We had this before with far fewer members
Shutter Access - use it or lose it (a proposal)
How many members are inducted on tools, but do not have shutter access? Is there any data on that @systems ?
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I do think we have that or this month looks pretty close. I had a quick check on the opening times this month, and we were open almost all the time from noon onwards, often much earlier. The calendar reflects it to a certain extent, but not entirely. This brings up the problem that not every keyholder makes a booking when they are or planning to be in the space. However, I think we are getting better in this. The calendar looks much better than a couple of months ago. I also believe that more keyholders will help in this regard. I think the idea of a list of volunteer options may help to get people started who do not feel confident otherwise.
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What about looking at it the other way? What are the boundaries to people making bookings? Mark mentioned he doesn’t know when he’s coming or leaving, we have also heard that people don’t like the current booking system. Any other boundaries? Other than “don’t feel like it”?
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Maybe some membership fee can go towards host hosting the place?
(or membership fee discount for the host based on their activity).
Maybe that will create some incentives
Revoke something thats given out is not healthy for the moral
I think we need a group of techs to look after the culture and the social outreach fo the space.
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For me there is the booking system itself - it’s not user friendly and is frustrating to use. That makes it really off putting.
The main hindrance for me is reluctance to commit to being at the space by a certain time for a given period. I might plan on being there on a certain day, but things can change. Committing to being there by a particular time adds a pressure and a stress. I might hope to be there at 8:30am, or 10am but I have sleep pattern issues and if I don’t get to sleep until 6am, keeping that commitment is hard work.
On top of that, like some others here, I have ADHD, which makes it feel even more of a struggle and challenge. Even so, I’ll make bookings and bite the bullet rather than not bother. It does sometimes grate on me that I do that when many don’t, and being slack about it seems semi normalised. It’s natural to then think that one shouldn’t bother either - but I consider it a responsibility to members without SA.
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There was a time when there was no booking system at all (pre-covid), it was introduced to allow use of the Space when social distancing was a thing and we couldn’t open otherwise.
So many members are still used to the old days when you did just turn up. The downside was always that non-shutter members would often turn up to a closed shutter… with absolutely no way to know when someone may come by.
Which is why we kept the booking system to allow members to plan, but the flip side is the keyholders then need to plan, which as you say can be stressful because now people are relying on you opening up.
As for paying people to open up…
The only reason the membership fee is so low is because volunteers do everything. If we start paying people to open up, we should be paying techs, open evening hosts, and a huge number of other things, it is a slippery slope and would be a huge change of ethos / culture plus the membership fee would need to be raised drastically to cover employee costs.
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I think part of the solution (alongside increasing proportion with SA) would be to have some set opening times during weekdays - e.g. 3 mornings and 3 afternoons a week. One way for a member to get SA would be to commit to hosting e.g. 2 of those slots for at least 2 or 3 months - major change in circumstances excepted. If we ask for volunteers to help host those set times, then I’m sure we’d have members do that. We might even cover 5 weekdays a week as more get SA.
I also suggest that we actively try to accommodate members whose work, family, carer commitments don’t fit with those times (if only 3 days a week) - we should make it clear in space induction that they are encouraged to reach out and we will try to accommodate them - as often happens.
I thought we introduced booking because of the laser cutter and it rolled out wider for COVID.
I know booking systems are difficult but I think we need to find one that works for people.
I’ve long said that using Discord for everything is a hinderance to keeping the processes manageable for people.
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Sort of - Yes - We had a TOOL booking system before Covid, but hosts (shutter users) never had to book in. Then the 2 were combined to simplify it, because if the place is not even open how can you book a tool? And it was simpler that way…
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Forgive me if this is a ridiculous approach on my end, but if we’re really scratching our heads wondering how we can make the space more accessible to those without shutter access, maybe we can change the structure a bit? What are we trying to achieve by having a group of users with and without shutter access? Is it safety? Is it security? We have two arches and at least 1 shutter access member needs to be in, say, in the back of metalwork area, oblivious to what’s happening elsewhere in the space and non-shutter access members can have the whole run of the place without supervision, so I’m assuming maybe safety isn’t the reason. We implement Tool Control to prevent members using machines they’re not inducted on.
When the shutters have broken in the night, a member has had to stay throughout the night as a “just in case” something bad happens, which makes sense. Not necessarily in case a non-shutter access member wants to arrive. We are already giving non-shutter access members a huge level of trust just coming in and doing whatever they want. Me as a SA member, I have no clue who has SA and who does not, with two arches I don’t even know who’s in the space, it would be very impractical for me to constantly check and watch over non-SA members.
This is just me toying with an idea, but what if we made the shutters open with all users between certain day time hours? A member wants to come in at 09:30 or 10:00 to use the laser cutter, what’s the worst that can happen if we allow non-SA members to open the shutters 09:00 onwards? And revoke that by 22:00 or something? Some malicious act is very unlikely to happen after 09:00 with any member inside the space. Electronics and textiles don’t need inductions, everything else is pretty much tied to Tool Control.
This will have its own new set of challenges but I feel like it would help more people get to the space. The new challenges would be easier to solve (maybe). Few machines have the requirement of needing a second member in the space (table saw for instance), and the whole closing shutters process. I’m sure there’s a solution out there for those.
I know we try to incentivise members helping around the space but I feel like it’s not really a long-lasting thing if they’re not the type of person to help anyway. We have a great selection of members who help all the time who are already SA members, because they genuinely enjoy helping. The people who just want to come in, do their thing, and leave, they will just do that. Helping with open evening twice 5 years ago and getting shutter access ever since isn’t the most incentivising thing. We can still give SA to members on those out-of-hours times?
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Originally members could just sign up directly on the old membership system, pay and have access almost immediately with no human access.
Additionally the access was a key fob in a key safe which had a shared code.
Effectively people who opened the space were key holders who were trusted to open and shut the arch and this was important to avoid basically letting people rob us.
I still think there is a value to slowing down the time from initial interest to full unmonitored access but since then we’ve stopped direct signups and introduced vouching.
I’d suggest again some of this is legacy that’s stuck about. For example as we want to grow why are we not just letting people sign up on the website, rather than joining a mailing list. This was a response to originally wanting to stop members exceeding the VAT reporting threshold that I guess stuck about.
Are we still below the threshold with +500 members?
Id like to flag there is still no proper process to handle this number of people and we have non-existent(not presented and implemented) AO policy and procedures. We are still awaiting a member meeting to prioritize this. Until we implement this we should stop calling ourselves inclusive and accessibility is part of this.
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No
+1.
Tangent- we can make the newly paved entrance wheelchair acccessible with some concrete and pipes.
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There is no mailing list, but we do have a pre-membership survey, then you just sign up and pay. There is no gate, but we left the process in case we need one in the future.
The survey was introduced because they wanted to know what people want to use, and for a while the previous directors would look at this and prioritize people that didn’t need inductions for instance, ie folks interested in electronics and textiles because we struggled to give inductions and had many unhappy members that joined and waited a year to get into the woodshop.
There is no 500 membership barrier, the VAT barrier was 320 members. We are at 515.
Bad actors can strike any time of day, but! with the new active brewery next door it would be harder to get away with a lorry full of heavy machinery without someone getting suspicious.
In principle I support the ‘regular opening hours’ idea. I think it’s worth exploring.