I think we are doing something very cool and unusual.
Our son Martin (5) is a LEGO enthusiast and has a passion for building with bricks. He has been a keen builder from a very young age (about 18 months).
Right now, his LEGO construction occupy the living room table, and is has done so for months. He enjoys building but he yearns for spending time building with others. He would be thrilled to be with others, maybe older kids and grownups, from which he would get new inspiration to build.
Recently we tried to enter him into a LEGO club for children located about 20 km from where we live. We were very disappointed that they rejected him, because he was too young. We looked around, but could not find any other LEGO groups within 100 km, so we decided to start our own.
We will convert a room in our house into a LEGO builders’ meetup space. We plan to have the meetups twice a week. Joining the meetup will be free for anyone who wants to join, no matter age.
When we asked Martin, what the LEGO meetups would mean for him, he replied that he would like to play and share the LEGO feeling with others and it would be cool to see what other people would build.
Martin would love being amongst other LEGO builders’, but the same I suppose is true for others too, especially children who are in the same situation as Martin.
We have created a Facebook group, where people can share images or videos from the meetings.
Martin's LEGO builders meetups
We already have two PCs connected to the internet, for downloading building instructions from LEGO.com. We also have free Wi-Fi if people would like to use their own devices.
The room needs refurbishing, before we can accommodate guests. We expect that there will be kids attending the meetups from very young age too, so we want to put in better flooring by changing the simple linoleum floor that we have today, with an insulated floor, with a non-slippery surface, that would suite the little ones better.
We also need to fix the ceiling and repaint the walls. In addition, we need desks, chairs and of course LEGOs. We will find second hand chairs and desks, either for free or cheap. The same goes for LEGOs, but I suppose that we will need to buy many new ones too.
We will ask LEGO Norge AS if they can help us in anyway, even if It’s only by giving us posters, that would be great.
To finance the project, we will accept donations. We hope that whomever wants to join the meetups, feel that this is a good idea and would like to contribute to push things forward. We will work towards making the room ready regardless of donation, but of course, it will take longer time to get there.
When we are up and running, we hope people feel that we are providing them with a service and they get some value back for being able to come and spend time with other LEGO enthusiasts and that they will donate what they believe it’s worth for them.
If anyone would like to help us to get the project going, we have set up a PayPal account specific for this project. PayPal:[email protected]
And also bitcoin:
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Of course only if you can afford it. Even if you think it’s a great idea and would like to help, if you are struggling yourself then please don’t give your money away. We understand that the chances for any of you joining the meetups, even if you would like to, are very low (probably none).
Nevertheless, if you do decide to donate, we are deeply grateful and you will be helping us on the way of providing LEGO builders' a service that is missing in our community.
Thank you.
