[hackerspaces] Rent?

[dosman]

Once we started growing and had close to enough people who said they'd be willing to pay dues we sublet a room out of an artists space for $400 a month and no utility costs (120 square feet with access to the rest of the building during our weekly public meetings). After that year we had enough people we rented a 1000 square foot commercial space. Our rent is like $584 a month, I think our total monthly expenses are around $700 including rent. Our public liability insurance is $300 a year. Our membership dues of $40 a month from around 20 members usually covers the monthly expenses, a couple of us put in additional cash for utility deposits. Our periodic workshops provide a cushion for when memberships drop a little.

We discussed allowing trades of services for memberships, but we decided against this. We have plenty of people who are not members who are regulars at our public meetings which we're totally cool with. But if someone wants full 24x7 access we feel it's reasonable for them to pay the same rate as the rest of us do to keep the lights on. We also support a reduced rate/starving hacker membership, but so far we don't have anyone who uses this. Occasionally we'll get folks who act like $40 a month is too much, but that's why we're open to the public one night a week (and other days when the space is occupied). Don't want to pay? That's cool, just hang out with us on Wednesdays.

-dosman

On Feb 14, 2013, at 12:55 AM, Derek Hubbard wrote:

> That actually brings up a good question. What are people paying per month for rent or expenses? Here at CSpace in Oklahoma City, we're paying $450/mo for 5000sqft of warehouse space with a small kitchen and two bathrooms. The space is, for now, rather raw. We plan on improving that. Our other expenses bring costs up to an estimated $700/mo.
> 
> 
> On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 9:49 PM, B F <bakmthiscl at gmail.com> wrote:
> You don't say how much you need to cover the rent.
> 
> On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 4:36 PM, asbesto <asbesto at freaknet.org> wrote:
> 
> >
> > We have 1 (one) euro in our bank account right now. We dunno how
> > we're going to pay the next month :)
> >
> > so, NOTHING works here in the center of Sicilia, the deep south
> > of our poor Italy...
> >
> >
> > (p.s. someone wanna help us?)
> >
> > http://museo.freaknet.org/en/donazioni/
> >
> >
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