We’re Returning …Eventually

Hello, Tool Library friends and family.

First of all, this is long overdue, and that’s on me; sorry about that. Hopefully, this falls into the “Pandemic Grace Period” (it’s definitely a thing, don’t look it up), and this period lasts at least as long as the pandemic does.

We haven’t given up hope. That’s the theme of this New Year, isn’t it? Not giving up hope. Winter solstice was the year’s longest night, and now the sunrise keeps pushing back at the dark just a little bit sooner.

Now. The Calgary Tool Library currently exists as an extraplanar cloud. It thinks of you often. It has not forgotten. We are presently looking for a physical space for it to call home, and possibly even a formal arrangement with another socially progressive organization that would like to incubate us.

That’s not to say that things are all vagueries and vapours. The tools themselves still very much exist (except in the tree-falling-in-the-forest sense), and if nothing else, our license for Microsoft Excel is keeping us anchored to this physical plane. Bridgeland has been a home for us in our first and formative years, and now we’re growing up and going onward, parting (legally) with the BRCA. We’re confident that as a proven success, it won’t take much longer to carve out a space for us in the post-apocalyptic 2021 landscape.

Basically, in the coming year, whether and how we incorporate (legally/metaphysically) depends on the new connections we can make in Calgary, and the arrangements that might follow.

You can help! (Please help.)

Grassroots stuff like the Tool Library project is all about “people connecting with people”. So I’m reaching out to you (connecting!) thinking you may know the right person, place, or organization to talk with, partner with, draw a summoning circle with, to bind the Calgary Tool Library back to this mortal realm.

Corporeality aside, the Tool Library board of directors and I are still regularly meeting (incorporeally, actually), planning, and connecting(!) with other organizations who also have only the vaguest idea of what the hell the next week might bring.

Still, we’re getting a picture of things to come: winter will end, medicine will come, the hungry concrete giant will shudder awake. We will be there for it.

And now some facts (or at least some details):

If the Calgary Tool Library doesn’t glom onto a bigger org, the plan remains incorporating as a not-for-profit co-operative, with the members (you!) as its owners.

If you paid into a membership during the before-times and didn’t get to use it all, we’ve got you: however we manifest, you will be recognized and welcome for whatever time we might owe you. The tools remember the touch of your hands.

Yes. There will be tools; and there will be changes.

Your tools will be there for you as before, but/and we will probably have a new fee-structure, and we may have different/better programming, too. There will always be tools to borrow; just, the fine details of how that works will be tweaked, and the big picture of what else we offer alongside those tools will be focused differently. However, our mission has not changed, and will not change: Accessibility, Education, and Empowerment through Tool Sharing. We remain not-for-profit, at your service, and at the lowest costs to you that we can physically sustain.

And:

We need your support, whether you can connect us with potential allies, volunteer to join our board, or just dedicate a small portion of your psyche (conscious or unconscious) to sustaining our continued being. Oh, and of course cash is fine, too.

Friends and family, we haven’t stopped working for you, and we definitely haven’t forgotten about you. We hope you haven’t forgotten about us, either.

Happy New Year,

Nathan and The Calgary Tool Library

How To Request a Tool-Loan Renewal

Send an e-mail to toolrenewals@gmail.com
If a renewal is possible, you will be notified. If not, you will be expected to return the tools as scheduled.
You will need a Gold Membership – ask for details in your e-mail if you need an upgrade.

Acknowledgement

In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that we live, work and play on the traditional territories and of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Iyarhe Nakoda Nations, the Métis Nation (Region 3), and all people who make their homes in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta.

Thank you for sharing this place with us.