I think great points have been made for both sides of this discussion. There are a couple more things I would like to bring up though.
If we allow people to pay in advance and they decide to quit, what then? I know the natural response to this idea is that we give them their money back, but this is not always easily done as funds may be tied up elsewhere. SkullSpace is stable and will be able to survive on our current earnings plan and we do have savings, but savings does not equate to money that is easily dispensed. When considering plans it is important to note the extremes and whether we can ride through that easily. For example, 10 people pay a bunch of money up front for the year, two months later we make an investment to the space such as a lazer engraver or what have you. Month three those people decide to quit and all of a sudden we have to dispense over four thousand dollars to people leaving. This is a possibility we need to be aware of. The other point about making a piece of software to do automation is great. Considering we are a hackerspace this is a wonderful idea! The offer to maybe turn this into a Ruby project is great as well. If someone would be willing to step up and create an operations team for this, they would be my temporary SkullSpace hero. (Until next obstacle comes and someone helps us clear it) I for one volunteer as a tribute to help get part of this done. I would really like to see us stay as a month to month organization because that would best display our expenses and incomes in a directly parallel comparison. We are not a big corporate entity that is amortizing things over years or other large periods, so I would like to say even in "real world" scenarios, which SkullSpace definitely is, that this is likely not feasible due to the size, structure, and purpose of the SkullSpace community. --BP On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 4:58 PM, Aemilianus Kehler <[email protected]> wrote: > Ian... There will always be more costs to those that can't budget properly > and prepay in advance... You'll see this in every possible business > transaction.. Or how about we just go straight to run in a credit system > like most of the business world and offer a deal to those that day their > debt early... Perfect to get those in accounting the practice it as it > would be in the "real" world... One thing I never understood in business.. > Borrow from us and repay with 2 weeks and you get a better deal than just > paying for it straight up... Uhh what? > > Cheers!! > > > On Jan 27, 2014, at 3:44 PM, Mark Jenkins <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> On 27/01/14 03:02 PM, Ian Trump wrote: > >> IMHO Monthly PAD is preferred - less overhead to worry about, tracking > >> anniversaries of renewal or issuing refunds. Were a Month to Month > >> organization. Discounts are a pain in the ass and punish those who don't > >> have sufficient means to up front $480.00 > > > > Even with banking fees, anyone we can get on PAD is ideal for > administrative reasons, but some people are always going to turn it down as > an option and pay irregularly. > > > > So how best to deal with them. > > > > Getting people who aren't on PAD to pay in bigger chucks should reduce > the admin overhead in dealing with them. It's not fair to Skullspace to > have so much admin overhead, which technology can help with, but can't > eliminate. > > > > But a 1/6 discount (10 out of 12 months example) [16%!] is going too > steep, enough that it does feel like a kick in the teeth to everybody else. > > > > Should be big enough to incentive some people who are already paying > irregularly every month to step up and do this (bi-monthly, quarterly, > annual), but not so big that we got people dropping their monthly PADs or > big enough that people who pay irregular feel it out-paces the admin burden > they create. Sweet spot might be closer to where those PAD bank fees are > at, like 2%... not 16%. > > > > And however done, shouldn't strike me as bylaw territory, should be in > the board's purview. > > (Bylaw fix needed if the board doesn't have some discretion on this... > not formally moving something...) > > > > _______________________________________________ > > SkullSpace Discuss Mailing List > > Help: http://www.skullspace.ca/wiki/index.php/Mailing_List#Discuss > > Archive: https://groups.google.com/group/skullspace-discuss-archive/ > _______________________________________________ > SkullSpace Discuss Mailing List > Help: http://www.skullspace.ca/wiki/index.php/Mailing_List#Discuss > Archive: https://groups.google.com/group/skullspace-discuss-archive/ >
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