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Subject: 
Re: Reigonal User Group building centers
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.org
Date: 
Mon, 25 Oct 1999 21:21:11 GMT
Viewed: 
695 times
  
In lugnet.org, Matthew Miller writes:
Yeah, I've thought about this. Downsides that come immediately to mind:

- what happens if someone leaves the group? do they get a portion?

NO!

- what happens if i don't contribute? am i a second-class citizen? can
  I still play?

Like any club, members could have guests but you would be strongly encouraged
to join.  Plus if you wanted to go by yourself you would need a membership.

- people are just plain used to having personal property.

People will always have personal property, and I'm not sure anyone would
want to give up any part of their personal collection.  You might not even
let people contribute elements, only cash to buy elements.  This would
help with people leaving.

- how do we decide what to buy? I'd like to have ten more RCXes. Although
  I think your models are awesome, I'm not heavily into Star Wars...

There are lots of ways to handle this.  Dictatorship is one option,
"aquisition comittee" is another.  You would probably write something into
the corporate by-laws to address this.  Something like "...to facilitate
the broadest selection of elements..."

- how much money would we need to have anything useful? I don't think any
  of us are rich. Karen and I have only a certain fraction of our money
  that we allow ourselves to spend on lego, and that's not a number that's
  likely to be increased anytime soon. i don't think any of us want to
  decrease the amount we put into our personal collections...

The membership dues could be almost anything but it would directly affect
how fast the element selection grows.  It might take a year to build something
equivalent to our personal collections or it might take a month. Of course
starting is the hard part.  I'd pay $50 a month to have access to the
selection of parts at Mindfest, but at the beginning it might not be so
desirable.  There's some real opportunity for creativity on this point.

Here's some numbers:

30 members x 50/mo = 1500/mo = 18,000/yr
100 members x 50/mo = 5000/mo = 60,000/yr
4x10,000 (life membership) = 40,000 to start

You could also charge $10/day  for non-members

Of course if you found some way for TLG to get value out of this
you could make the membership fees much lower and have an infinite
selection of elements.


And of course this one:

The group would need to have a space to house
the elements and space to build and display creations.

The Mindfest joke about "oh yeah, I'll 'store' that at my house for you"
seems like it might crop up again. :)


I think you would need a space that is not at someones house.  This
too might require some creativity such as corporate sponsorship.  Maybe
you could use a room at an office building and the employees get reduces/free
membership.  Maybe that company could also contribute monthly.  That would
be quite a perk for a high tech company!


But, i do think it _could_ work. I'd be interested in doing something like
trains this way.

--
Matthew Miller                      --->                  mattdm@mattdm.org
Quotes 'R' Us                       --->             http://quotes-r-us.org/




Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Reigonal User Group building centers
 
(...) See, we don't have that much to contribute. Maybe $20 quarterly or something. And I don't think that all 32 members are likely to even participate. Which doesn't make quite as an exciting curve, but could probably still be helpful. (...) Yeah, (...) (25 years ago, 25-Oct-99, to lugnet.org)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Reigonal User Group building centers
 
(...) Yeah, I've thought about this. Downsides that come immediately to mind: - what happens if someone leaves the group? do they get a portion? - what happens if i don't contribute? am i a second-class citizen? can I still play? - people are just (...) (25 years ago, 25-Oct-99, to lugnet.org)

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