I would like to propose that the discretional funds be upgraded from the $100 per month to $200 without a per month restriction.
Proposed Discretional funds to include:
Consumables : e.g. Linisher belts, grinding discs, band saw blades, welding wire, welding gas etc.
parts: For repairs of machines e.g. recent plasma misuse: replacement parts cost $189
Materials : steel and timber for repairs and improvements of the shop.
Keep in mind it is up to the discretion of the cause leader on how the cause funds are spent to keep the metal shop running smoothly.
The upgrade to $200 will help do this. As per the example above with the plasma cutter.
I believe the present $100 per month discretional fund spend was agreed on at the beginning of the founding of the space. This may have been adequate at the time but the space has grown since then and the $100 per month just doesn’t cut it.
I have been informed this change can be voted at the cause level.
I just want to confirm what you mean by this as it’s a little ambiguous.
Are you proposing an unlimited budget, that has a $200 per purchase limit? For example, you could buy 3x $150 consumable items in a month, but not a single $250 item?
Ok please understand this is coming from a Cause leader and not an Exec position.
Hell No.
We were only given the budget of $100 in the last 2 years, if there are large purchase that have to happen over this amount then it has to goto the cause members for a vote.
With the unlimited purchases part I really hope that everyone is able to see what kind of a bad idea this is
Causes and in fact the space receive their funds on a per-month basis disbursed based on membership dues. The intent and general approach to this is that budgets have an expiry on them, either be that a time period (monthly) or upon exhaustion of the budget.
An unlimited discretionary budget with a cap on per-purchase does certainly seem attractive but would go against the whole monthly nature of our standard discretionary budgets - even the executive discretionary budget is monthly. On top of that, discretionary budgets in that style would go against the ethos of being a community organisation where every member can have equal input in our decisions. Additionally, It.would not be financially prudent to allow a cause leader to have this level of budget as it would allow for being able to spend a cause’s entire accrued funds in short order.
From your pain points you’ve listed above though, I have a suggestion. In the Electronics cause we have a list of consumables and a consumable budget such that any member can purchase consumables in that list and expect to be reimbursed (Provided we’re almost out of them and they’ve spoken to the cause leader). A lot of what you’ve listed above is consumables (first two items) so this would fit the bill.
$100 a month is tight for metal shop consumables and the value you’ve set for $200 would be perfectly reasonable as a monthly budget for consumables, I’d encourage you to implement the same approach with the list of approved consumables as it will make your life easier.
With regards to materials, whilst you could have a monthly budget for this it would be in my opinion more sustainable/less work to have a bulk budget every few months to buy a bunch of common stock and stock take every couple of months to bring stock back up to acceptable levels. This way the purchase of stock goes past the membership each time and is fully equitable.