Costs
Rent
Rates
Window Cleaning
Sources of Income
Selling coffee
Running workshops
Selling our bodies
Don't worry about amounts (for now) - let's first get some headings for research. Also, don't worry too much about whether it's right to include a heading or not, let's go a bit mad - this is part of an iterative process - the decision about whether to do something or not is informed by whether we want to pay for it. If you see something in the list that you think needs discussing please write something below.
First we should separate out discussions about how we fund start-up/development from how the bills get paid once we're up and running.
It seems to me there are two dimensions to this:
One is the degree to which the project is self-supporting as opposed to externally funded.
The other is how distributed or centralised it is - ie do we go for lots of people giving a little money or a few people giving lots?
Property costs:
it's been a while since I was in the property business but a rough calculation is that you'd probably want 1000 sq ft for the meeting and open use space; 4-500 sq ft for the cafe / library and 4-500 for the studio / podcast recording stuff. Say 2000 overall.
Central London rents are Covent Garden £25 - 4 per square foot per year; South of the River £20 - 35; Farringdon £35; Clerkenwell £25.
Rates 5% of rent; Service charges 2-4% but very variable depends on if there is a lift, commissionaire etc.
www.officehound.co.uk for some examples
Rebecca Caroe
______________________________________________
Sources of income
Assuming we find a nice space, we can also rent it out for product launches, film screenings, photoshoots and the like. And if networking events are run there, we can take a small amount for entry, especially non-members.
We can sell advertising space - it could be an additional poster space/s indoors and outdoors so there would be small incremental revenue there.
A magazine or newspaper might pay a small amount to distribute their media in there. Or at least it would give us a free newspaper/magazine when we're there.
Sponsorship would be good too. DD in Oxford could help with that Lloyd, particularly if the venue has an arts angle.
Could rent out equipment too - laptops, projectors, keyboards, that kind of stuff. Not anticipating having a huge store of stuff, but enough that it could generate a small income and also be useful at the same time to members. Or maybe that's all included in the membership price?
In terms of cost, did you see the article about the woman who saved 10s of 1000s when she furnished her home using ebay? And it all got delivered on site. I'm pretty convinced we could use cost effective sources for furnishings. It would be good to get a designer to actually help with that element.
Helen Keegan
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Sponsors
[date] [sponsor] [sponsor URL] [sponsor message]
[put details here please because I can't remember!]
Comments (3)
Anonymous said
at 4:36 pm on Aug 9, 2007
Should probably go for lots of people giving a little bit - so that it is seen as a membership organisation. However, we might want to try to get some organisations to be sponsors or founding corporate members - and get them to chip in a fair bit (at least to cover establishment expenses)
Anonymous said
at 12:04 pm on Aug 20, 2007
I think there should be levels of membership fees. And an entrance fee and/or cover charge.
There are services that can be offered too - maybe with third parties on rev share - printing, projection. And also hiring out of rooms 'n stuff.
And I think Sponsorship is a good idea too as well as corporate support from companies already done well in web 2/mobile/social media as well those who want to sell to those kinds of companies.
First thing is to get a space I guess and then see what you can do with the space..?
Anonymous said
at 1:35 pm on Aug 20, 2007
I agree lots of people giving a little, with some chunky corporate memberships ( I, for example, might want to include membership as a benefit of working for my company), but I also think it should be kept simple so once the sub has been paid there's no fiddly entrance fee each time one attends.
Of course there needs to be a tarriff of costs for services - printing, projection etc - which could then be added on to each member's/coporate's bills each month
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