There was talk between me, mat p and another (i can't remember who) about where beer is normally bought from.
I would not suggest too much panic as more than one member can/does drinks runs.
Sol
Sent from my Android, please excuse typos and spelling errors.
On Jun 8, 2011 10:49 PM, "Glen" <glen....@gmail.com> wrote:On the 30th of May we had £94 of beer from the wholesalers delivered to the Hackspace, £20 of that w...
But then the beer will go flat
On the 30th of May we had £94 of beer from the wholesalers delivered
to the Hackspace, £20 of that was my money.
On the 6th of June I checked the beer tin to see if it was time to buy
more beer, we had £48 in the tin and two crates of ale.
On the 8th of June we had no beer and the money on the tin had gone
down.
The tin should have twice as much money as it has. The only things I
can think happened are that people have been buying really expensive
beer from the corner-shop or that someone's taking the money. Anyone
know more about this?
m.
I've also got the carcass of one of those cheap digital wall-safes. Can
probably tack-weld and repair the hinges and it would need a new lock,
but may make a decent donation box?
~ Sci
On 08/06/2011 22:46, Glen wrote:
> On the 30th of May we had �94 of beer from the wholesalers delivered
> to the Hackspace, �20 of that was my money.
>
> On the 6th of June I checked the beer tin to see if it was time to buy
> more beer, we had �48 in the tin and two crates of ale.
>
> On the 8th of June we had no beer and the money on the tin had gone
> down.
>
> The tin should have twice as much money as it has. The only things I
> can think happened are that people have been buying really expensive
> beer from the corner-shop or that someone's taking the money. Anyone
> know more about this?
>
> Glen
>
If there are ideas about where to find good beer for less money then I suggest to put them prominently on the donation can.
Mystery solved, no need to panic.
m.
... And there are several sets of lockpicks in the hackspace... :)
--
Alex Pounds .~. http://www.alexpounds.com/
/V\ http://www.ethicsgirls.com/
// \\
"Variables won't; Constants aren't" /( )\
^`~'^
Not to mention the availability of "brute force tools in 23 :-D
Sounds like it would be a good idea to have a log book so that we can
record how much money is going out for beer. At the moment we seem to
have little idea if people are using the money to buy very expensive
beer or if people are using it to fund their crack habit.
The next question is: are we sure that when people help themselves to
beer they are reimbursing the collection tin? This is a slightly more
difficult question to answer.
Mike.
Although so far I haven't had cause to restock the fridge, I was
previously unaware of the wholesale account. Perhaps a note at the back
of the fridge "if this fridge is empty, ring this number".
Mike.
On Tuesday I came down with a friend and we bought some beer. We got
a crate of 24 Carlsburg for £20. Half of it was a donation (as I only
come down once a month or so on a social, I usually donate beer), and
we took £10 from the beer pot. All of the beer was consumed that
night. Unless I drank more than 6 beers, I didn't drink more than I
paid for :p.
Something on the fridge saying where to restock it from would be an
excellent idea. As a casual visitor, I had no idea this was the case.
Also, having a sign for the expected donation for each beverage would
be a good idea too.
Chris Roberts
~
http://naxxfish.eu/
-g
Before we got a permanent drinks fridge, individuals would group together to get beer. After a drinks run, the donations tin was almost always in profit. I think it would be beneficial all round.
An alternative suggestion was made on IRC (by Adrian I think?) -- reduce the supply of "free" beer and let the "market" resolve it.
Or in other words,
- either run it on a communal basis, benefit from bulk purchases, and make sure that distribution is fair and not a free-for-all (avoiding a "tragedy of the commons") by yet to be determined mechanisms (magic?)
- or let the community sort it out themselves, increasing the de-facto price but reducing financial risk to individuals/the organisation
Atm we appear to be running something in between.
If you haven't heard of the concept (I'm sure Mark has):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
Hmm - somehow this needs to be hacked :) - so perhaps an electric log on the fridge - which auto unlocks in real time when a random amounth is paypalled :)
Dw.
The "let's split the space" suggestion came up a few times in jest, but we could actually build subgroups in quite sensible ways. We already have some of that: biohackers, metal working group, etc.
Maybe it's time to allow some formalisation of that to happen.
E.g.,
- people gather in loose interest groups anyway
- at a certain point these groups may want to formalise their relationship, e.g. they might want to purchase equipment.
- the space could offer such groups access to certain amenities (a shared box, space for their equipment)
- they would however also need to take on particular responsibilities (helping the space run smoothly within and outside their direct realm)
The response below was in reply to an observation that we're now running into a few "Tragedy of the Commons" situations in how our resources are managed.
Generally we appear to have two basic options. In the context of beer purchases:
- to either run aspects of the space on a communal basis, benefit from e.g. bulk purchases, and make sure that distribution is fair and not a free-for-all (avoiding a "tragedy of the commons") by yet to be determined mechanisms (magic?)
- or to let the community sort it out themselves, increasing the de-facto price but reducing financial risk to individuals/the organisation
Atm we appear to be running something in between.
There are more elaborate options as well. My suggestion would be to build more formal subgroups who feel responsible for particular aspects of the space; see below for details.
Looking forward to hear your suggestions. And for suggestions about potential subgroups we could formalise.
m.
So .. a 'beer club'.
Members contribute toward a group purchase.
Supplies are kept in a beer fridge.
If ownership is not respected, the fridge gets a lock
If the fridge takes up common space, the members using this private
facility make a suitable contribution to hackspace funds (since there
is already a beer fridge and it wouldn't be used except for parties,
there could be an initial grace period where no rental was required).
-adrian
-adrian
3) Lets put a small notice about prices onto the fridges again and see
if the situation gets better?
Our accounts are already public though, right? So we just need to put
down what the purchase cost has been per beer type. And a separate note
nearby (but totally unrelated of course) reminding people that paying a
little more than cost means more drinks can be bought in next time. :)
~ Sci
On Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:39:07 +0100, Mark Steward <marks...@gmail.com>
wrote:
As much as I'd love to have a hackspace with a proper bar - and we've
considered this before - getting a premises license is currently not
an option.
Successfully applying for a premises license is much more complex than
just paying a £100 fee (the real costs are almost certainly >£1000 as
you have to go through consultations and submit detailed site
drawings). I'm not sure our landlord would be terribly keen, and the
council probably wouldn't either considering that we're not zoned
correctly for a bar.
Beyond that, we'd need to set up a separate, independent trading
company as we're working towards becoming a charity. We would be
subject to the legal regulations involved in supplying alcohol which
Steve eloquently pointed out in the other thread [1]. This would
likely mean that we would need designated, trained bar staff every
night that the bar would be open.
Self-service would be impossible, so we'd need to securely lock away
the booze away when bar staff weren't available to serve.
A pay bar would be a lot of hassle and a big "impedance mismatch" for
our (still small) space.
--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk
The beer in the Hackspace is not provided by the Hackspace Foundation,
and so whether our accounts are open or not is irrelevant.
Telling people how much they should be paying for beer is treading
dangerously close to the line of selling it, in my opinion.
--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk
It's not costing the Hackspace anything. The beer fund is separate
from Hackspace funds, and no-one is suggesting mingling the two. But
the beer fund has ran low without a corresponding increase in beer.
On 10 June 2011 10:52, Sam Cook <sam.lind...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe the best option is to run this in the same way that we run pizza on a
> Tuesday? Everyone who wants beer for the evening chips in or pledges during
> the day and then a bulk order is bought and the money collected. This would
> then not be a sale as such just everyone chipping into buying beer.
> Stuff that's left over (unlikely) can then be taken on the previous donation
> system or people can claim their 4 from the heap (assuming they're £1.12
> each).
> S
This makes sense, but has two drawbacks that I see:
- Beer is consumed at a relatively steady rate over the course of the
evening. Some people have a beer before others turn up - if you arrive
at 10pm you'll miss out entirely. Or you have to take pledges and then
collect money afterwards, which starts to become 1)a faff 2) requires
capital. 'Course, that's not the worst thing, but it means the
majority of beer will be bought from the expensive offie round the
corner.
- It's nice to have beer in the fridge on non-Tuesdays, without having
to bring it each time.
--G
Beer is consumed at a relatively steady rate over the course of the
evening. Some people have a beer before others turn up - if you arrive
at 10pm you'll miss out entirely. Or you have to take pledges and then
collect money afterwards, which starts to become 1)a faff 2) requires
capital. 'Course, that's not the worst thing, but it means the
majority of beer will be bought from the expensive offie round the
corner.
- It's nice to have beer in the fridge on non-Tuesdays, without having
to bring it each time.
As mentioned, anything that requires buying beer in advance requires a
pool of money, with which beer is bought. Then people buy that beer
to replenish next time.
Personally, the only time I've drunk beer in the Hackspace is when
I've nicked a bottle from a friend who's brought along their own. I
drink the soft drinks and tea/coffee regularly, and slip a donation in
the donations tin for it (I think that's right? - it says "not beer"
but not "not soft drinks" iirc)
- but from my perspective, a carefully worded sign to the effect of
"this beer costs £1.19 a bottle, please leave a reasonable donation if
you take some so it can be replenished" should be okay for legal
stuff, shouldn't it? Obviously doesn't get around the problem that
someone appears to have half-inched some cash out of the pot - but it
is a fix for those who want to maintain the honesty box system, as it
simply informs people of the cost so they can make an informed
decision about how much to donate.
--
Katie Sutton
http://tajasel.org
"The ‘Net is a waste of time, and that’s exactly what’s right about
it." ~ William Gibson
Sorry, that donation tin is only for funds going in to the hackspace
bank account. I will relabel it (again :)) next time I am in the space.
I think the best way to organise things like tea and soft drinks is for
people to just randomly replace what they think is afair amount based on
what they have taken and what is needed.
Robert
"These drinks were bought with personal contributions, not common funds.
If you helped by providing cash or bottles, then you're entitled to take them.
If you didn't, then please leave them alone.
Keeping this fridge stocked costs about £1.50 per bottle."
Aha, I have also been leaving bottles of drink occasionally when
taking advantage of BOGOF deals etc, so hopefully I'm even having
donated both money and liquid :)