Bristol Open Technology Lab C.I.C general meeting
Date/time: 14th January 2025, 19:00.
Location: Bristol Hackspace, with online option.
Our landlord has approached us to ask if Hackspace would be interested in expanding into the first floor of the unit we currently occupy the ground floor of. This would be room-by-room, as and when they become available, with the eventual aim of Hackspace becoming sole tenants of the whole unit. Further information is available on the forum here.
We will be voting on the following resolution: “We want to expand the Hackspace onto the first floor, by securing tenancy of each room as it becomes available, with the aim of eventually taking on all of Unit B”.
Our landlord is replacing his two roller shutters with insulated, motorised ones shortly. He has offered to include ours in the quote and cover 50% of the cost. This works out to a total cost to the Hackspace of £2640.
Whilst we have previously explored the motorisation of the roller shutter with external controls as a means to step-free access, this is not possible to implement whilst complying with building regs and the terms of our insurance. However, as we are responsible for the maintenance of our (quite old) roller shutter as per the terms of our lease this offer is still worth considering. Previous quotes for the replacement of a single shutter have come out around £8000.
These include a lone working policy as per our insurance requirements, and an upcoming rewrite for clarity to separate BOTLab's organisational policies from those relating to expectations of behaviour.
We would like to update the storage fair use policy to include “All items in project boxes must fit within the project box with the lid fastened correctly”.
Sam P will report on the usage of the space/tools via the door entry/access control logs.
46 attendees. 28 in person/online, 18 proxies.
We have the application in. It has got past the first round.
We didn't fall into the “no” option yet. Options were yes, yes with amendments, and no.
Estimated 12 weeks for someone to have a proper look at it. 2 weeks passed already at the time of the meeting.
We messed up. Spent more than budget. Surprise electricity bill (2 years in 1 quarter). £5344.10 over budget.
That's what happens when you get a hippy for a landlord!
Spent almost all budget. Had £50 ish left.
Budget increased from £1000 to £1217.
This is used for consumables, maintenance, christmas social etc.
Had to hold back on maintenance.
Members were encouraged to vote on some open proposals on the forum. These were a Brother sewing machine, and small engine tools.
Duncan is in favour of seeing the hackspace grow and expand.
We currently rent the ground floor. Upstairs is other tenants.
He'd like to see us expand to two whole floors.
Rooms will become available at different times.
Directors got together and discussed it. Decided it needed to go to a members vote.
Directors are positive on the idea.
Vote will be on the resolution mentioned in the agenda.
If vote does pass, survey will go up on the forum asking how we want to allocate the space.
Questions:
How do people get access through our room (4)? That person will be given access. Believe they're already a Hackspace member. That situation will resolve as and when the tenants move on.
Would we be able to move walls around? Most walls have to stay as they are structural, and for fire regulations. There is a step down from rooms 4 to 5a and 5b.
Budget wise, we are thinking of putting down a deposit for a space eventually. Would the extra rent affect the pace we can reach this? Shouldn't do as this will allow us to increase our membership and income.
When we were in BV studios it seemed impossible to get our own space. Moving to our current place caused our membership to increase exponentially despite the extra costs.
We are looking at a profit of over £3000 per month.
The only thing that is stopping our membership increasing is we cannot give tours fast enough (we are limiting them deliberately).
We might need more volunteers to give additional tours.
Rent will increase incrementally. We can still afford the entire upstairs even with our current income.
Electricity bill goes up a lot during the winter. Upstairs has heating and bills included so we shouldn't need to heat downstairs anymore.
Room 4 is coming up very soon end of month. 5a possibly slightly after.
Will there be a separate budget for making the alterations upstairs? That seems sensible. Will wait for the survey first.
Directors will publish their proposal. Other members are welcome to publish their own ones too.
What's the lock-in period on the leases? Contracts have been 3 years historically. We may be able to negotiate other terms.
Vote results: Unanimous!
When would things look to change? Februrary/March maybe.
Landlord is having roller shutters replaced on his half of the building with insulated electric.
Current shutter is not broken but shit.
Duncan will cover half the cost. Hackspace will cover the remaining £2640.
We will not be tying it into the access control. Cannot add control on the outside of the building from insurance and building regs perspective.
How long is the warranty on the new one? Don't know.
Matt thinks it's worth investing a bit considering we'll be here for a while.
Does the door has to stay as a roller shutter? Barn doors would also have the same issues. It's a gigantic faff to use the door for anything else.
No ongoing maintenance costs.
We would only get extra parking spaces once we get all of upstairs.
Vote results for getting the roller shutter: 1 no. 3 abstain. Everyone else yes. This vote passed.
Chris White enjoyed singing the song to Captain Pugwash while pulling the roller shutter chain.
There's been a bit of a kerfuffle with the insurer that insured all Hackspaces.
Luckily we managed to find a different insurer.
The company we have has offered the least absurd conditions. Most were absolutely no lone working.
Summary of the new conditions: - Avoid lone working if you can - no lone working with fixed machinery - People not insured to use our tools outside of the Hackspace
(see policy linked in the agenda for specific details)
What are the implications if someone is lone working? From insurance perspective they are not insured regardless of the circumstances.
It is silly that currently we can come in the middle of the night and use dangerous tools. In retrospective this is probably something we shouldn't allow. There have historically been near misses that would have been a lot worse if they were lone working.
Probably worth having a chat area on the forum to ask if anyone else would be around.
You can always bring guests with you.
We will revisit our risk assessments and adjust as required.
Vote to update the policy: 1 no. 1 abstain. Everyone else yes. This vote passed.
Add extra line into storage page (see agenda).
Vote for the above: 1 no. No abstain. Everyone else yes. This vote passed.
Around 30-35 unique members per day.
Access control boxes have been working for almost 2 years now.
Plan is to roll it out to as many machines as possible.
Aaron has done a good job commissioning.
Lightburn have an offer where Hackspace can get a 3 seat license at full price but 50% discount for members.
Lightburn pro £199 for 1 year then £30 per year for further updates.
Proposal to buy lightburn pro license and ongoing costs.
Vote: 13 abstain. Everyone else yes. This vote passed.