Burnaby Cooperative Makerspace

Executive Summary

A Makerspace is a place where people can turn ideas into reality, learn skills, build businesses, share skills and above all, create. Makerspaces allow people to have access to a suite of tools that they would not be able to afford on their own.

A Cooperative is a legal framework created under the regulations provided for in the Cooperative Association Act of British Columbia. Incorporation provides a co-op with an independent legal status separate from its members. As a legal entity, a co-op can enter into contracts or incur debt in its own name with the same legal rights and obligations of an individual. Cooperatives can be set up as for profit, not for profit, or charitable organizations.

A makerspace cooperative is a not for profit, community based enterprise. They are engines of growth, both personal and commercial.

What will it will look like when it's complete?

A makerspace achieves a critical mass between 25,000 and 40,000 square feet. Too small and members won't have access to enough diversity of tools and facilities. Too large and associated rental costs cripple the long term viability of the enterprize. It will consist of several tool pods, rentable artisan spaces, common areas, a coffee shop, store and classrooms/meeting spaces. In a perfect world the makerspace would take over a underutilized publicly owned multi-roomed building, that wouldn't require extensive renovations to be usable. In other jurisdictions unused elementary and middle schools have been used.

What are the steps to make the Burnaby Co-operative Makerspace a reality?

1. Outreach and Membership

Co-operatives are only as successful as their community. To build a co-operative the first obstacle is to find enough people to coalesce into a working group to start the ball rolling. Finding those people requires some development funds for mailers and building a website, but more importantly it requires buy-in from existing groups and associations that see the Makerspace as a valuable, or at least, non-competitive addition to the community environment.

Organizations like the Burnaby 55+ Seniors Center, High school shop educators, BCIT and SFU, high rise strata boards, BIA's, The Board of Trade and special interest community groups like the Portuguese Benevolent Association would all be approached with the message that building a makerspace in Burnaby is advantage for their members, and for the community as a whole.

2. Corporate Structure, Creating and Training a Board of Directors, Provincial Registration

Once the outreach has been successful, an election of interim officers will take place. Everyone will be interested in the makerspace project, but only a few will be interested in the nitty gritty of building a Makerspace. An initial token amount of $10 per person will be raised from all participants as seed capital, with contributions, hopefully, from other co-ops and private and public funding sources to be able to fully incorporate as a co-op under provincial regulations, and continue to grow interest in the space.

3. Finding a Home and Building out the Capabilities

Once the co-op has a legal standing, then shares can be issued and sold to the members. At this point, a monthly subscription will be calculated, and members will have the option to sign up. Makerspaces make their monthly expenses through monthly membership dues, renting dedicated space, and program delivery. When enough members have pledged to a monthly membership, the co-op board can secure a lease for an appropriate space, either from the open market, or, preferably from non-market community resource spaces.

4. Next Steps

Once a space has been secured, the next step is to begin building labs for each of the disciplines: woodworking, machining and metalsmithing, sewing and fabric, electronics and robotics, 3D printing and laser, etc.

With the makerspace fully equipped, the focus of the co-op will be ensuring a repeatable revenue stream through memberships, and building out the community outreach through programs, training classes, school tours, and youtube instructional and project videos.