Here’s a thought: When the machines get shipped, let’s use the Glowforger Map to create meetups or online groups for material swaps. I’m sure some of us will end up having or buying massive amounts of certain materials that other people are itching to use. We might do well to tell each other about what we have extra of and what we’re looking for.
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This is a great idea!
I am anticipating the arrival of a box full of delrin scraps to experiment with…
Anyone else in Seattle hoarding interesting materials?
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Love the idea of starting GFUGs (Glow Forge User Groups) in different cities!! 
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First person to get their Glowforge gets to design the t-shirt!
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GFUGs is an awesome name.
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“GFUG” it sounds odd. No one will ever guess it.
We might consider keeping GFUG groups as owners-only, with private membership for a while–hard to imagine there aren’t people who would love to have Glowforge without paying for it, and an open membership would be like a shopping mall for thieves.
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I love this idea!!
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I think this is a great idea and would love to be able to swap material with out GFUG members.
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I hope we also will be able to bring that to live for the European owners.
I see no reason this can’t be extended to anyone globally. It would simply be a matter of creating a local group that would be willing to share information and materials. As would be the same for those of us in the US, I would not expect to be a member of a Seattle group when I live in the Detroit area.
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Local is the keyword.
in the map i only see 3 people from Germany . Of course i am sure there are many more so time will tell.
I second that.
@frank_wolfers, keep in mind that the map only has 390 pins on it as of when I created this post, and I believe I saw somewhere that there are on the order of 10,000 Glowforges on order right now, so on the assumption that the other 9,610 owners are distributed similarly, that would extrapolate to about 75 owners in Germany, so even those of us with few pins nearby may actually have a pretty good potential community near us!
Calling all owners, get your pins on there!! Lots of people have put theirs near where they actually live (i.e. nearest major crossroads, for example), so that is an option for those of you that are afraid to put the pin right on your house.
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Anywhere within 30 minutes drive of yourself is enough to find local community.
Put it in something anyone even remotely local will know is a public place (like a park) where you wouldn’t actually have a printer, and it’ll be clear you are interested in community, but also privacy.
You’re killing me. The only town within 30 minutes of my house has 3 houses and a permanently closed post office. Welcome to the Appalachian mountains…
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I live close to the "Ruhrgebiet, Germany " i can easily cross 30 towns in less then 30 minutes. 
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I feel your pain, @rpegg. I grew up 40 miles from the nearest town. America is very empty in the right places.
I’m in Toronto. A 30 min drive gets you about 2 blocks away. Damn traffic. But if anyone is in the GTA or GTH , we need to combine efforts.
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