Membership pricing to increase?

I keep hearing rumors of membership price increases. I saw on the website the price for the open hours membership but didn’t see price for Key access membership. is that still available? also is there a discount for year membership? and lastly is there a senior citizen discount and at what age?

Indeed the rumors are true. Our membership rates have remained the same since we opened our doors 10 years ago. Since then we’ve grown both in terms of space and capabilities, and it’s become time to adjust our prices.

Effective in May, our prices will be:

Open Hours Membership (1 month): $50
24-Hour Membership: $150 / month. ($405 / quarter, $1440 / year)

We’ll also be adding quarterly and annual options for open hours members in the coming months. Our discounts will remain the same for the time being (senior 65 years+ 50% off), but they may change in the future as we consider adding additional discounts.

Current quarterly and annual memberships will see the price increase at their next renewal.

I do want to acknowledge that this is a big jump in pricing. The board has approved a policy that we review our pricing structure annually moving forward to hopefully prevent such large jumps in the future.

Finally, for the benefit of everyone, we’re committed to being accessible to everyone, so please reach out to to info@lansingmakersnetwork.org if the dues increase will result in a hardship and we’ll do our best to accommodate.

This same info will be going out to members via email as well in the coming days.

Any questions, of course, please don’t hesitate to ask.

How will this translate to volunteer hour redemption?

Excellent question! It’ll still be 10 hours + $0 for open hours memberships but it’ll become 10 hours + $50 for 24-hour memberships.

To volunteers in particular, please do reach out if this creates a hardship.

FYI - As a newbie, two weeks notice for such a large increase does not sit right… Maybe there were previous discussions, but this post was the first time I heard of the increase.

Glad to see that the board will do an annual review of the pricing - that seems like a more reasonable approach than a 42% price increase in one fell swoop…

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Totally understand and a fair criticism for sure, happy to renew anyone who needs more time at the current price for an additional month.

Maybe the board can announce future ones two or three months in advance, especially if it’s known far enough ahead there are rumors that need to be asked about on the talk site before we find out the price almost doubles in two and a half weeks

Don’t forget your email.

Do seniors (65 and up) get a 50% discount?

We went to renew our membership and noticed the significant price change. I didn’t receive an email with the above information, nor did my husband who is also a member.

Was this the only form of notification? No email to members? @brian.adams

I recall that there was the pledge to email members, a reminder that an email should be sent, and no email that I can recall.

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This is extremely disappointing and unprofessional handling from the board and I hope measures will be taken to avoid this kind of situation in the future.

There needs to be greatly improved or any communication with members about significant changes before they happen.

Maybe a clearly defined procedure with a specific deadline for informing members of any relevant changes or updates would be helpful for the board to have and follow.

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I totally appreciate your frustration James. I do my best, sometimes it can be difficult. I’ll strive to do better.

I know you do your best, and that’s why I think that there should be a system that ensures that responsibility is more lateral and things are standardized. A list of steps that have to be completed in order, before the next step is started. decision →notification→action. If you are not able to complete a task or are busy and overwhelmed you should ask for help or delegate. There are lots of people who are willing to help write emails and things like that.

Thanks for the advice James!

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Brian, you acknowledged the need for an email announcement to the member on April 10 without any follow through until today. Shame on you and the board. While I realize that there are probably many factors justifying the need for a very steep increase in membership fees, your general membership is STILL in the dark.

I feel that transparency is seriously lacking in most of the decisions that are made here. Members will need to decide for themselves whether that is intentional or not, but I would urge you and the board to make some serious changes in the way that you do business. Obviously, board agenda discussion topics should be publicized before meetings. And why would you not publicize all decisions made after every meeting? Your membership should expect much more from you and the rest of the board.

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Yep, we’re indeed not perfect. That’s not an excuse, its the reality. We’ll do better. The email didn’t get prioritized because we had already made a commitment to make the situation right for anyone that needed help dealing with the price increase (and we continue to do so) so other things that needed to be worked on got worked on instead.

I’ll take all the chastising that anyone wants to dish my way. There’s a lot we do right, and we’re always trying to do better.

This isn’t just us chastising Brian this is concern about how the board is operating.

The board is not just Brian

Framing it as personal chastising with vauge promises to try better isn’t effective and does not inspire confidence. This is an organizational failure and prioritizing cleaning up after a mess should not mean just leaving a single email of communication with at least 3 reminders I saw until 2 weeks after the change.

And I agree with @Andy_Buhl minutes should be published or at the very least any decisions made or talked about. I think this would be the secretary’s responsibility? @egillespie

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While I realize the reasoning for the dues increase; and I’m fine with paying more, may I suggest an outlining of what additional services we’re getting for the additional additional funds. Perhaps that could be a policy in the future?

For example, I’ve got a piece that–now that it’s assembled–no longer fits in my car but now needs additional sanding. Should the board increase the dues in the future but introduce a hand tool lending library where I could check out an orbital sander to use at my house I’d be more than happy to pay the additional fees.

I think we members are happy to support the space but when fees are increased we’d like to know what we are getting for our additional dollars.

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This increase is the only one in years and there is a lot more tools and areas now and a much bigger facility. The increase is fair for what you are getting just poorly communicated and managed.