Once you’ve signed up and you have your keycard, you’re ready to go. Here’s how to get started.
We hold at least one orientation session for new members on the evening of the first Saturday of every month @ 2pm and usually schedule others through the month for members convenience. Book yours today at go.tcmaker.org/newmember. This is the quickest and easiest way to learn the ropes. At orientation, you’ll get to meet other new members, learn the rules of the shop, and ask any questions you might have.
After New Member Orientation, if you are taking orientation the first Friday onsite, we recommend that you stick around for the Wood Shop Orientation that immediately follows. You’ll meet the Wood Shop managers, learn how this area of the workshop is organized, and get clearance to use our woodworking tools.
Some of our equipment is either too dangerous or too complex to learn in an orientation session. If, for instance, you want to learn to weld steel or use one of our CNC machines, you need to take a class. You can see a list of upcoming classes here on our website.
We use Slack, to help members help each other, ask questions, and have members and nerd and geek out to interesting technical conversations about really awesome things. Once you’re an active member join our slack team through the clubhouse dashboard.
Our Wednesday evening Open House is a good time to visit with other members, show people what you’ve been working on, and ask for advice on any problems you’re having with your projects. If you’re interested in how the organization is run and how you can help out, our monthly board meetings are open to the membership. You can see when the next board meeting is happening on our calendar.
Finally, on one Saturday per quarter, we close the shop for a Quaterly Cleanup. We use this opportunity to thoroughly clean the floors and the tools, rearrange the shop if necessary, and performance maintenance tasks that are either too involved or too intrusive to do while the shop is open. We encourage you to come and help out, even if it’s just for an hour. It’s always true that every little bit helps, but on cleanup day, every little bit helps a lot.
For new members there is a $20 processing fee charged when you sign up. This makes the first month’s charge $75 for a standard membership, and $295 for a 6 month membership.
All standard memberships listed above are eligible for the “household” membership option. A household membership allows two people residing at the same address access to the space. Both members on a household membership can have their own keys.
If you are joining Twin Cities Maker for the first time:
If you are a former member of Twin Cities Maker, and have a Clubhouse account you can reactivate your membership self-service at clubhouse.tcmaker.org. If you don’t have an account, or no longer have access to the account, contact our membership team here:
Membership Reactivation Request Form
Twin Cities Maker is an all volunteer community, that collaboratively operates a nonprofit organization and shared workshop. Our community members pay monthly dues, volunteer their time, and donate resources which go towards the upkeep of the shop and its tools and, in return, get to use the tools and space to build things that they wouldn’t be able to build at home.
We’re very different from a gym. We want our community and our facilities to be available to people from all walks of life, and to do that we have keep our dues as low as possible. As a result, we don’t have paid employees and instead rely on the dedication of our volunteer staff and the goodwill and cooperation of our members to keep everything working smoothly.
Here’s what you’re getting yourself into.
Be excellent to each other. This is the central organizing principle of Twin Cities Maker and the reason why the organization works as well as it does. Try to be aware of others and respectful of their needs. It also helps to be patient with volunteers — they are donating their evenings and weekends to keep the tools the running.
Ask for help when you need help. It’s easy to hurt yourself or damage equipment if you don’t know what you’re doing. If you’re worried that you don’t know how something works, ask another member for help or contact one of the area managers.
Report broken tools. If you notice that a tool is broken, worn out, or making noises that it shouldn’t, notify the area manager, so we can inspect the tool and, adjust, repair or replace it as necessary.
Pitch in when you can. Since we are ans all volunteer community we rely on you to help maintain the shop, we’re always grateful for any help you offer us. Even simple things like taking out the trash or sweeping a floor make a huge difference when enough people do them.
As a member of Twin Cities Maker, you and one lucky member of your household get 24-7 access to our workshop and all the wonders held within. A bit of what we offer:
We ask that you store flammable chemicals like acetone and oil-based paints in our flammable chemical locker, but most other stuff is fair game.
While we don’t provide long-term storage for items that won’t fit in your storage area, but if you’re working on a large project that you can’t easily move to and from the shop, we can help you find a place for it until the work is done.