[hackerspaces] Who currently has the best, most functional hackerspace model?

[Christopher Agocs]

>We’ve adopted as many of the hackerspace patterns as possible, but are a
bit hung up reaching long-term financial sustainability due to member
churn. The space we selected to start in required a lot of work and it has
burned some members out. Given our community, we also have a shortage of
members with some of the key skills that make setting up systems (IT,
business) go faster, so that has taken some time. Getting there now.

I don't mean to be glib, but that's kind of the fun of hackerspacing. If
the Hackerspace (legal entity) goes broke and folds, the hackerspace (core
group of people) will still probably get together pretty regularly and
shoot the shit about what an adventure that was and what do we need to do
to start it again.

I'm the treasurer at SSH:C, and the way I see it, my job is to provide
recommendations as to how much we can spend without losing our butts. We're
actually doing kinda-okay right now. Not great, not terrible. None of us
have any business acumen whatsoever, so we're just trying ideas for how to
grow the membership and how to keep people engaged and seeing what sticks.

One fruitful idea we've had is a "hack scholars" program. A few of our
members donated money equivalent to a few months' membership for a few
people, and we applied that to our build-out, making it go faster. We then
offered free memberships to students at nearby colleges, with the
understanding that they'd hang out and hack and also help out building the
space physically or digitally. We found a few really smart people that way,
who are now part of the organization.

Anyway, good luck not burning the place down. I'll have to swing by next
time I'm in Birmingham.

-Chris


On Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 7:25 AM, Shirley Hicks <shirley at velochicdesign.com>
wrote:

>
> > On Jul 5, 2016, at 2:48 AM, Walter van Holst <walter at revspace.nl> wrote:
> >
> > On 2016-07-05 00:11, Shirley Hicks wrote:
> >> Hey everyone,
> >> For those of you who visit other hackerspaces, who has the best
> >> financial and operational model? What organizational models have you
> >> looked at/borrowed from in order to improve your space? Looking for a
> >> couple to study in an effort to improve how the Red Mountain Makers is
> >> operating.
> >
> > What do you mean my model?
>
> It’s business-speak. My bad. How are things done or run. In hackerspace
> speak, the pattern. (you want to adopt a pattern that works, to minimize
> the work/energy required).
>
> > How would you describe the models of Red Mountain Makers?
>
> We’ve adopted as many of the hackerspace patterns as possible, but are a
> bit hung up reaching long-term financial sustainability due to member
> churn. The space we selected to start in required a lot of work and it has
> burned some members out. Given our community, we also have a shortage of
> members with some of the key skills that make setting up systems (IT,
> business) go faster, so that has taken some time. Getting there now.
>
> We’re also dealing with some  in-group/outgroup issues - mainly between
> those who’ve been trained in other environments to work tightly as a group
> (HAM, emergency ops, military) and those who have not.
>
> >
> — Shirley
> RMM, Birmingham, AL
>
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>
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