SkullSpace 2.0: The new frontier

Hey everybody,

This is the story of SkullSpace's landlord troubles, the mistakes we made, and how we resolved them to create SkullSpace 2.0. Spoiler: it isn't created yet, but you can help by donating! Now, on with the story...

Operation: SkullSpace 1.0

So, let's start with the backstory. We signed a one-year lease a long time ago - June of 2011, give or take. SkullSpace alone signed the lease, and AssentWorks came along as a sublease. They were (and still are!) close friends, and had very similar goals, so we were happy to share space with them.

At the time, we didn't really know what we were getting into, but we knew we were going to make it work. Why? Because SkullSpace was already full of awesome people and only getting better. It was a one-year lease, which was comfortable for us - if the worst happened, we could cut our losses and run.

I realize I'm almost two years late, but I uploaded some pictures from way back then to show you what the space looked like when we moved in, as well as some pictures of our very first renovations. Quite a change from how it looked at our Grand Opening, eh?

Lease status: renewed

A year later, it came time to sign a new lease. This time, the lease had both SkullSpace and AssentWorks on it. Both of us had grown as organizations, and the new lease reflected that. The rent was a little more, but we could afford it. It was still dirt cheap, and utilities were included! The only downside was that the building was poorly maintained. Getting things fixed - like windows that like to fall out and smash on the ground three stories below - took months, when they actually fixed stuff. There were also constant issues with the elevator, plumbing, lights, and everything else. But it was cheap!

In the year-and-a-half since we moved in, I learned everything from building walls to fixing toilets to making a hackerspace into a home. Mike Loney took the reigns and made the renovations happen. I learned so much, and it was fantastic; I wouldn't trade that experience for anything!

"You guys cost us how much!?"

Now, fast forward to last month: October 2012. The landlord - that is, the people who own the building - saw the electrical bill. Apparently they'd been paying it without looking, and they freaked out. It turns out, maintaining an old leaky building with no insulation and largely electrical heat (and cooling) isn't cheap! And despite our lease explicitly saying that electrical was included, they wanted us to pay it. In our opinion, no dice.

This is where it gets interesting. Our lease had a stipulation in it saying that, with six-months of warning, they could terminate the agreement and leave us on the street. We knew that risk and were prepared to move if it was ever invoked. As a hackerspace, we're agile. We can survive! Heck, our friends at Protospace were homeless for awhile, and I'm sure they aren't the first!

That being said, we share the space with our friends at AssentWorks, and they had a big grant coming down the pipe. For them, the choice was obvious: make the landlords happy to avoid being kicked out. For them, losing space unannounced would cost a whole lot more than the electrical bill they were being asked to pay!

Divide and conquer

Now, the landlords - in a smart but also asshole move - used this dissonance to their advantage: they talked to AssentWorks directly, basically leaving their own property management firm and SkullSpace out of the negotiations, and AssentWorks chose to pay the bill and sign a new lease as the sole entity inhabiting the floor, but with the option to sublet to us. A reasonable choice, of course - I would have done the same if I was in their shoes.

That left SkullSpace and AssentWorks in an interesting predicament. If SkullSpace stayed, we'd be expected to pay half of a bill that we can't afford. If we left, we left AssentWorks holding the hot potato, which isn't fair. So, we talked to AssentWorks about options - can we pay you back over time? Can we pay part of the bill? etc.

In the end, AssentWorks gave us three options: one, we stay, pay half the bill, pay rent and utilities three months in advance. Impossible. Two, we leave in 2 months (end of December), and pay the rent in advance, and pay our half of the electrical bill. Three, we leave in a month - end of November - and pay nothing, not even our November rent. That last deal was extremely fair - it was AssentWorks recognizing that they expected more of us than we could afford, and giving out the option to cut and run. I can't thank them enough for that one!

Just to re-iterate: our position was always that we don't pay any of the electrical bill, and that AssentWorks shouldn't have either. Our lease explicitly stated that it was paid for, and if the landlords screwed up then that's their problem. Of course, that's not how business really works.

We (the SkullSpace Board of Directors) sat down at the table with AssentWorks a few times to hammer out these options, and later to discuss them. After bringing the amazing Ian Trump on board (that's his company site, since I don't have a better link), we managed to hammer out a deal that was mutually satisfactory: We stay for three months - until the end of January - paying a portion of our half of the electrical bill, and pay our utilities for those three months. At the end of January, we'd cut and run. The SkullSpace Board and AssentWorks both supported this plan.

"Your plan's bad and you should feel bad"

Last Tuesday (October 30, 2012), we brought that plan to the membership. And, the membership said no. They want to leave at the end of November. Ooookay!

This is the magic of a hackerspace: the Board can propose one thing, and be totally shot down. It was awesome! Justin - our former Operations Manager - had done a bunch of groundwork on finding a new space. Although it wasn't financially feasible yet - and as of now it still may not be - he sold it really well. His plan was that we give AssentWorks our notice that we're leaving at the end of November and sign this new lease. RIGHT NOW, basically. It was scary, to me, that there was so much support for a plan that I had just heard. But, it is what it is.

It wasn't until Mak - our former Vice President - pointed out that leaving the space in a month and getting the expensive space that Justin was looking for aren't both required. We can give our notice and move to either the space Justin proposed or another space, just as easily. Or even spend time homeless and saving money if we need to. Smart!

So, the membership overwhelmingly supported terminating our lease at the end of November, and finding a new space. The Justin Plan is still a viable option, and is becoming more viable every day. We started an Indiegogo campaign to help fund the move and to make our new space - wherever it happens to be - into a home.

Whatever we get and wherever we end up, it will be awesome, because we have awesome people. And that's what a hackerspace is about: the people. SkullSpace 2.0: Coming soon, to Winnipeg.

And, that's where we are now. Still exploring options, looking around, and figuring out WTF we can do to make this work.

Lessons learned

This is the most important part, in my opinion. Particularly for others who are reading this. How did we get into this tight spot, and why.

We, in my opinion, made at least two fundamental mistakes. And they're mistakes that I see other hackerspaces making all the time, and that I call them for.

First, we depended on an unsustainable rent. We had a massive amount of space - 4000 sq.ft. - for peanuts - $750/month all-in. The problem is, we depended on that. We had an emergency fund saved up, but in the end we couldn't afford the proper rent for the space, so we lost it. A lot of hackerspaces depend on having cheap rents - below market price - to sustain themselves. Not smart!

And second, we were tied too closely to AssentWorks. Getting into a position where another entity can cause you hardship - either on purpose or by accident - is dangerous. Especially as a hackerspace, since I believe strongly in openness, and I let everybody see my cards. When it comes to a situation where we have to do a business negotiation, I feel like they know everything about me and I know nothing about them, which isn't fair.

As I said before - and it's important - AssentWorks was actually really good to us. They made a business decision - and I believe it was a wrong one, although I would have done the same - to pay the landlord money that they didn't owe him. But they gave us an out, and let us cut and run, without owing them anything. I'm extremely grateful for that! A more cruel organization could have made this very difficult for us.

So, lessons learned: don't rely on others to make an unsustainable model work. Make sure you can afford market rates for real estate. BAM! Done. :)

And, one last time, please donate! Help make SkullSpace 2.0 happen!

Back at the Lo

As you've probably figured out by the title, this week’s meeting was at the Lo pub. As usual it was good times, and we had a few new members show up! I'm still surprised seeing so many tech savvy people in Winnipeg, it’s one of those things you almost wouldn’t expect. We only had a few things to go over because we went over the details of finding a space in last week’s meeting.

For those of you who haven’t read the discussion emails, Jay is spearheading the RSSF, and has found two possible locations. The first is on 111 Lombard, and we’d be able to rent it on a monthly basis. There is of course a catch. There are planned renovations for the space, and at any given moment we could be kicked out. Though a little risky, the price is right, and for a trial space it may just fit the bill. Jay mentioned some issues with cleanliness, but I think a weekend spent with brooms, mops and buckets could go a long way.

The second space is at 250 McDermot and is an open area of 750sq ft. The price is $875, it requires a yearly contract, and is supposed to be in much better shape. If utilities are included in this price the space would be a prime candidate. The RSSF will investigate tomorrow and update us via email. If anyone wants to help Jay with calling agents, it’d be greatly appreciated. It doesn’t take long, and Jay will hook you up with all the info! Send an email to the discuss list!

That’s about all we have for spaces right now, if we can get more people calling and talking to agents our options will likely expand. There are a lot of spaces, but apparently none of the agents responsible for them answer the phone.

In other news, we’re planning ahead for our April hackathon, which will probably be on Saturday the 16th. Ron’s going to send out a survey asking about what you liked/disliked about the previous event and how we could improve. We’ve already learned a lot from our last hackathon, and this one is shaping up to be even better. We’re going to get more tables and chairs to create more of a workspace type feel, better separate the music and talk areas, and try to set up workshops where attendees can tinker and code socially. Also, we’re working on fixing the network issues.

We’re probably going to be focusing on embedded systems this time around, with talks potentially covering the Launchpad platform and more about the Arduino. We’d like to set up an arduino workshop and give a talk covering some aspect, then allow people to try it out on their own. The topic will probably be serial communication, as that’s not only easy to implement on the Arduino, it’s also applicable to other embedded platforms. I’ll be sending out an email!

ARDUINO LINKS!

If you haven’t gotten an arduino yet, here are some websites where you can score one! We highly suggest you get one and bring it to the hackathon.
Best bang for your buck is probably the budget pack

If you have a bit of extra cash to blow, the experimenter pack will get you set up with everything you need to learn about micros. I really wish this was around when I got my arduino

At the talk I mentioned a shortcoming of the platform was the lack of ports. They fixed the fuck out of that problem with the Arduino Mega

Check out the rest of Adafruit’s arduino stuff here.

If for some reason you’re not down for ordering from Adafruit, Makezine carries them.

So does Sparkfun

And Evil Mad Scientist sells a totally badass variant, the Diavolino

They stock all sorts of really cool stuff too, usually more one-off and hard to find than sparkfun.

Rent Space Strike Force Established!

At the meeting this week we went over the possibilities of the space, yet again. The lovely Bannatyne location is out of the question for now, as there were minor refinishing and electrical issues. The space will be under renovation for the next six months, and there will be no access until the repairs are complete.
As a result, we spent the meeting going over the details of the other candidate space, located off of Erin. It was reasonably close to downtown, being 3.8km from Portage and Main. The space still provides reasonable bus access, and has plenty of parking options. The building is two stories with multiple office areas, and more importantly has a large warehouse area.

The warehouse area would allow skullspace to share a building with protolab, the sister space that will cover more hands-on, industrial type activities. The Erin location allows both spaces to operate in a single building, and gives the groups the ability to stay together as a community. Though it would be awesome to be able to do woodworking, metalwork, electronics and coding all in the same building, the cost is prohibitive at the moment.
With the current membership number hovering around 30, we were worried that the cost of investing would be too high and the fees may prevent new people from joining. Fortunately, there is no huge rush as protolab isn’t supposed to take off until September. This gives a few months time, and we thought the best idea would be to rent a space downtown.
We established a Rent Space Strike Force (RSSF), the members of which will scour the downtown area looking for properties to rent on a month-to-month basis. This would allow us to keep membership fees reasonable and have a space downtown at the same time. There are issues that come up with the renting idea. Access to the space on a 24/7 basis for all members could be an issue, and any sort of larger building modification would be almost entirely out of the question.

However, we feel the benefits of renting outweigh the (possible) costs. If we were to establish a space downtown, even for a few months, we may be able to interest more people. There would be a physical place to visit and drop by to learn more about the space and participate in projects, as well as a single location for meetings and hackathons. Renting on a monthly basis would also allow us to do what amounts to a trial run of the space, to see if we can keep enough people interested and raise enough money to move into a permanent location.

Your thoughts on this matter are welcome, feel free to leave comments here or send off an email to the discussion list at discuss@lists.skullspace.ca

Status update!

Budget

Alright, first off we should probably start with the business end of things. We’ve got a draft budget, as you probably know from the mailing list. Please note that this is an alpha draft that will likely change as we know numbers a little better. Our basic monthly operating budget will look something like this, though:

Expenses
Rent	$600.00
Utilities	$200.00
Insurance	$200.00
Internet	$50.00

And our annual expenses will look something like this:

Marketing	$400.00
Annual Return (Companies Office)	$25.00
Equipment	$1,000.00
Misc	$400.00

And finally, our predicted income is the following:

Monthly Dues	$14,400.00
Donations	$250.00
Fundraising	$250.00
Merch	$250.00

That assumes a $40/month fee for members and 30 members. The grand total, if you add it all up, is ~$725 above per year. Our goal was to be slightly over the break-even point, so we are successful.

To emphasize one more time: this is only a draft budget. It may not reflect the ultimate reality.

Oh, and to help out with the "Merch" income, everybody should go buy something nice for themselves from our Cafepress Store!

Bylaws

Bylaws were voted in at the last meeting, and we'll be posting them as soon as they're "lawyered up".

We are currently enlisting people for the physical space design task force. We need the following items in the space, when we get it:

• warm up food
• Microwave
• keep food cold
• Fridge
• make coffee
• Coffee Maker and supplies
• work at tables on laptops with wired internet
• 4 tables and 16 chairs
• network switch and a roll of cable+ends+crimper
• work at couches on laptops with wireless internet
• 2 couches
• wifi ap
• throw out garbage and recycling
• garbage can
• recycling bin
• present talks
• projector, screen
• area we can re-arrange to make suitable for presentation/talk
• listen to music
• speakers
• media centre/stereo/etc
• side table to put your coffee cup on while hacking
• 2 side tables
• soldering station
• workbench
• soldering irons
• access control
• card access system
• alarm
• alarm system
• safety stuff
• fire extinguishers (2x abc dry chem, also should probably have a class D)
• epic first aid kit

The budget, gear, and more are being actively discussed on the discussion mailing list - if you want more information (or if you have any questions/concerns/etc), please join the list!. Email discuss-subscribe@lists.skullspace.ca and follow the instructions to subscribe! Go here for more information about our mailing lists, and here to read the archives.

Event

We’re hosting an even on Saturday, March 19th, and anyone who wants to talk about their pet obsession is welcome to do so. Personally, I’ll be talking about the arduino, a platform which you all know I like a little too much. I’ve heard talk of sessions covering GIS mapping, as well as a previously undisclosed exploit for a vulnerability in Plone. This time, we'll be meeting at the Nutty Club Building (homeplace of LES.net) at 130 Portage Avenue East (the big red door with the doorbell). Come on down and spend a Saturday learning with us! Bring your friends! For more details and directions, see our wiki post (we'll be updating it this weekend with full details)

And if you needed one more reason to come, we'll have free stickers to give away!

Inner-city youths

If anyone wants to help out some inner city youths, there’s a computer club looking for volunteers. Not only will you be able to teach kids some computer basics, you’ll be making a positive difference in the world! Anyone interested should email info.at.skullspace.ca for the contact info!

That's about all for now. We'll be covering a bunch of details and physical space stuff at the meeting on Tuesday at 6pm, in a brand new location - our potential space on Bannatyne Ave (the small door between The Republic and the Peasant Cookery)!

Re-arranging

We had a sizable turnout at yesterdays meeting, and we are proud to announce we have 17 official members! We expect more members to filter in gradually, especially as a result of this weekend's Code Camp.

Our goal is to overflow the room we were given - it seats 30, so we think it shouldn't be a problem. The talks run all Saturday at Red River's Princess St. Campus, first one is at 8:30 so come early! Free food, pubs all around and we'll have freebies to give away!

For anyone who missed the meeting last night, we started setting the foundations of how the group will operate. We realized that our initial membership costs were way to high - especially since we did not have a physical space or much to show in the way of a group.

We had a solid question and answer session in which we drafted the decision-making process of the group. We're aiming for consensus based decision making where the group will be unanimously for or against proposals, but since that may be unachievable we plan to have majority rule bylaws in place. By paying your membership dues, you get the right to vote in group decision.

A major point we went over was the method of voting. We'd prefer to have voting done in person, and for any major decisions we will be issuing a few weeks notice so anyone unable to attend will still be able to vote. We've decided that the bylaws and rules will be drafted as a group and we will vote on them, the timeline for this is still tentative but we are aiming to have this done in the next couple of weeks.

We're going to continue holding weekly meetings and monthly hackathons. Though we may not be participating directly in global hacker challenges every time, our meetings will coincide with hackathon timelines so we'll be on the same page as other hackerspaces.

We didn't go over many potential project details, but there was talk of a sister space - a "prototyping space". This hacker/maker space would be more geared towards hands-on making, and will hopefully include woodworking, electronic and metalworking tools! Come to the next meeting if you want to hear more about it!

We urge you to read the mailing lists, as they are full of information about group decisions and progress! Feel free to use the discuss list to get your voice heard!

Bylaws and Timelines

The meeting tonight won’t be going over too much, but everyone’s invited to come down, have some food and brews and hang out! We’re busily working behind the scenes, things seem to be falling into place…or getting jammed there with a little bit of help.

There’s been a lot of talk about how we’re going to run the space, as we are a corporation and though it may be boring we do need to take into account a host of legal issues. We’re currently setting up corporation bylaws, or at least talking about setting them up. We’ve taken some advice from hacklab.to and protospace, and we’re learning how they’ve successfully run their spaces.

Basically, the bylaws will codeify what we’ve already been going over at meetings. The conversations seem to raise three separate aspects that bylaws would cover: direction/management, accounting and member policies.

On the directing side of things, we’re thoroughly beating the “no one who works for us will get paid” dead horse. A lot of the talk concerns financial liability issues, as in, if we tank whose ass is responsible. Though we don’t expect to tank, and won’t accept anything short of raging success, it’s something that has to be thought about. We’ve got Ron, Mak and Andrew doing all sorts of corporate-bureaucratic wizardry to make the corporation a feasible entity as well as insuring that should we go under, it’ll be as painless as possible.
The one thing we have decided on concretely is that all voting will be done in-person. No automated or online voting systems will be set up, not only because of technical complications but also because of the person-to-person community we hope to build.

Member policies are pretty straightforward, and we’re not expecting a lot of problems there. However, we do want to implement either policies or bylaws that would protect all members from any sort of harassment and make the space a ‘safe place’ for everyone. No discriminatory remarks, actions, etc will be tolerated. We are also attempting to set up bylaws that will allow us to eject any members who violate the harassment (or other important safety policy) without any repercussions from the group. In short, we won’t tolerate destructive attitudes and behavior.

Accounting is probably the most intricate issue, as setting up a non-profit corporation needs some finesse and forethought. Our goal is to raise $2k in funds before March 29th, and we’ve got a number of ideas to help us do so. We’ll need to collect member fees from 45 members by the end of March, and we’re going to run a fundraising event by March 19th. So far, our ideas include a possible “anti-social social”, a LAN party, or a bake sale. Your thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated!

This is the current timeline for achieving our goals:

1. Establish By-Laws& Vote on 5 interim Board Members (If by-law examples are used) - By Feb 26


2. Fund raising event (Anti-social $ocial) - By March 19 Based on outcome from fund raising / membership drive to date;could sign Draft Letter of Intent (LOI) for space, which Mike needs
   to create a sub-lease to SkullSpace by March 19


3. Deadline for 45 Members pre-paid for three months&& $2000.00 in donations - By March 29


4. Sign Draft LOI / Lease for space - By April 5th


5. Finalize Lease / Insurance - By April 12th


6. Initial Clean / Move into space - By April 26th


7. Open House - April 30th?