The new space is incredible, and the move was well worth it! However, we spent a LOT of money on the move, and have several BIG items still outstanding that we want to budget for to get the place truly finished and nice.
However, we always want to support new activities at Hive13, particularly since we now have so much more space!
What additions/upgrades/etc. have people been dreaming of putting up for vote? I’d like to get a good list together with rough estimates of cost so we can coordinate votes and expenses so that everyone can get the most out of the hive without us becoming budget pinched.
as a VERY rough first swing, I listed things I knew of, and started trying to plug them into a cash flow analysis so we can predict when the right time for each vote would be. it’d be awesome if we could get itemized budgets for everything prepared so that we all have an idea of what is coming up. Let me know what should be added in, or if numbers seem off, like I said, rough draft, half the “budgets” I listed are completely made up with no research. my spreadsheet is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1N7gNICYu94HJ1FudSwbGR3ahECc2rYJTdsQHoUaKtqI/edit?usp=sharing (I can add individual people as editors if needed).
Several capabilities that I would like to see Hive13 move into this year which require an expenditure:
Screen printing station (preferably 6 color)
Large format color printing (i.e. DesignJet, perhaps with refillable ink carts)
Ceramics (we’re currently managing to hodge podge this together with no expenditure and will continue to try to keep this out of the voting realm, however there is a pretty strong interest in ceramics that could warrant a group purchase if necessary)
I’ll chime in with more as I think of them.
For the record, with any of the things I propose, purchasing on the used market would be perfectly acceptable, even desirable. However, Hive13’s voting process does not lend itself well to bidding on auctions or Craigslist, etc. This warrants a discussion about perhaps putting up a vote for a maximum spend and then giving the proposing member a cash budget.
We literally gave away a large format printer we had at the hive not to long ago. I don’t really think we need another, quite honestly… it just wasn’t used enough to justify it.
Seating (I would love for Hive13’s lounge and other seating areas to not be stuff Salvation Army turned down. I envision making furniture however there would still be expenses to this.)
I’ve dreamed about putting equipment for a darkroom up for a vote, but some people argue that that’s more of a nightmare than a dream…
And Bill is right - years ago Hive13 had a commercial large-format inkjet which ultimately went unused and was given away. Members looked into the details, and this one required regular (expensive) ink refills and it had to be run quite regularly to avoid clogging or drying out. If a large-format color printer can be found in a sane price range and without these limitations (of requiring both constant use and frequent expensive refills), that would change the situation.
I could see screen printing being worth it. A regular thing I’d see at Maker Faires was screen printing stations set up to let people print a t-shirt themselves.
Used items aren’t a big deal on votes. What we’ve seen in the past is basically what you propose - the vote is done for some maximum budget, and usually the member proposing the vote will explain a ‘typical’ price they’ve seen.
A discussion of new capabilities requires a realistic estimate of the space required and where it would fit into Hive13.
Since we are a Maker space. I’d advise that we should heavily look at Making as many of the tools as possible.
I’ve been told this repeatedly but this was before my time and I have not stopped wanting one since I joined 19 months ago. Poor decision to discard it?
No, I don’t think it was a poor decision at the time… if only one member wants a device, it isn’t justified for all the members to pay for it. It needs to be something that lots of members can use or benefit from, especially if it’s something that costs a lot of money and is used so infrequently that it degrades just sitting there.
We have other equipment that we’ve bought in the past that is very rarely used and could have easily been handled another way… for example, the vacuum forming machine. We spent over $2500 for it and I think a total of two or three of us have actually used it… in fact, the one who pushed for its purchase actually never even used it. We could have easily made one for the shop for a fraction of the costs and received exactly the same benefit… but learned more in the process. (I know… harder to make a printer… but we can easily save a lot of money by farming out large prints to local shops and using the savings to improve the hive’s knowledge base instead.)
I think it would be great to renew the wish list. We could have different levels (small, bigger, moonshot).
Maybe sorted by cost and space.
I love it when something small gets brought up and a large group says “cool”.
I’ll see if I can throw a spreadsheet together.
This thread isn’t putting anything up for a vote. It’s a wish list. It’s spitballing. Shooting down ideas is misplaced.
I like to think that Hive13 is evolving. We are doing things today that we didn’t have much capacity or space for before. I’ve given nearly a dozen guest tours of Hive13 in the last month and signed up 7-8? new members in that time. Giving tours of Hive13 is a great way to get a pulse on what Hive13 might look like next year. I had at least one guest (that signed up anyway) ask if we hade large format printing and screen printing and was disappointed that we didn’t. We have a new member this month that has projects lined up to use the vacuum former. Another new member, a member for less than a month, is very actively working with us to get set up for ceramic work - this is moving very rapidly and at no cost to Hive13 so far. Another new member (joined in March) is preparing a vote for resin casting equipment. When I look back at the members that have joined in my 19 months at Hive13 I see people doing incredible new things. Dismissing something they want to get into because members of old weren’t motivated by it is short sighted IMO.
Looking at the open finance data from Jim D. We have roughly $32K available cash - a $20K 6 month emergency expense buffer, leaves roughly $12K cash available to spend as of today.
That emergency buffer covers six months of fixed expenses (rent, insurance and wardens budget) or repairs to things like a burnt up laser. Six months of expenses are a good thing to keep in the bank because living on our monthly dues alone with a zero bank balance sucks.
Our current net income is in the $1K/ month range. That give Hive13 a roughly $24K budget for tools and capital expenses in the next 12 months, then it’s $1K a month.
Please, make your plans frugal or include a fund raising plan.
Despite having posted probably the most items on this wish list, I am feeling very very uncomfortable with spending money for “want to have” things. Anything elective that actually does go up for vote anytime soon is going to have to have a damned good argument behind it for me to support it. I’m completely on board with Velzy’s suggestion that we acknowledge that we are a makerspace and it is a noble thing to make your own tools.
My deepest, keep me up at night concern for Hive13 is that either COVID shuts us down HARD and causes members to drop off or COVID causes an economic situation where members have to make hard decisions with their money and Hive13 is not their first priority. Or both. Neither one of these situations is far fetched in the least so I feel like we owe it to Hive13 past, present and future to keep a very conservative operating budget.
Also air conditioning and some of the considerations we need to handle (elevator door) to accommodate AC is, in my opinion, a huge non-negotiable expenditure.
So, I hadn’t really been looking for this thread to be a “Wishlist”, but more of a practical discussion of what we legitimately might put up for vote within the timeframe of the next ~24 months so that we can make sure we don’t overextend out finances. Anything we think we should be planning for needs to have broad support since we have those outstanding, not yet voted big ticket items to finish the buildout of our new space. Anything beyond those items also needs to have a very thorough Bill of Materials laid out so we know the order of magnitude cost we need to be prepared for.