New hackerspace in Chicagoland: Workshop 88
Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 8:44PM 
The following is a complete verbatim ripoff from the official MAKE Blog but I wanted this message to get out. Planning spaces like this is a major headache and I sympathize with the organizers. Love the logo, by the way. My advice? Get a laser engraver/cutter ASAP.
Good news for those in Chicagoland! Planning is underway to form Workshop 88, a hackerspace in the west suburbs of Chicago. Here's your chance to get in on the ground floor!
We're currently in the planning stage, and we're looking for interested people in the area to help us get started. We're holding bi-weekly meetings Mondays at 6:30 until we're ready to rent some space and move in. The first meeting is this Monday, November 23, at the Boilerhouse Cafe, on the campus of North Central College in Naperville (29 N Loomis St Naperville, IL 60540).Some of the things we'll be discussing:
- Legal structure of the hackerspace
- Membership structure and guidelines
- Work that still needs to be done to build out our online presence
- Current projects
This information is also available on our blog, at http://blog.workshop88.com. Updates and meeting notices will be posted there, as well as on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Workshop88. For additional information, we have a mailing list at info@workshop88.com.
Workshop 88 Planning Meeting
Monday, November 23, 2009, 6:30pm
Boilerhouse Cafe
29 N Loomis St, Naperville, IL 60540
Maker Faire:NC
It sounds like the planning session for the upcoming Chicago-area "Workshop 88" hacker space went really well last night. Fifteen attendees is merely the beginning! Kudos and keep us informed. I hope you folks can get some sweet projects under your belt and head down to the Maker Faire for some show n' tell.
Reader Comments (2)
Jon, thanks so much for the post!
The planning is a lot of work, but we're getting a really positive response from the community. One of our officers met with some of the group from Pumping Station: One, and they were very helpful in suggesting how to get started.
The biggest hurdle is making the commitment to get started. Once we decided that this was something we could actually do, we just started pitching the idea to anyone we thought would be interested, and we were off. A hackerspace doesn't have to include a warehouse full of tools. Find some friends to bounce ideas off of, schedule some regular time to work on things, post your projects online, and go from there. Space can come later, but the important thing is to get started.
-Russ
Sweet, Russ! Looks like it was a great event. I know that the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area was chomping at the bit for such a space. Fortunately a TechShop franchise opened up and has become a social hub in no time. Let me know how I can help, OK? I know the ShopBot people...