While it is still early days for the Beacon Community Network, we've acquired some initial funding and have been reaching out to community members, organizations, and the local government to identify potential partners and collaborators for the Interface Research Lab project. We've been working to distill the IRL concept into an approachable and actionable initial form and intend to publish the resulting proposal in the coming weeks. The Beacon Computing Club forum has gained several members over the last few months but so far lacks active engagement. These two initial projects are laying the foundation for a local network that aims to maximize the creative, productive, and economic potential of our community through technology education and access to digital fabrication tools, with a focus on invention and innovation, collaborative economics, open-source design principles, and ecological sustainability.