What that means is that if you sign up to be a member of VHS right now, it will cost you $25 per month until the end of time (pending further review of finances).
If you begin the process of becoming a keyholder right now, it will cost you $50 per month until the end of time (pending further review of finances).
If you sign up to be a member of VHS five weeks from now, it will cost you $30 per month until the end of time.
If you begin the process of becoming a keyholder five weeks from now, it will cost you $60 per month until the end of time.
I get that with VHS growing so much there is a need for revenue to pay for space etc., but it seems unfair to encourage people to register now when there is so much uncertainty about the future of VHS.
Do we have a new space yet? I haven’t seen any official updates on this for almost a month and most threads are just about moving out.
@Gonazar: Fair comment, but a good part of the problem was that we simply can’t afford a space big enough for us. We had to pass on a few otherwise-ideal spaces because we simply don’t have the money for them. Two sides to every dilemma.
Okay, but that’s cyclic logic. In order to bring in more revenue we’re encouraging new members to join, which increases the space requirements and rent to support a larger community. If all current members are grandfathered at the old rate, how much would adding new members really change the revenue? It’d make more sense to increase all current membership rates by some % than encourage new members to join, which actually just increases our needs.
How was the amount of increase in membership cost even determined? Is that based on a target revenue goal in order to pay rent for a specific space that you’ve already selected? Are there at least any updates on what new spaces we’re looking at?
The rate increase was voted on before we knew we had to move because rent at the Bunker was set to increase in January to a rate we could only barely afford at the time. As for updates on the space, the latest is still in this thread:
I believe it’s more to encourage fence sitters and people who are perhaps taking advantage of open nights rather than joining - or people who have been thinking of becoming key holders to step their membership up.
Btw, I started paying htis month so I can get a head start on keyholder status.
Ah yeah, I’m one of those people. I’m a prospective member, so I don’t have access to that thread.
For people like me who are interested in joining, we’re basically in the dark. You can imagine why I’m skeptical about joining now since no information about potential new spaces has been publicly released.
I haven’t joined yet because it’s not practical for me at this time. As much as I love VHS, I live in Surrey so the frequency I can visit is pretty limited. However, I’m hoping to move to Vancouver in the near future (when/if I get a new job there) and when I do, I hope to be there often. However, that would highly depend on where ‘there’ is.
The fee increase is wholly separate issue with coincidental timing. As mentioned before, this was a motion that was passed in August. All members have a vote at these Quarterly General Meetings, and this was unanimously passed. Partly because of the expected increase in rent in January, partly to encourage on-the-fence people to join, and partly because as far as the person researching it could tell, we’re the cheapest hackspace in North America, in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
I can also appreciate that all of the updates regarding moving haven’t been posted in a public forum, but there is somewhat sensitive society business(like contract negotiations) that get posted there. I can’t provide guidance on whether or not you should join up(nothing is certain yet) Personally, I haven’t been able to use VHS all November or December probably, but I see my membership rate more as a donation to a cause I would like to support
I’m in a similar boat; I live in Coquitlam and only get out tot he space once or twice a month. It is a rough call and obviously nobody can tell you how to spend your money. I forgot that thread was locked to members only. The short version, and really all we can say right now in public, is that we are well into negotiations on a new space which is only four or five blocks from the existing space, and we are waiting on other people to complete their requirements before moving forward so we can’t really provide an accurate timeline prediction right now. As frustrating as it is to not know anything, I promise it is at least as frustrating to know what is actually going on and still be waiting.
