Maram Makerspace attended a Day in Our Village in Scoville Park on June 2nd! We had a wonderful time meeting more people in the community and sharing all that Maram has to offer.
Photos below show Kurt Hedlund and Carollina Song, helping to set up the booth. The little tech bits that Kurt brought along were very helpful, though we have to figure out how to make the tech aspect more visible generally for this kind of thing. (We’re also in dire need of a banner for the back of the tent, obviously. As soon as we finalize our logo…)
We’re not allowed to have a gas generator on the grounds, and I just didn’t have time to really brainstorm & plan tech demo stuff that would be feasible in a 10×10 tent (while also showcasing our other activities). Hmm….
Carollina set up a shaving cream + dye print-making activity that was quite popular (also quite messy when there wasn’t a grown-up supervising, but so it goes….). Nice way to draw in older kids!
Some things have worked well at Maram’s Day in Our Village booth, some less well. I admit to being a little torn about my ‘building jam’ station — the Legos and MagnaTiles worked great as a way to draw in little kids, and then their parents were stuck, and some of them actually talked to us — so good?
But I’m afraid it overall gave the booth a vibe of ‘kid activity,’ and I’m not sure how to signal ‘we’re mostly for adults, though we also let kids come to some things if accompanied by an adult, though definitely not the making cocktails event on Father’s Day…’
Also, I completely forgot all the paper airplane instructions I laboriously printed out, and I only know how to make one paper airplane myself, so that’s the one that I made, and Kurt made one, but that was it — I think origami-type stuff isn’t right for this kind of space which is loud and chaotic and people are mostly moving on quickly from booth to booth, rather than settling down to craft for a while.
But we did have beautiful, professional-looking flyers, thanks to Janea Schimmel and Alec (and Canva), and I think the ‘What would you like us to teach you to make?’ was a good interactive thing, for encouraging people to vote on what workshops we might offer next.
Which reminds me, we need to finalize the July workshops and start publicizing those too. Eep. The good thing about not having done that yet, though, is that doing this event gave me more of a sense of what people are interested in.
Definitely graphic novels — I need to find someone to teach that, because I’m not competent. Writing fiction for tweens / teens; I’m probably going to do at least a workshop on that in July, though probably not a class; I think I’ve pulled back on my ambitions there, to make sure I have enough writing time.
Lots of people wanted cooking workshops, so we should work more with Cheryl at SugarBeet to make those happen jointly when possible. Lots of interest in personal essay writing. A few people were looking for ideas on what to do with their 3D printer, so I think maybe Kurt should just teach that class too.
A few last photos from Maram’s booth at Day in Our Village. I am envious of Pamela Penney’s drop spindle — well, mostly I want to learn how to use it. 🙂 We took a poll on what kind of classes people are most interested in — tech, writing, and cooking were high on the list, so we may focus on that for the July workshops, which we’re scheduling this week.
(While I’m here, I’ll remind you that June workshops are coming up soon…)
