WE’RE BACK AT THE DDO IN APRIL 2018!

On March 8  we signed our agreement with the Town of Richmond Hill to get the Ylab Maker Space back up and running in the basement of the administration building of the David Dunlap Observatory.

For ylab, it’s been over a year of paperwork, waiting, negotiating, board meetings and calls, getting insurance, and still taking care of tax and related filings to maintain our corporate non-profit status. For the Town’s Parks and Recreation department, it’s been far more arduous – the negotiations to take ownership of the facility; the inspections, engineering and safety work for a building and telescope that opened in 1935;  and all the organisational planning required to deal with groups like ylab that applied for access. The Town also has a master plan for the entire DDO site.

So what are the next steps?

There will be more formal communication with members. As promised, we put memberships on hold when we lost access. We are reactivating everything effective April 1. We have more space and more flexibility. There are fire and safety rules  that may require some amendment to membership agreements. Then there’s all that formal organisation stuff, like an annual member meeting that we’re a little behind on.

We’ll get our gear back in and set things up.  Our laser cutter gets another trip down the building back stairs after its winter in the undisclosed secret location (a.k.a. Richard’s garage).  We thank Richard for his generosity in storing and maintaining it, and giving access to any member who asked. There are some member offices and garages around town that will be happy to get some free space back.  Expect some  news around 3D printing.

Once we’re in, our initial focus will be on existing members and getting some unfinished, dormant projects reactivated.

And finally…

A huge thank you  to the board members who worked through this, to the  non-member volunteers  who help out in so many ways, to Phil the insurance guy for coming through for us once again, and to all the members for your support, incredible patience and understanding during the prolonged hiatus. As the song goes… “never was heard a discouraging word”.

We all felt it was worth the wait to be in this magnificent facility.

Here’s to making it really worth it.