futures): 4
- Sustainability Hub, Lancaster (LESS): 1
- Lancaster Library, Lancaster (Fun Palaces): 3
- Tabletop Republic, Lancaster (Fun Palaces): 1
- Community Centre, Brookhouse: 1
Food Futures winter market
We were at the Food Futures winter market today, talking to members of the public about repairing items and offering to let them make some festive decorations from some discarded maps and laser cut baubles.
#foodfutures #closingloops
Xmas decorations drop-in workshop
We will be making festive decorations from out of date maps and scrap materials at the new Lancaster Sustainability Hub in Marketgate on Saturday. Just pop down between 10am and 2pm and make something for yourself!
Repair in Brookhouse
Yesterday, Saturday 4th November, 2023, we were in the nearby village of Brookhouse getting involved in a repair event. We found lots of young repairers to help us and made a record of what was achieved!
We actually had more repair experts than clients, which was disappointing, but people still need to be educated about even the possibility to repair a lot of items!
You are welcome to bring broken things in to our regular open evening at our makerspace in the centre of Lancaster!
New Xtools Laser Cutter in the Space!
The Space has now made available an XTools S1 Laser Cutter with 20W Diode Laser. Able to cut pine wood up to a thickness of 15mm, as well as engrave metal it includes a base for larger objects and lots of great features to ensure predictable and clean cutting and engraving.
You will need to talk to a member to be inducted in the use of any Laser Cutter, and pay a per minute charge for use, to pay for ongoing maintainance.
Director gets recognised by LDCVS
One of our directors has been recognised for his voluntary work with LAMM with two certificates from Lancaster District CVS. He didn’t win in either category, but it was great to get nominated! Maybe next year?
