Yes, you’ve probably mostly heard by now, but we have signed the lease for the proposed space. On Tuesday morning, Rob, Eric, Graham and Stephen went to the landlord and signed the lease for the ENTS space. We now are the proud lessees of 3700 square feet of space to use as we see fit and to grow the community even further. We’d like to say the landlord has been extremely accomodating to our rapid growth and how we operate. They have been strong supporters of our group and helped us in many ways to get this space at a price that works for us. The landlord has also agreed to let us keep a large number of items, such as desks, tables, and various pieces of equipment to quickly furnish the space. If you run into Bruce at the space, be sure to say thanks!

We’re already picking up the Microsoft Surface from the City of Edmonton Thursday morning, we’re deciding the final layout plans for the primary walls, and have begun the cleaning of the space. There’s a lot to do, but so far, we have already made a lot of progress on preparing the space for general consumption. If you’re interested in helping with construction or planning, let us know. We’d be glad to have the help, member or not.

ThinkTel Communications has agreed to donate 4 phones lines for the space to work with for operations and learning of phone system operation, two parties have agreed to donate Internet connections on their way within the next week, we’re investigating leads on building materials for the space development, and we’ve raised some money from the members in the form of donations to help with all these things. We’ve also had offers of furniture, equipment and gadgets to fill the space already. To those which we’ve replied ‘not just yet’, well, now you can bring it by and we can put it somewhere.

If you’re a member, now is a great time to join in the building and development of the physical space, to shape it into ways you want to see it used. If you’re not a member, there’s no better time than now to sign up and get your ideas placed into the space development.

To introduce everyone to the space, members or the general public, we’re holding two general events. The main event will be Friday evening at 6pm at suite 201, 10575 114 Street NW. It is just north of the Safeway in Oliver Square. There are so far no set plans for what we’ll be doing Friday, but if you can make it out and take a gander at the space and talk with the members and directors, we’d be glad to have you out. On Thursday, you can come out and see the space, and again talk to directors and other members. Hopefully everyone will have a chance in the next two days to take a look. If you really want to take a look, but the evenings don’t work, let us know and we may be able to arrange a time during the day to take people through.

So, to finish off, thanks to everyone for all of their assistance, time, energy and thoughts on making ENTS grow from a small discussion into a 59 member strong group of Edmonton’s technical community. We’re glad to see everyone that has joined and like to hear all your ideas. Now that we have our physical space, we can make all those ideas become realities.

As always, you can call us at 780-701-9400 (ENTS main line), message us on Twitter @ENTS, or email us.

See you Friday or Thursday night! The public and members are all welcome.