2022-09-07 Transcript

Andrew Armstrong
  20:01
Meeting 2022-09-07
20:02
Attending: Douglas Creek, Steve Barrett, Gareth, Andrew Armstrong, Alex Roberts, Betty Ching, Howard Smith, Bob Wood, Ian Dickinson, Aaron, Ali Maq, Sam Roberts


Andrew Armstrong
  20:14
Announcements and Events:
Piano acquired, will be moved upstairs when the lift is fixed
QR codes for light switches
Chairs for Blue room donated by Steve
September 11th Green Festival - come along to help out!
September 26th Combat Robots - come along and watch robots fight!
September 22nd RPG game - One Shot Wonders - signup on the wiki and check Slack
September 24th and 1st October - Workshops for Milling and Turning or Welding and Fabrication (one course over 2 days, 13 hours). A safety induction on the specific tools we have will be run later in a group. See Slack for details. £45.50
October 16th - Next Hack the Space Day, 10AM - 4PM
We will be removing the rubbish
(edited)
20:15
Minutes of last session approved no actions.


Andrew Armstrong
  20:23
Team Updates:
Woodworking - Table Saw
The safety around the extractor has been improved by Bob
Induction will be likely the avenue and it's been added to HMS
This will be likely mandatory as a safety induction so mandatory for all existing members
The RFID reader need to activate 3 different things
No people have come during visitor times and no sign of much usage when Bob wasn't there
Bob wants to make it available to use to make it easier to check the extraction is working
(edited)


Andrew Armstrong
  20:33
Woodworking - What to do about missing tools
A list of what is taken and not returned will be created
Anything taken and is needed to be used should be generally replaced quite quickly
If tools are repeatedly taken we may need to investigate since it can cost the Hackspace lots of money
Trustees will send an email advising people to not take items from the Hackspace and it is against the rules
Do a tools amnesty for returning tools no questions asked.
20:35
Craft:
Well attended craft day Betty may run another one
Brother sewing machine (the programmable one) is broken and needs fixing
20:37
CNC:
Various work and progress by Douglas and more planned (sorry missed specifics)
Snackspace:
Can swap wasn't working fully - drinks going back into vending machine
If someone knows how to fix the chiller let us know


Andrew Armstrong
  20:43
Getting a new vending machine would be a large hackspace project but anyone volunteering for this let us know!


Andrew Armstrong
  20:49
Membership team:
More tours may help members to join
Do still need more tour guides
Trustee idea do other Wednesdays but do not have a full Open Night but just tours:
A compromise is a set amount of tour times (starting with just one eg 7PM)
Eventbrite and calendar and website can be sorted


Andrew Armstrong
  21:08
Storage:
Difficult currently due to the lack of appropriate shelving for certain materials, and the lack of guidance around certain storage
Need to have a set of guidelines or rules around storage and then appropriate storage provided
Things larger than standard sheet or shelf storage - larger projects like making a bed might well need guidance to ask the Trustees or the Members Meeting
Bob notes it is currently not a problem and the Hack the Space days clear the existing storage adequately
Policy ideas:
Bob - Must be a proper label on it and note Trustees have discretion about removing items
Andrew agrees with the above
Sheet storage may need special thinking about may be after Metalworking
Suggestion to use half the members storage for Large Project Storage akin to the Studio Large Project Storage upstairs. Seems sensible.
21:10
Event Policy:
Events page: https://wiki.nottinghack.org.uk/wiki/Running_an_Event
Flow chart to follow and some guidance on how events are proposed and run in the space and how to let the Trustees know about them. Generally if run for the public, paid for or exclusive use of an area let the Trustees know to arrange.
Risk assessment forms will be provided if needed.


Steve Barnett
  21:39
Financial Update - Andrew A
No financial update for July.
Bank account around £29k. Trending slowly down.
Summary/Presentation on minimum payments:
(attachment to follow)
Minimum payment has been a contentious issue. We need to tackle it as we hit the VAT threshold in May-July 2020
Have to register, pay VAT on all income over that period and deregister. Doing this based on professional advice. Potential for a fine plus payment of owed. Estimated about £4000 but we do not currently know the amount.
We need to avoid this happening again it was obviously very costly to be over temporarily and if we go over permanently it costs us 20% of our income.
HMRC allows donations to be VAT free but these need to be explicitly accounted for or implicit by providing an equal service to anyone paying above the minimum.
Quotes section 5.3 of cubs and associationsVAT responsibilities notice 7105
Second clause is applicable to us as everyone who pays the minimum will have the same access to the space as a whole.
Diagram from Mike illustrating what counts as a donation and what access is provided based on membership payment. This still allows for people who want to support the space but don't visit who are paying under the minimum as this will all count as a donation. Anyone paying over the minimum of £5 will be unaffected.
Hoping to implement this by Christmas. Requires HMS integration as this determines who has access and will calculate what amount is a donation.
Why £5? Need to have a reasonable minimum for HMRC to take it seriously. Our current defacto minimum of 1p will not fly with them. A higher minimum of £10 or £15 with our current ~650 members takes us too close to or over the £85,000 VAT theshold (with non-donation income) which severely limits our income and what we can spend on improving the space (when accounting for rent and other outgoings).
What happens to members paying less than £5 a month?
Figures in slide showing how many members are paying £1, £2, £3, £4. 192 people paying less than £5 but only 12 of these 192 visited in the last month while 281 visits were made by people paying over £5 a month.
192 members would become ex-members assuming they don't change their payment which would drop our membership down to ~450, but many of these are inactive members.
This will be announced well in advance and there will be a grace period.
Gareth asks about how the minimum affects someone who just cannot pay. Can we add a way for them to come to an agreement?
Lex asks about whether we can offer a subsidised membership to cover this without dropping the minimum. This would have to be by discussion with trustees.
Betty points out that Open Hack Night would cover this, especially if we start doing them more regularly.
Douglas points out they could come in with a non-member as a guest.
Ali suggests people could ask for some of their payment over the £5 minimum when to an 'altruism fund' to pay for subsidised memberships.
Andrew A suggests people could also do a joint account with someone so their membership fee comes from two different payments, one from them and another from another member. Could also do this automatically from the amount treated as donations. Suggests we need to keep it simple for the HMS implementation.
"Use my donation part to subsidise someone else's membership" checkbox. Backend system to flag the part of their donation amount as the other user's membership instead.
Gareth points out the communication needs to be clear and non-judgemental.
Lex suggests just communicating it as "You can apply to the trustees for subsidised membership."
Bob asks if we can do 'life membership', for example for members who were extremely active in setting up the place and it would be a shame to revoke their memberships.
Potentially can be covered the same way in the system as subsidised memberships.
Chart showing distribution of member's payments and how often they visit. Lots of low paying members who do not visit, but also many high paying members who rarely visit. £5, £10, £15 are fairly common.
There is a cashflow problem in the space which needs resolving. £5 minimum will not solve these problems.  It would bring £670 a month extra but this does not cover the deficit.
Regardless of the minimum required for VAT payments we need members to pay more to cover fees.
Howard expresses concern about membership declining due to cost of living as our costs increase. Asks if we have any contingency to resize the space?
Andrew: This is a discussion for another time, as is solvency in general.
(Tangent: Rough yearly expenses are £70k per year and the VAT limit doesn't really affect this due to the minimum payment only part of the income is VATable)
The only way to save large amounts of money is to stop paying rent and business rates for the downstairs areas. Lease is up for renewal in less than two years, cannot change things before then but we are entering discussions with Bizspace to get started on renegotiating this. Could get rid of business rates but these are minor compared to the rent which we cannot get rid of.
21:40
Howard asks how much runway we have.
Difficult to answer currently as costs due to VAT and business rates are currently up in the air.
21:43
<Discussion of fixed and variable outgoings page on the Wiki>
Somewhere in the region of 13-18 months runway without investing in new tools etc.
Need to get things more sustainable but we also need to sort out the VAT issue so attempts to fix this do not cause further problems.
21:46
Financials are not consistent month to month so hard to get a long term view. Will attempt to bring a better projection to a future meeting.
Can survive until VAT is sorted and then can deal with fundraising. Also potentially getting grants to help out.
Betty: Need to remind members the space is here and they can use it.
Bob: Need to have a discussion about using downstairs effectively before the lease runs out.
21:48
Andrew suggests it would be in our favour to continue with the lease as it is written as it is quite beneficial to us.
21:49
4% per year rent increase if lease is left as it is.
21:51
AOB:
Howard asks how material shop is going?
Rough countup shows some profit but one or two pieces have gone missing.
Discussion of where to put the materials to avoid this e.g. vending machine?