MHV Cleanup Discussion

Space opening
1

Too fast too soon, disregard this first post
(I’m glad I finally pushed things to the limit, now I know where the limit actually is)

Hi all, I’d appreciate it if you could give this a quick read.
There will be a working bee and garage sale at the space on the weekend after the AGM, the working bee starting Friday night on the first of November and continuing over the weekend, and the garage sale on the Saturday and Sunday.
All garbage, and anything that isn’t space critical, bolted to the floor, or labeled, will be brought outside to be sold or given away for free, and everything remaining outside afterwards will be thrown into a skip and disposed of the following Monday.
IF YOU DO NOT WISH FOR SOMETHING TO BE DISPOSED OF, EITHER REMOVE IT FROM THE SPACE OF ENSURE IT IS CLEARLY LABELED BEFORE THE FIRST OF NOVEMBER

There will be rolls of red stickers at the entryway of the space, make sure one it solidly attacked and visible on anything you caee about.

If you cannot attend the space in the next 5 weeks, please post any concerns in this thread and I will label any item of interest or materials myself.
Please, if you can, either empty your locker or bolt it shut
I’d like to take this opportunity to have all the lockers cleared, buy a $5 tub from either bunnings or kmart and get rid of that stuff. I’ll personally reimburse you for the cost it I need to. Just get it all out.
If you’re not using it every single time you visit the space, it doesn’t need to he here.

As a policy, from what I’ve heard discussed, it would be better if everyone simply brought what they needed with them to the space each visit, rather than leaving them here, as at very least this would allow room for those without easy means of transportation, the people who could most benefit from storage at the space, to leave their essentials here.
I’m pretty sure everyone with a locker now has a car. I’m not even gonna ask the last time most of us used them.

Slight tangent there, but if all the personal lockers are cleared then I’ll know that everything that remains is actually junk.

You’ve officially been warned. Don’t leave it until the last week.

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Hi Ryan,

It sounds like you’re planning on doing some big changes to clean the space, but myself and others do not agree with the specifics or the way you are going about them.
Yours is a very blunt strategy and it’s not appropriate for you as an individual to make such a significant decision with significant impact.

The AGM will be a great time to discuss the issue of ‘stuff at the space’ and we shouldn’t have any big plans like throwing out everything like the lockers. It is also not fair to commit the incoming committee to future events - think ‘care taker mode’.

I have observed over the years at MHV that management of materials equipment, projects and rubbish at the space is a difficult and persistent topic. It is more complex than just getting rid of everything.
It is also a community wide topic that needs to be addressed as such.

The next AGM is less than a month away, where this issue can be dealt with by community wide discussion. Any decisions will be made with guidance by the boarder MHV community and taken forward by the incoming committee. Proposals can include your ideas about garage sales and changing to storage tubs.

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The issue was discussed last Tuesday and no-one objected to my proposals. Many people said that stuff needs to be done however no-one offered to actually do any of them. Additionally, everything I’ve suggested was already approved over six months ago however never eventuated as I was waiting for others to do things they said they would, things that never happened.
Just because not everyone has been part of every discussion does not mean that due care hasn’t been taken to reach out to people.
Discussing something only to agree to discuss it later at a committee meeting only to agree that it needs to be discussed further is pointless. The space is an absolute trashheap.
The only reason any of this didn’t happen half a year ago is that Amr insisted that he organise a garage sale so it doesn’t all go to landfill. He never did.
Labelling everything in the space, disposing of everything that is not labeled has already been discussed, agreed upon, and settled. It was simply never realised. If people wish to take back their previous support, feel free.
The lockers are simply useless as is, inaccessible and filled with Junk. I am simply acting in accordance with Ben’s suggestions to ready them for removal, if we so decide. They’re useless as is.
I’ve been saying for weeks now that I will continue unless opposed or stopped. If people are stepping up to stop me, that’s fine, I will.
But I will remind you that I am only acting in accordance with the will of the space’s zeitgeist and everything that anyone’s ever said “we should” do.

So what is it you want to stop? Asking people to label things so we know if they’re trash or not? Disposing of the unlabelled items after a reasonable amount of time? A garage sale so that all items at least have a chance of being re-used? Clearing out the lockers and moving to a paradigm where people no longer leave non-essentials at the space?
All of them?
Not a single one of these was my idea. They’re all other ideas that individually other members or committee members have suggested, with the agreement of at least three committee members.
All I’m doing is realising them.

So if you want to atop it, fine.
Do you at least think “label your trash or its getting YEED’d” would be a reasonable request? Given that it’s already been approved.
Or are piles of unorganised, unlabelled, unknown garbage a positive thing?
I believe we already gave people this warning six months ago.
EDIT: Strike that. It wasn’t six months ago we talked about this. It was October last year: MHV Inventory

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I think we absolutely need to have a clear out.

I propose some middle ground / a way forward: Let’s designate some area of the space for things to be placed that people believe are no longer required. An individual can claim something out of the corner, but they must have a plan for it - or do a good job of convincing enough people it should stay around.

We kinda/did this already with the pallet at the front of the garage area with all the old computers on it.

At some agreed regular interval, we do a Greenshed / tip run…

My goal here is to open discussions again on this topic, so we can find a way forward.

Edit: Full disclosure, this is very similar/the same to an idea devdsp just told me he had a conversation with Ryan about

1 Like
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I was going to say that’s what devdsp suggested last night, and I think it’s an absolutely fantastic idea.
If we’re skipping the garage sale and instead doing things incrementally, then the palette will need to be disposed of at some point, spare someone suggesting we keep a pile of stuff to be sold eventually. I prefer the idea of smaller, more frequent runs to the green shed/tip, so unless someone was wanting to get the PSU’s back into those computer so they could be rebuilt by a refurbisher, then we should work out the best place to get rid of them.
I believe someone has already looked around and may have said there would be costs associated, if whoever looked around could kindly remind us how to go about things then we could move forward.

As for the pile of stuff, I was thinking the corner next to the hand power tools may be good, however having them more exposed, such as where the ewaste is now, seems like a better idea. I don’t like the clutter but I think the fact that everything there’s far more in-your-face is a good thing.

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Hi Ryan,

No one is saying that use of space and stuff we have isn’t an issue. Or that any particular idea is bad.
It is awesome that you want to improve things, and care enough to push this.

The important take away message here is that there are good and bad ways to go about things.

I don’t believe that you or any one person is qualified to take it upon them self to speak for the whole of MHV and decide what is useful vs what is rubbish. Nor should any one need to, this is a community.

Also, blaming others like Amr for not doing things isn’t helpful. Amr does lots.

This is a significant issue with implications for all users of MHV. The ‘Do it and ask for forgiveness’ or ‘DoOcracy’ paradigms are bad models and are a poor fit in this situation.

A lot of the time there is a lot of talk about doing things at MHV, but some things take time. Drastic steps like these needs to be discussed, and formally.

On a personal level I don’t want anyone going through my stuff in the locker I use and deciding to throw it out.

I like things like cleaning bees and monthly Tuesday and Wednesday night cleanings. They are good as multiple members jointly make decisions and work together.

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The pallet with computer waste is in the way and annoying, but the annoyance is targeting the wrong people. It should target those who brought the e-waste in, but instead is in the way of those using the workshop area (which I haven’t seen anyone use for computer-related projects).

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I don’t think it is appropriate for any single thing to be targeted or used as an example of discussion. The issues with the workshop are multilayered and no one item should be seen as normative or precedence setting for the whole situation.

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The pallet contains many things. I am happy to expand the discussion to many more: broken power tools, cans of dried paint, scrap lumber.
I respectfully disagree that no single thing should be targeted. Speaking only in generalities (“space needs cleanup”) is vague. It is also vulnerable to the critique “what specific things need cleaning up?”

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No the pallet contains e waste from the back room which I pulled out a few weeks ago. It was meant to goto the tip and between family issues as well as a hospital admission myself I haven’t had time to follow up why it hasn’t gone.

As to the rest of the stuff, there is no point about talking about x pile or y pile because each pile is part of the over all issue of. We moved from a large space to a small space and have never downsides properly.

However to downsize isn’t the role of one person or even a small group of people it is the decision that needs to be made by the community as a whole. If it was as simple as getting a skip in and dumping it all then it would of already been done.

I am going to lock this topic, I don’t think it is going to stop going around in circles. No one is not saying we shouldn’t clean up just that there is a way it needs to be done that includes everyone. This is going to be discussed at the AGM. If it comes up on the forum again we will just delete the posts.