[Vanhackspace] hacker dojo

[afsmith]

I chose not to participate at VHS largely because of membership dues.
I don't mean to say that they are unreasonable, just that they are not
so reasonable as to draw everyone interested in (maybe this is
desired?)

With regards to diversifying income- VHS is full of people with
specialized skills. From an armchair point of view VHS is a potential
Etsy of cool stuff (pending compliance with certification law,
liability policy, etc) Get class students to be your workers, or
something.

Even if that would be a no-go, I think there are probably lots of
other ways to diversify and make participation even cheaper or free.

On 4/25/09, Joe Bowser <bowserj at uselessdegree.net> wrote:
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> Austin wrote:
>> I kinda appreciate how the members at hacker dojo are paying $100.. also
>> I appreciate that there are people going all in(donating $500 a month)
>> they may be loaded or it could be a different class that they are
>> accommodating but I believe strong dedication to the idea of vancouver
>> hackspace  will be what gets it off the ground.  It seems that rent
>> prices are about the same in our area as they are in sanfran .. if we
>> want to survive we will have to be pulling in $2-3000, if this means
>> that a few people have to make a high investment during the startup in
>> exchange for some type of directive power...  I can accept this.  As any
>> directors that vhs has should be following our constitution.. and our
>> mission...  should we worry about there awesome powers...? of course as
>> is everything, it shall be abused!  2cents
>>
>
> I agree with that for sure.  I think what I put forward is the goal, and
> not how to get there.  The Hacker Dojo document seemed to indicate that
> the $100 was there to make decisions on the space.  I'm fine with that.
>  The Directors thing is tricky because that actually means something
> when you put that into bylaws and send it into Victoria.  We can have
> "founders", "coordinators", "l33t hax0r" or whatever, and they can get
> priority on booking the space, but other than that, I don't think they
> should have more say than the regular members.
>
> If I threw in $3000 per month, and ran the space myself, would it be a
> hackerspace or would it just be my workshop that I let people do shit
> in?  The thing is that it's community, and in this case paying members,
> and people who do classes and events that get us from point a to b,
> which is why I'm not down with putting this sort of thing into stone
> (and apparently neither is the Dojo, I think there's been an edit since
> this morning).
>
> It's a tough balance, but I agree we need people to throw down money.  I
> just don't want it to turn super weird for the people who have the money
> to throw down and the people who don't.  The money thing can get weird
> fast and that can cause people to not necessarily feel like showing up,
> which is bad when you're trying to grow a base of support.
>
> Finally, it's good to diversify our revenue streams early on, that way
> we're not fucked if a single source (i.e. Supporting Members) drops off,
> which could happen in this economy.  I don't know exactly how to do
> that, but kit sales, parties, and getting the fridge up and going once
> we get the space is a good start.
>
> Joe
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