*At today's meeting we were discussing possibly restructuring the membership perks again.
First: Creating another higher level called Sponsor, with monthly dues of $250/mo. Nothing exciting there; It can be used as a way to entice corporate sponsors.* Why create a membership rank for corporate sponsors? Unless they get some sort of benfit out of it their money is nothing more than a tax write-off. If a member wants to pay more, cool, but sponsors and members shouldn't be in the same category. *Second: Bumping the requirement for a key from any member rank up to serious geek ($55/mo). * I'm nervous with attaching key access to any specific membership rank. Eventually it will get misconstrued into a right and not a privelage. I'm sort of on the fence about what amounts to a $20/mo key access fee. On the one hand it's saying your trustworthyness is slightly dependant on the depth of your pockets. On the other hand we don't want people without a vested interest in bettering the space to have unfettered access. I also realize that we need 35 members at the base membership fee in order to afford our rent in internet starting in June once rent goes up. We need to increase revenue somewhere and key access might end up being that place if we're low on members come June. On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 1:12 PM, Penny Golightley <[email protected]>wrote: > As much as I would love a consensus before opening day, it's not going to > happen. The way we set up these things is so everyone can participate but > it takes time. We're beginning a new process of opening up our discussions > online but the space is a physical space and it is important that all > decisions are made and voted on at our physical location. Please stop > pushing for a decision to be made prematurely. Not all of our members are > involved online and it's not fair to them to come to a conclusion here. > Since those are the members that have a presence at our location and they > are putting in the physical labor to make our space great, it's their > opinions that I value most. > > I have gone through every hackerspace's website in the USA from > hackerspace.org. I compiled a list of how much every hackerspace charges > for 24/7 access is they were willing to share that on their website. My > sample size is smaller than I'd like but I still hope that it's > representative of the country's hackerspaces. At a sample size of 20 > hackerspaces, the average price for 24/7 access is $72.35. We are asking > for $55. I know Maker's Alliance asks for $30 but they also don't have to > pay rent. It isn't like our members paying $35 will not be able to get to > the space whenever they want. Trever and I live 8 minutes away from the > space and between Trever, Devin, Chris and I our members are always welcome > in our space. I also want to remind everyone that we have a low income > level of membership. If someone is low income, I don't think it's right to > deny them a key because of it. If someone needs 24/7 access to the space > and simply CANNOT afford it, I would be willing to consider their key > application. That's my opinion on that though. That is something else we > would have to discuss. > > Something else I want to point out is that everyone that has shown > interest in getting a key is also upgraded to Serious Geek level already. > This is affecting none of our current members as things stand now. > > > On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 12:47 PM, Vogl,Markus V <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> >> On 1/2/13 12:22 PM, "Trever Fischer" <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >On Wed, 2013-01-02 at 10:43 -0500, Vogl,Markus V wrote: >> >> As another example Cleveland's membership is $5 cheaper than our >> >> current full membership and provides 24/7 access. >> > >> >Cool. Sounds like they have less expenses than us. >> > >> >Our hackerspace caters to our members, not to the members of maker's >> >alliance. I'm not sure comparing the monthly dues of various spaces is a >> >good comparison. Pumping Station One costs $70/mo. Scanning the data on >> >hackerspaces.org shows that prices for 24/7 access to spaces with fewer >> >than 20 members has a range from $0 to $250, with a lot of them situated >> >around $45. >> >> Pumping Station 1 has 6000 sft, laser cutters, chemical lab and more tools >> you can dream of >> also Chicago as a large city is generally more expensive, not Akron where >> people make less money. >> >> Membership I don't just want this to be a discussion between Trever and >> me, and we have to at least have a consensus >> before opening day. Can you guys please chime in. >> >> Thx >> >> Best >> >> Markus >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://synhak.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://synhak.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss >
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