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At SLO Bike Kitchen in San Luis Obispo, CA, we also use the $5/day. To address people who may not be able to afford it, we leave it at the discretion of the day's staff to determine case by case fees. It makes it subjective and open to criticism if someone were to be given a reduced rate, followed by charging someone the full fee.
In practice though, I don't think we've had any issues. Generally everybody finds $5 totally reasonable and are understanding of our need to pay rent vs adjust to people with less $$. So I'd say it has been successful to leave it to whatever we can work out for things on a case by case basis. We're lucky to have low rent combined with good utilization of our shop, so losing $5 here and there doesn't matter much.
We run a orientation session for incoming volunteers and explicitly tell them that it's better to make the "customers" happy than make a profit. As we are a non-profit community service, it really doesn't have a good feel to refuse service to someone just because of $5. Volunteers are also told that if there is a safety issue with the bike, they should address it regardless of $$. A common case of this is a financially challenged person with zero or one working brake.
Brian SLO Bike Kitchen www.slobikekitchen.org
P.S. We don't have a monthy/yearly rate. It was interesting to hear of the $35/yr maximum idea. Does mean that you have to keep track of a customer database...
On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 06:43, Sarah Follett (B!KE) questions@communitybikeshop.org wrote:
We at B!KE have been grappling with the question of how to structure payment for our drop-in shop hours. This is our main program and therefore our most consistent income generator. Currently we have a $20 annual membership fee, which is great because it's (reasonably) accessible for most, but less great because it's rather inadequate as far as covering our expenses (we have about 100+ new & renewed memberships each year- not going to cover the bills), and is probably too little to ask for from those who use the shop frequently or those in higher income brackets. We've discussed two-tiered membership fees (regular and un/underemployed) or workstand rental time. It's really important to us that the use of the space is not out of reach to anyone, but we're also reluctant to have an overt volunteer-as-payment system because we don't yet have the infrastructure for that, and frankly, we do need the cash. I was checking the google docs spreadsheet to see if it listed different organizations solutions to this, but I don't think this is up there yet. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? Sarah Follett Director, B!KE: The Peterborough Community Bike Shop 400 Wolfe St Peterborough, Ontario (705) 748-6681 http://www.communitybikeshop.org
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