On Wed, 2013-01-02 at 13:38 -0500, a l wrote: > 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.
It is more of an implementation detail. If we have a Sponsor level that clearly states "$250/mo", it is a lot easier to bill via spiff and write into any kind of sponsorship contract. An alternative name for this rank is Benefactor, which is what we currently have in Spiff. I agree with you though, it doesn't really give any real benefit except to give a rare and coveted title to people who pay more. > > 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. That seems to have already happened. I am structuring it in my head as you still pay $35/mo for membership, but you also pay $20/mo for key access instead of the current one-time fee. You also get a fancy title and some storage with that key. > 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. A difficult balance, yes. I can think of a couple of people who make very little cash but a key would be absolutely excellent for them. A reservation I've had since the beginning of this thread is the fact that charging monthly for a key excludes people who can't afford more than $35/mo but still can do awesome things. I'll agree with Markus here in that we should be trying to open up access to as many people as possible. The question though is how to we do it safely? > > > 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. We currently have one member paying $250/mo, and one paying $55/mo. Two others have stated an intent to upgrade to $55/mo, which would result in us making $175/mo in profit after the bills are paid. That is a 22% profit margin. We would need 29 members to pay the bills and keep our 20% profit margin, but realistically we don't because I know others are willing to pay more. N.B.: While we are a non-profit, that actually only means we can't distribute the profit to our employees, shareholders, or members. We're allowed to store up to 200% of our annual operating expenses (currently pegged at $600/mo) before the IRS starts to care. A 20% profit margin means that 20% of our total income is profit, which we agreed is the fine line between a realistic budget and treading water. > > > > 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 > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://synhak.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://synhak.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
