Upcycle rack
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A member recently brought up the parlous state of the upcycle rack, and volunteered to take up its management.
This was discussed in Slack and at the most recent committee meeting. No clear consensus has emerged.
In favour of the upcycle rack, we had:
It sometimes contains really good stuff!
It provides a defined space for certain kinds of items / donations to go. "If the upcycle rack didn't exist, we would have to create it."
Against the upcycle rack, we had:
At the time of writing, it contained stuff which no-one wanted, which had been there for 12+ months
-
People weren't clear on its existence or etiquette
Now covered in the New Member Induction
Proposed options included:
A member volunteers to "adopt" the upcycle rack, e.g. purge it regularly
Label each donation with its incoming date, purge oldest items as required
Eliminate the upcycle rack, go virtual only
The committee would like to seek member feedback before making a decision on this.
Poll Created Mon 22 Jul 2024 4:36AM
What should we do with the upcycle rack? Closed Mon 29 Jul 2024 4:00AM
Consensus is "Appoint a member to take responsibility for housekeeping the upcycle rack" and Doug has volunteered. I'll get in touch with Doug to discuss next steps.
Results
Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Appoint a member to take responsibility for housekeeping the upcycle rack | 75.0% | 6 | BS | ||
|
Require that all incoming donations be labelled with the incoming date. | 12.5% | 1 | |||
|
"Other" (please explain further) | 12.5% | 1 | |||
Teacher! Leave that upcycle rack alone! (Status quo - do nothing) | 0.0% | 0 | ||||
Delete the upcycle rack - go digital only | 0.0% | 0 | ||||
Undecided | 0% | 0 |
7 of 7 people have voted (100%)
Ben Connor Mon 22 Jul 2024 4:38AM
It's the minimal change option. It should address the issues and gets another non-committee member involved in housekeeping.
Fletcher Boyd Mon 22 Jul 2024 4:39AM
There are four tubs in the rack. Number each one and indicate which one is up for getting emptied into the skip next with a sign. New donations go into the tub that has most recently been emptied.
Doug Bateman Mon 22 Jul 2024 12:02PM
I am willing to take on the role of managing the upcycle rack for 12 months. I would, however, take a fairly draconian and minimalist approach that may not sit well with other members.
In the absence of an official curatorial procedure, I would do little more than:
Post photos of what's there every month or so.
Bin immediately anything i deem to be trash.
Keep "useful" items for a couple of months, tops.
Try to find time to disassemble larger items to salvage "good stuff".
Blake Samuels Mon 22 Jul 2024 1:37PM
Having someone keeping an eye on it seems reasonable. They are empowered to throw out stuff after it hasn't moved for awhile. Regular photos to the upcycle channel would help too, I think.
As Fletcher says, a moving label of "to bin next" in the tubs (in server rack?). Might help keep the mental load low.
Nick Bannon Mon 22 Jul 2024 2:53PM
Sounds good - and if it has a burst of enthusiasm then a bit a gap, it's precisely the same as status quo
Steve Hodges Mon 22 Jul 2024 4:43AM
I'm with Fletcher. There's lots of interesting stuff out in there, but it needs to turn over a little faster.
Nick Bannon Mon 22 Jul 2024 2:56PM
Other inspiration can be found at:
https://wiki.pumpingstationone.org/wiki/Tidy_Space_Policy#Salvage
...if someone's volunteering for the "Upcycle Rack" they should also feel do-o-cratically empowered to apply as much or as little enthusiasm as they like to the "Hack Rack" (e.g. move items between them, or skipbinwards) - they're basically the same for all intensive porpoises.
Johannes Chuah Tue 23 Jul 2024 7:44AM
happy to have multiple members take ownership of the upcycle rack. ie sort, reorganise, post updates on a slack channel to let people know whats there, and if no interest after a month or 2, in the bin
Fletcher Boyd Mon 30 Sep 2024 3:54PM
Doug has taken on responsibility of the upcycle rack.
Nick Bannon · Mon 22 Jul 2024 2:52PM
That seems like a Vortex of Doom approach (c.f. 57north, Tokyo Hackspace):
https://web.archive.org/web/20150926192552/https://57north.org.uk/wiki/Vortex_of_Doom