Hello

tl;dr: You should run a workshop or night at VHS on a subject that you are enthusiastic about! We want to know more about what you love to do! https://vanhack.ca/wp/events-calendar/

Have you considered running a workshop/night/class at VHS? Its easy! Just choose any topic, Make a small post about the night and send it to the mailing list. Then pick a date in the event calendar that is free, and run it! If you have an idea for a night but don't know if people would be interested, send it to the mailing list! Ask people!

Just imagine if You and all of our other 200 members run one workshop a year! Out calendar would be full to the brim of super interesting workshops on a huge variety of topics. That sounds amazing!

I personally run one workshop every month, I been running a workshop every month for two years strait now. I find it a very rewarding experience to give back to the VHS community.

You don't need to be an expert on a subject to run a night, you just need to be enthusiastic about a subject. When I ran the Geocaching and Geo Coin night I had only found a total of 10 Geo Caches. But I was excited about the subject so I ran a night on it. Stevemopolis showed up for the night (one of his first times to the space), he had found +2k of Geo Caches over the last 10 years, and had much more experience then I did but we where able to learn from each other and the night was a great success.

The first time I ran a workshop I was worried that I would disappoint people, mess it up, that I wasn't expert in the subject. I was super nervous. So me and a few other people joined together and ran the workshop. It was a lot less stressful and after that first workshop I felt a lot more comfortable running other workshops.

You don't have to run the workshop for free. You can charge a course fee and pocket the money for yourself. We would prefer if you donated some of it back to the space and we like free events but you can charge what ever you like. There are no rules on the amount or if you need to donate back to the space.

The only requirement for running a Workshop/Night/Class is that you find a key member to bottom line the event. (open the door, clean up, introduce people to the space, get people to sign wavers). If you are not a key member but would like to run an event, ask on the mailing list for someone to help you bottom line the event.

Some of the past workshops/Nights/Classes Intro to Making Puppets workshop 3D Printer Night Introduction to Home automation with the Raspberry PI Artemis SBS Day Practical intro to computer security Button Making – Craft Night Stop-Motion Animation Night Chainmaille Workshop Toymageddon Toy Hacking Night Bitcoin Night LEGO Mindstorms & Robots NODE.JS WORKSHOP Open Data and Lasers at VHS! Big list of past events http://vanhack.ca/wp/category/events/

Some event ideas learn to solder Intro to ubuntu and other linux OSs robots screen printing VHS shirts and hoodies crypto party board & card games minecraft / lan party? paper folding knots Paper lanterns Stickers Stencils with the laser cutter. How to make the perfect mixed drink, Whisky tasting night, Craft beer night, Wordpress, MySQL, PHP, Java, Ruby, Perl, Bash, c/c++, Go, Node, Rails, Server administration Different code licences

Members - when you pitch the “Would anyone be interested in an X workshop?”, please post it to both the public and members-only mailing lists.

This helps us draw in not-yet members (aka the unwashed masses) along with members.

It is also nice if you start a separate thread, so that it gets the attention of more people.

The key to having people come to your night is Marketing!

1) Create excitement about your night 2) Pick a date & put on calendar 3) Remind everyone about the date 1week before 4) Remind everyone about the date ~days before 5) Tweet that shit. 6) ??? 7) Profit.

The key to having people come to your night is Marketing!

Luke is right on there. I've developed a flow with my SMD workshops where I develop the project in stages (PCBs, assembly video, assembled prototype, etc). Each stage is newsworthy on its own and creates an opportunity to do more than repeat the same announcement.

I would also agree with Steven about the nerves thing. For me the key is to keep the cost low so that if things go south I can just comp people or people won't care because they got x nights of entertainment from it (eg. we're having a few issues with the circuit from the last workshop).

One mistake I did make early was to try a talking only workshop. I'm not an entertaining speaker (vs Luke who could do an entertaining night speaking about how to be an entertaining speaker). I feel like people at vhs are doers - personally I would emphasise the need to keep it interactive.

For me the key is to keep the cost low so that if things go south I can just comp people or people won't care

Blatantly ignoring that wise piece of advice has done bad things for my blood pressure.

Jon.

My girlfriend can do a soapmaking class, but she isn't a member. If its kosher for a non-member to run a workshop, I can ask her if she is interested in doing one.

We have had Rabbis bless non-members to run workshops, so yes it would be Kosher.

Just find a keyholder that can work with her.