[hackerspaces] Member and event management systems

Wed Sep 14 23:10:17 CEST 2016

We use GoCardless (but support bank standing orders too, begrudgingly) to
handle recurring payments for dues, and also ad-hoc payments for things
(like training fees) at So Make It. They are very friendly with the fees,
and may well give you a zero fee as an introduction. They handle all that
nasty card processing stuff, and money just appears in our bank account.

You can inspect/fork our members area system, with all it's integrations
here:

https://github.com/somakeit/members-area

although a few guys seems to be rebuilding it to make it more applicable to
hackerspaces other our own:

https://github.com/members-area/members-area

I guess it might be of interest to some.

Dave.

On 10 September 2016 at 22:07, Edward L Platt <ed at elplatt.com> wrote:

> Dues payment is a good example of why there isn't a single good solution
> right now: it's a moving target. You need a steady stream of active
> volunteers and/or funding in order to keep up with the newest
> paypal/amazon/wepay/venmo/dogecoin API. So I'd say, find something that
> exists that works well enough (Seltzer, CiviCRM, maybe even straight-up
> Drupal) *or* work on getting a committed team together to build something
> that won't be obsolete by the time its debugged.
>
> Ed
>
> On Sat, Sep 10, 2016 at 3:20 PM, Dominic Canare <dom at makeict.org> wrote:
>
>> Can we move questions/discussion about National Organization of Makers to
>> a separate thread?
>>
>> Our primary needs including handling automatic recurring dues payments
>> and event registrations and payments - preferably with more options than
>> PayPal, as we have a number of members who refuse to use it or it's
>> problematic. The system needs to supports event discounts for active
>> members and allows monthly-addons for dues (such as an additional monthly
>> donation, locker rentals, etc).
>>
>> We looked at Seltzer in the past, but I don't think it had any support
>> for events and RSVP's. Looks like that's still the case?
>>
>> *Dominic Canare*
>> Immediate Past President, MakeICT
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 10, 2016 at 8:57 AM, bownes <bownes at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> At the Center of Gravity we use Seltzer with quite a few add ons to
>>> handle badges, access control, and billing.
>>>
>>> The On Sep 10, 2016, at 07:45, Arthur Guy <arthur at arthurguy.co.uk>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I built a system for the Brighton (England) Makerspace a few years back.
>>> Its very specific to us but it has a good feature set and is forkable.
>>> https://github.com/ArthurGuy/BBMembershipSystem/
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Arthur
>>>
>>> On 10 September 2016 at 11:34, Altin Ukshini <altin.ukshini at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I've started one here: https://github.com/altinukshini/hackerspacecrm
>>>> But it'll take some time to be useful. I'll be working on it for
>>>> another year for sure as it's also a school project and we need for
>>>> Prishtina Hackerspace too (we use Seltzer)
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Altin
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my phone. Please excuse any typos.
>>>>
>>>> On Sep 10, 2016 4:30 AM, "Edward L Platt" <ed at elplatt.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> It's worth mentioning that several of us worked on developing a
>>>>> free/open-source system to do this called Seltzer, with mixed success. It
>>>>> never made it to 1.0, but has been successfully used at a number of spaces.
>>>>> The project is currently maintenance-only, but I do plan to devote more
>>>>> effort to decentralized free/open software for organizing communities at
>>>>> some point.
>>>>>
>>>>> It's a hard problem, but mostly for non-technical reasons. Some
>>>>> challenges we found that might not be obvious:
>>>>>
>>>>> 1. It's not a sexy topic, so it's hard to attract volunteers, and it's
>>>>> hard to raise money.
>>>>>
>>>>> 2. On a related note, member management systems are long-term
>>>>> projects, which means whatever stack you build the technology on, it will
>>>>> spend most of it's life cycle being "old, boring" technology.
>>>>>
>>>>> 3. Everyone does things differently. One approach is to build a tool
>>>>> that can be configured to do anything (CiviCRM is a good example) but the
>>>>> downside is that it gets very complicated and difficult to use. Another
>>>>> approach is to make a lightweight core that can be extended (we tried this
>>>>> with Seltzer).
>>>>>
>>>>> 4. It's difficult to build collaborations across spaces. Different
>>>>> spaces stumble across or create their own solutions, which makes pooling
>>>>> resources difficult.
>>>>>
>>>>> Happy hacking,
>>>>> Ed
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 10:01 PM, Derek H <dh405okc at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> How does one request an invite to that slack?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 8:56 PM, Matthew "mirage335" Hines <
>>>>>> spamfreemirage335 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> National Organization of Makers is the name increasingly adopted by
>>>>>>> the large group of Makerspace leaders continuing to collaborate following
>>>>>>> the recent White House sponsored meeting, as well as a possible future
>>>>>>> conference with a similar agenda.
>>>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Didwk6Td7M
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 09/09/16 09:48 PM, Edward L Platt wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> What is the National Organization of Makers?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 8:46 PM, Joshua Pritt <ramgarden at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Melbourne Makerspace has been using the open source Seltzer (built
>>>>>>>> at another hackerspace!) specifically for running 'spaces with little to no
>>>>>>>> training and volunteer time.
>>>>>>>> I am currently trying to build a member photo module that lets
>>>>>>>> other members pull up the photos of a selected member since we have so many
>>>>>>>> members now it's hard to remember their names!
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> https://github.com/elplatt/seltzer
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I wrote some PHP that queries the Seltzer database that is called
>>>>>>>> from a Python script I wrote that runs on a raspberry Pi with an RFID
>>>>>>>> scanner we use for our front door lock.
>>>>>>>> It's been working great for over a year now!
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> https://wiki.melbournemakerspace.org/projects/RFIDDoorLock
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 8:15 PM, Matthew "mirage335" Hines <
>>>>>>>> spamfreemirage335 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> You may wish to request an invite to the National Organization of
>>>>>>>>> Makers slack channel. This has been recognized as a unsolved problem in
>>>>>>>>> need of dedicated technology. An active development effort is underway to
>>>>>>>>> begin an extensive Odoo based platform without lock-in.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On 09/09/16 08:03 PM, Dominic Canare wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It's been a little while since we talked about this, and I wonder
>>>>>>>>> if new information or tools are available.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> What are people using to manage their members, payments, equipment
>>>>>>>>> authorizations, events and signups, donations, etc?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> We've been using WildApricot for the past few years. It does many
>>>>>>>>> things, but all of them are a little lacking. We have a bunch of
>>>>>>>>> work-arounds and custom tools built around their API's to make it easier
>>>>>>>>> for our administrators, but it's become a bit cumbersome to maintain, and
>>>>>>>>> the price keeps going up.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Looking for suggestions!
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> *Dominic Canare*
>>>>>>>>> Immediate Past President, MakeICT
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>> Discuss mailing listDiscuss at lists.hackerspaces.orghttp://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing
>>>>>>>>> list Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org http://lists.hackerspaces.org/
>>>>>>>>> mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing
>>>>>>>> list Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org http://lists.hackerspaces.org/
>>>>>>>> mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Edward L. Platt
>>>>>>> PhD student, University of Michigan School of Information
>>>>>>> https://elplatt.com
>>>>>>> @elplatt <http://twitter.com/elplatt>
>>>>>>> KC1DYK
>>>>>>> Tips for stopping email overload: https://hbr.org/2012
>>>>>>> /02/stop-email-overload-1
>>>>>>> This digital electronic mail message was sent from my
>>>>>>> general-purpose desktop personal computing machine.  Please forgive any
>>>>>>> overly-verbose, long-winded, rambling prose.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Discuss mailing listDiscuss at lists.hackerspaces.orghttp://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Discuss mailing list
>>>>>>> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
>>>>>>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Discuss mailing list
>>>>>> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
>>>>>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Edward L. Platt
>>>>> PhD student, University of Michigan School of Information
>>>>> https://elplatt.com
>>>>> @elplatt <http://twitter.com/elplatt>
>>>>> KC1DYK
>>>>>
>>>>> Tips for stopping email overload: https://hbr.org/2012
>>>>> /02/stop-email-overload-1
>>>>>
>>>>> This digital electronic mail message was sent from my general-purpose
>>>>> desktop personal computing machine.  Please forgive any overly-verbose,
>>>>> long-winded, rambling prose.
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Discuss mailing list
>>>>> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
>>>>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Discuss mailing list
>>>> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
>>>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>>>
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Discuss mailing list
>>> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
>>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Discuss mailing list
>>> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
>>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Discuss mailing list
>> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Edward L. Platt
> PhD student, University of Michigan School of Information
> https://elplatt.com
> @elplatt <http://twitter.com/elplatt>
> KC1DYK
>
> Tips for stopping email overload: https://hbr.org/
> 2012/02/stop-email-overload-1
>
> This digital electronic mail message was sent from my general-purpose
> desktop personal computing machine.  Please forgive any overly-verbose,
> long-winded, rambling prose.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>

-- 
Dave Rowntree,
Director of Sobuildit Limited
Trustee of Southampton Makerspace
@rowntree_dave
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