Open house and keyholder meeting tonight / finances info

[Kai Carver]

Hi everybody,

Our monthly open house is tonight.

It will be the last one of the year for me as I go to Europe next month for the holidays.

We'll have our keyholder / admin meeting at 7:30, more info on that topic below.

Hope to see you tonight!

k

PS: Perhaps if anyone else shows up for the admin part we will talk a bit about finances and the future.

I haven't checked the figures in detail, but given that we still have 90,000 NTD in the bank I estimate that in order to pay rent next April and pay for expenses until next October we probably need to raise about 60,000 NTD by March.

Here's the accounts spreadsheet (sorry Vincent for not answering your email sooner)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vY_BIR1wuEum1W4GSHA4kqC-aEBqEs7mYR8wWdNdZjI/htmlview

60,000 NTD by March is not a huge amount of money, but at the same time I'm not sure how we will raise it, so ideas welcome...

For example, it's just 5 paying memberships, and I think I am due to renew my membership of 12,000 NTD in March, so maybe it's only 4 new memberships :)

Otherwise... If we don't have enough money or interest, we may need to at least consider what would be involved in shutting down the hackerspace by end of March. I really really hope we don't need to do that, but we may still need to prepare for that possibility -- how far in advance do we need to notify the landlord, what arrangements and expenses will there be for emptying the space, etc.

Anyway, maybe see you at the space tonight? I'll setup the video hangout thingie so people can join remotely if they want, it's the link on the calendar event.
https://hangouts.google.com/hangouts/_/ehddmqt3u5eebpgzzf4fhkuwaae

And if people want to talk at another time, we can do that too, and/or by email

k

[Kai Carver]

Hi all, here are some notes from the meeting:


Date: Tuesday 22 November 2016, 7:30-8:30 pm
Participated: Mr Friday, Devry, Chris, Kai
Also around: Timo from Open Benchtable, Han Zhang 張寒 visiting from Beijing, Mr Friday Jr


We mostly talked about whether we have enough money to keep the space open after April i.e. next time 6-month rent is due, and how we could raise more money.


1. Money counting...

We counted up the money in the donation jar to give it to Yuwen (she could not attend but will deposit the money in the Hackerspace's bank account). The total was 12010 NTD, with another 400 NTD or so left in the jar to attract more donations :)

Based on the assumption that we need 5,000 NTD per month for operating expenses (should make a more precise estimate based on last year's expenses), and with ~90,000 + 12010 NTD (donation cash) in the bank, we have plenty to keep the space open until the next rent is due (on April 1st, 2017?).
Accounts spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vY_BIR1wuEum1W4GSHA4kqC-aEBqEs7mYR8wWdNdZjI

However, if we want to keep the space open after that, we will need to pay 90,000 NTD for 6 months of rent, with an extra 6 months of operating expenses. So if we add about 12 months of expenses =~ 60,000 NTD, that means we need to raise another 48,000 NTD.

I can renew my membership in March for another 12,000, and Devry generously offered to pay half a membership = 6,000 NTD next month. In that case we only need to raise 30,000 NTD to stay open until next September (that's cutting it a bit close because we really should have a bit extra in case of unexpected expenses).

...And looking further forward, if in September 2017 we want to keep going, we will need another 120,000 per 6-month period...


2. Money raising?

We talked about how the hackerspace can raise the money we need. Suggestions included:

- Empty the donation jar... done!
- Finding another sponsor or generous donator...
- Sell 3D-printed stuff?
- Put price labels on things and let visitors buy them
- Charge for events using Accupass or whatever (tickets shouldn't require 發票 invoice said Chris)
- Get government money somehow? (Devry said Greg said too many strings attached to govt money)
- Stock some drinks in the fridge and let people pay for them https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/The_Club_Mate_Pattern
- Get more paying members (can be attractive to people looking for spaces to work)
- Have a party, ask people to pay...

- ... Any suggestions?

In summary we had a nice talk but did not decide anything concrete :)

Other ideas not mentioned at the meeting:

- Co-sponsoring: businesses wishing to be known to hackerspace people might fund us in exchange for customers / advertising, there are various ways to do this, e.g. Taipei Urban Bicycle Alliance seems to have success doing this with coffee providers
- Organize some kind of event like a conference, get sponsors for it
- We have talked in the past about having a cheaper membership option for people who think 12,000 / year is too much


3. What's needed for shutdown?

If we need to close the hackerspace for lack of funds or interest, what do we need to plan for?

- Notify landlady: 1 month in advance?
- Clean up the space, paint the walls?... Two-month deposit should cover some of that
- Empty the space of furniture, appliances, junk, ... How do we do that, what will it cost?
- Cancel utilities, how much in advance? Is there a cost?
- Hackerspace sign hanging outside, do we need to do anything?
- ... anything else?


4. Other

We gave Chris a new key. The total number of new-key holders seems to be about 10, if the list is accurate:

Kai, Greg, Chris, Mr Friday, Yuwen, Devry, Kevin, Mark, Vincent, Mr Friday's son
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fI7imSBKQPuu-9x-Q478t0F46ym0E5LTusjHkSOrhHo


That's all I remember, feel free to add to this if I forgot anything, or make corrections if I said anything silly.

k


PS: All our so-called sponsor for the event Paul Ricard (à French anise liquor) contributed was a headache for me the next day :D