As I announced at the December Meeting, NickD and I have started talks with the AS220 folks to include a Hacker Space in their plans for the Mercantile Block. AS220 has recently started the process of acquiring and planning the renovations of this building. They feel that having a hacker space as a tenant in the building would be good for everyone involved. It would give us a home for it downtown, rather than being stuck in an old warehouse somewhere. It would create a place where the artist community can interact with the hacker community, with the potential for incredible collaboration.
However, the renovation of the Mercantile Block is going to take some time. Based on their experience renovating the Dreyfus building, AS220 has said that they probably won't be ready for us to move into the hacker space until early 2010. This is both good and bad. It's bad because we're all impatient and live in an instant gratification society and would probably like to be able to move in right now. It's good in that it will give us a good amount of time to build the community that we'll need to support it.
The plan that we have in mind for the hacker space is similar to the way that other current hacker spaces are run. We will have an open membership model with dues that will be required to support the space. Based on some rough "back of a napkin" calculations, we'll probably need about $2500/month of income from member dues to support the space. That means we need at least 50 members contributing $50 per month. If we can get the membership up to 100 members, the dues could drop to $25/month.
You're probably asking "what kind of things would happen at this hacker space?" First off, we'd have a main open room for meetings and gatherings. We'll also have a small computer lab for classes and ad-hoc code hacking. We'd also like to have an electronics lab where people can work on hardware projects. These are just the beginning ideas for the space. Anything is possible with the support of the membership.
I know it's a ways off, but if you're interested in being involved with the hacker space, please comment on this post or join the DC401 mailing list and chime up there. We really need to know we have enough community support for this to be a long term sustainable space.
I'm glad this is moving forward even if things do take time. The 50x$50 plan is good too, I know that initially it was discussed that 20 people would supply $1,000 a month but this increases the potential annual cash supply from $12,000 to $30,000.
That would be good for things like equipment, parts, electricity, etc.
I also suggest that DC401 incorporate as a non-profit and seek 501(c)(3) status on the federal tax code. The incorporation will be necessary to get a tax exempt certificate, while the 501(c)(3) absolves the group of tax liabilities.
The reason I say this is because DC401's lab space has an educational mission, and 501(c)(3) really works well with entities of that type.
Yup. The $1000/month figure was a bare minimum if we were going to totally do it on the cheap. Getting the income from dues up to about $2500/month will allow us to build reserves to buy useful gear for the space periodically. This is really the goal for which we should be aiming.
Actually, the plan is for the Hacker Space to incorporate as its own 501(c)(3) non-profit entity separate from DC401. The mission of the hacker space is broader than that of DC401 and we expect the space to serve other groups than just DC401, so it makes sense for it to be its own entity.