Common House minutes: 2007-05-29

Agenda:

Agenda:
*Further discussion about usage fees/rent
*Late night lock up concern

Minutes:

Debbi came to share concerns and frustrations about CH lockup.
*we give 4hrs per month for lock up jobs total (2 positions)
*frequently doors are unlocked and windows left open
*If everyone is ultimately responsible, do we keep this job at all?
*Do we try having a different person do the job?
*Do we try having lock up at a different time

We had a long discussion about everything we have done to date to
improve the situation, but it doesn't seem to be helping. The
majority of the time that people leave the CH they do not have to
lock it, so apparently it is really hard to remember that it is
different at night.

*Becky will talk more with Dave about this.
*We will see if he can lock at 11pm

This is yet another reminder to EVERYONE that YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO
LOCK UP AFTER 10PM

***AFTER MEETING NOTES: Becky talked with Dave. He is very
frustrated with the job - it is thankless. In the beginning, he was
locking up probably 98% of the time at night, but when he would walk
Carol to her car at 5 am, many of the doors (if not all) were
unlocked again. This means people are coming in after lockup, and
leaving without re-locking. Dave is tired of it. He thinks that we
need to invest in a better system, and make sure EVERYONE is doing
their part. After we talked, he thought more about it and decided to
step down from the position. On behalf of the CH committee, we thank
Dave for all the work he has done.

We are now looking for anyone who wants to volunteer to lock at night
and the committee will look into pricing for automatic locks.

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Usage Fees
As background info, we have had several events over the last year
that has raised the issue of whether we should be charging for
certain events. Family Farms has brought this up again because of
the frequency of their use. So, we once again began the discussions.

Sarah came to the meeting to discuss this because she thought Family
Farms was being singled out, and wanted to make sure they were not.
We assured her that we are trying to craft some type of policy that
we could apply to all situations without having a huge negative
impact on our members.

There are several reasons for charging a nominal usage fee. One
being that there is a value to our space, and there are costs
associated with it. We are NOT trying to earn lots of money - we are
trying to make sure we have enough revenue coming in to help offset
those costs and the ongoing maintenance and improvements.

We had another brainstorming session, and we didn't capture the whole
thing in the minutes. The highlights are as following, and are our
latest thoughts. We still need to come up with a policy.

* We would only charge if it is a money making venture AND the money
is for someone other than a Great Oak member
*Donations would remain the norm for all other events.
*sliding scale for room size

large room, for money making group outside of GO = $10/event
small room for money making group outside of GO = $5/event
GO members using any room to make money at this point would NOT be
charge, but encouraged to give donations.

The CH committee will polish this up a bit, and bring it to the
community as an info/input item. Then we will set a policy.
Hopefully.