Over the past few weeks, we have been putting some new equipment into use around TOG thanks to support from the Local Enhancement Programme 2026.
The programme supports community and voluntary organisations with capital equipment that helps strengthen local community activity. In Dublin, it is funded by the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, through the Dublin City Local Community Development Committee (LCDC) and Dublin City Council.
For us, the aim was fairly simple: make our public nights, workshops and community events safer, better organised and easier for our volunteers to run.
Already being put to use
Some of the most visible additions are our new outdoor event gazebos.
They did not have to wait very long for their first outing. We used both of them during our recent Forging History – Metalworking and the 1798 & 1803 Uprisings event for National Heritage Week.
The day brought heritage blacksmith Fínín Líam Christie to TOG for a day of traditional forge work, hands-on participation and demonstrations exploring the skills associated with the United Irishmen, the 1798 Rebellion and Robert Emmet’s 1803 Rising. The gazebos gave us a much more useful covered outdoor area around the forge and remained in use for our Open Social Night afterwards.
That is exactly the sort of thing we hoped this funding would allow us to do. Rather than equipment for a single event, these are things we can bring out again and again for our monthly socials, workshops and other public activities.
Making the space safer and easier to use
We have also installed new Safety & Wellbeing equipment around the space, including new first aid and emergency burn kits.
Alongside this, we have added equipment to help with temporary power and trip hazards during events, better signage and equipment for managing our outdoor area.
They may not be the most exciting things in a hackerspace, but they make a real difference when you are welcoming groups of people into a busy workshop and trying to run events safely.
We have also added new waste separation bins for paper, plastics and general waste. Our social nights can involve quite a few people, and usually quite a lot of pizza, so making it clearer and easier for everyone to separate waste was another practical improvement we wanted to make.
Supporting an open community space
TOG hosts three public access nights each week as well as workshops, talks, community events and our monthly Open Social Night. These are opportunities for people to visit the space, meet others, learn new skills and get involved without needing to be a member.
The equipment funded through the Local Enhancement Programme will be used across all of these activities for years to come. It helps us provide a space that is safer and better organised while giving us more options for bringing activities outdoors and welcoming larger groups.
This fits closely with Goal 4 of the Dublin City Local Economic and Community Plan 2024–2029, which aims to foster communities that are “more sustainable, thriving, safe, caring, welcoming and inclusive.”
A big thank you to the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, the Dublin City Local Community Development Committee, and Dublin City Council for supporting TOG through the Local Enhancement Programme 2026.
We are already making good use of the new equipment, and you can expect to see plenty more of it at TOG events over the coming years.
