[sudo-discuss] [omnilogistics] Community Print Studio - Two Announcements

[David Keenan]

Here are my thoughts,

TIL always said it wanted a printing resource center for the community. It
was pitched consistently as a cross between the IPRC in portland and
Occucopy, that would provide affordable print and art-making tools to the
community - essentially a service bureau on steroids, for everyone, which
sounded awesome. I realize this printing collective is still in a state of
becoming, but $100/pp/mo is e.g. a lot more than the $55/pp/year the IPRC
charges, and seems like a pretty high bar to any kind of community
involvement.

One worry I have about this project in its current state is, from the
description it sounds like six(?) independent, unnamed 'presses'
(businesses?) like TIL who it seems banded together to have a place to
print their own stuff, and perhaps less so really to provide resources to
the larger community. That's not necessarily a bad thing in itself, but I
would like some clarity on this point, since I have no idea who these other
5 businesses besides TIL even are, or how big these businesses are, how
many people are involved with them, etc. And then I have a hard time
understanding how offering one day a week of being open for actual
community use and the rest for private business use, enough to qualify the
project as fundamentally community-oriented.

I had also hoped accompanying the amazing machines, that there would be a
companion area of more pedestrian equipment like a couple pre-press
workstations, tabloid printers, letter laser printers and copy machines
could be made available to those who simply need to make flyers for social
justice events etc quickly and cheaply that would maybe, not cost them
$100/mo? You know, kind of like Occucopy provided.. But maybe that's coming
- I'm not saying they're not moving fast enough. I just wonder where the
space and planning *is* for those machines, that will probably get a lot
more use from the community at large than a C&P? It seems like that's not
part of the plan anymores.. is that true?

Basically there are several still-unanswered aspects about the structure
and application of this print collective that have little to do with how
awesome printing machines are, how awesome the idea is, how awesome the
people involved are, and everything to do with simply being fair to *other*
collectives, with respect to distribution of space, rent and expenses that
all of the collectives in the building must negotiate. IE this application
must be looked at in context of what other collectives are paying and how
they are using shared space too, not just on the merits of the printing
collective alone and what it offers in isolation.

I also think there is a lot of pressure built into this proposal, possibly
unintended but still there, to agree to everything it says and STFU,
because this brand-new collective has already moved all their machines down
there prior to making themselves known, so it doesn't feel like the Omni
collective has much room to have a say about it. It is certainly not the
normal procedure of like, actually deciding on whether a group should move
in and what they should contribute BEFORE they move in. Not after, as if
its just some kind of formality..

If any of these 5 other businesses that have collectivized together to use
their machines in the basement are incorporated, they may have to have
individual legal agreements (leases of some sort) with OOC directly. I'm
not sure actually, but I suspect that may be in order for OOC decisions
made at meetings to trump innate tenant rights laws, and in order that
insurance liability be binding, etc.

With respect to TIL subletting its upstairs office that was mentioned at
the meeting, that could totally break our collective structure and is not
OK in my view.

Subletting is so ripe with problems that undermine collectivity I can't
even begin to count them all. Rather the expectation should be, if TIL
needs less space in that office, then they can rent a desk or 2 in there
from the OOC, and those other individuals / businesses they share that
office with will be their full equals in there, also as tenants, with the
same rights and responsibilities, subject to the same acceptance process
and legally binding agreements as every other tenant in the OOC. In the
OOC, there is equality amongst tenants, that seems fundamental to me. New
tenants, groups or businesses in the OOC should be a group decision, not
one person's or a single group's. Right?

Also with respect to TIL curating shared spaces in the omni, i would say,
please, be sure to let everyone in the omni co-curate all the shared spaces
with you, if that is cool.

Friendly amendments:

I propose this proposal be split into two proposals -
one with regards to TIL and its rent reduction, including its desire to
sublet its upstairs office
one with regards to the print collective & its space, rent, structure, etc.
I see no reason why one proposal should depend on the other.

Questions:

0. Would the collective be willing to turn on the machines and use them
during the Thursday delegates meeting so we can hear how loud (or not) they
are?

1. What are the intended operating hours of this collective?

2. What is the collective structure of this group. How are decisions made?

3. Does this group have open membership - can anyone join and use all the
machines, provided they are adequately trained?

4. Aside from TIL, what are the names of the six other presses/businesses
that appear to largely comprise this group, and who is involved in them?

5. What business or person legally owns which machines in the basement?

6. Is this collective intended to be run as a business (be it a nonprofit
or for-profit), or is this a collective that seeks to make access to their
machines as affordable and available as possible to our community?

IE, if your membership grows and gross revenue rises:
- will your member dues go down from $100/pp/mo?
- or will you simply buy more machines and continue to expand into the
basement?
- will someone profit? If so, who?
- Do you have any thoughts about paying more rent to Omni if your
membership increases? Going with the sliding-scale rental formula of the
omni, based on affordability and ability to pay.

6. Given you can only afford $600 and you apparently have over ten members
paying $100/ea, how did you come up with the $600 figure?

7. It was mentioned at the meeting that running a print studio was
'incredibly expensive'. Given that the print collective will not be paying
more in utilities than say BAPS, who has, increasingly worryingly, no
dedicated space (and no huge power-slurping machines), I am wondering what
these incredible expenses are.

Are you putting consumables like paper and ink that will get made into
things that will be presumably sold, in the same category as e.g. power or
water as an operating expense, when consumables might also be called the
raw materials for a commodity?

Are you counting the purchase of the machines, or the one-time moving costs
of the machines into the basement, as an ongoing expense?

What are these ongoing, super high expenses, ie how much exactly do they
cost? What's the actual budget?


8. Would the collective and its component participating businesses be
willing to disclose financial statements on a regular basis to assess rent
affordability?

9. Excepting TIL & Laura D., who from the printing collective has done any
work on the Omni, or participates in any working groups or work on the
omni, aside from organizing and moving their own printing gear? (I do
realize that was a hell of a lot of work, but I'd like to know, since
generally I never see any of em in the building nor the machines used.)

10. Does the printing collective know how much rent we are collecting, vs
what we will owe in total, come Oct 1? IE does the collective have any
sense at all of the Omni's total financial responsibility?

11. If the machines are too loud for a class to take place simultaneously,
does the collective intend to ask BAPS and other collectives not to use the
basement during their work time?

12. Does it seem a fair distribution of the rent burden that for example a
collective we just met last week who has done no work on the Omni, receive
1/3 of the basement for a little more than half the rent BAPS pays, who
comparatively has no dedicated space? Is it fair that Rise Above, with more
expenses per person, pay $1000 for less space?

13. Does the printing collective believe in a financial model in which
member rosters soar and more people use the omni, but rental income stays
exactly the same, in a period in which we are not actually making rent?

Sorry if I come off as a hardass about this but I am mostly repeating
things I heard all week

David

On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 9:15 PM, yar <yardenack at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 8:52 PM, ▽ ∞ ✳︎
> <forever at timelessinfinitelight.com> wrote:
> > *We will bring forth a revised Community Print Studio proposal to Omni
> > soon, which we would like to make a decision on during the October 2nd
> > delegate meeting*. This proposal will address concerns regarding space,
> > noise, and communality that were brought up during the last meeting.
>
> I just want to say that I'm at the CPS meeting right now and they've
> all been really generous and helpful and I believe that we will figure
> out something. It's really just a tough space logistics problem about
> how to orient the machines in the least intrusive way and maximize
> common/shared space. The machines need to somehow be ventilated,
> eventually soundproofed, and have a radius of empty space to work
> around. We will need more time just to solve this geometry problem,
> and that's mainly what's holding up the proposal right now.
>
> In the meantime Kate & I started a wiki page to document all the
> existing and forthcoming machines, their dimensions, what their needs
> are: http://wiki.omni-oakland.org/w/Print_Studio
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://sudoroom.org/pipermail/sudo-discuss/attachments/20140924/ead441ac/attachment.html>