This is the war cry, the focus of HSBNE at the moment. This is where the exec is pushing the cause leaders and members to focus.
Theres a group of us who have been around forever, and we know how everything rolls more or less, and can figure stuff out. So things being kinda sorta iffy is manageable. But for everyone else? It’s an awful experience. This is why we are stuck at our current membership numbers.
Getting the areas clean, and getting them Working, Accessible and Documented is so, so important.
Working
Every asset we have should be working. That means identifying the current state of every machine and major tool in an area and understanding its current status. If its not working, or partially working, it means making a plan and a budget to return it to working.
No non-working tools. No projects. No gunnas.
Accessible
If a tool is working, but you need to have special knowledge to access it, or its not clear how to access it or turn it on or make it go, thats a problem. “Oh yeah that works but you need a sd card thats formatted little endian with 32kb of original dos code” isn’t accessible. Something being not accessible can be as simple as the area being a mess and it not clear how to plug in and power something.
It needs to be crystal clear by reading the wiki how one goes about getting access to a machine or tool, and once they have access, how to turn it on, get it supplied with any consumables etc.
Tools that require induction need to have the induction made into an online course. Its not accessible for a member to join, want to use a machine, and be told ‘oh yeah you gotta find John, hes not here tonight but if you find him and manage to get him to show you how to use it on some unknown date’ is no good.
Documented
Every tool needs a wiki page that follows the template. The templates need to be filled out fully and responsibly. See the table saw page as an example.
Causes need to document themselves appropriately. This includes running costs, budgets, consumables lists, suppliers etc.
Make inductions as online courses. The HSBNE exec will support and help you with how to do this. If you want to have an in person component to the induction, it needs to be an event you can sign up for on eventbrite and documented in the wiki for the tool. Noone should have to hunt someone down to get access to something.
Lastly,
Papercuts
Lots of areas have a pile of small constant annoyances. Take a good look at the workflow for your area and try to understand where those annoyances are. Maybe its the lack of a small tool, or something needs to be on a retractor. Maybe its making more bins available, or having a curated selection of supplies on site. I encourage everyone to go to the papercuts thread on here and report anything like that you run into so it can be solved.
