Run the shop as a business. The goal will be for the business to make a nominal profit, which once there is enough buffer, will be turned around and invested in tools and the like.
For the purpose of paying folks back if/when the shop gets disbanded, shares in the shop will be sold for one dollar. If you donate a $500 compressor, you get 500 shares in the shop. When the shop is disbanded, the equipment will be "sold off" and the proceeds returned to the shareholders based on number of shares.
Mondy spent on rent, utilities etc. will not count as shares. Money spent on deposit will.
The monthly cost of memberships will be based upon the number of members, and the monthly cost of keeping the shop open (rent, power etc.).
There will be two kinds of space, shared and personal. Shared space will be available to all members, on a first come first served basis. However there will be some reasonable time limit for tying up shared space with your project.
The rental of shared space will be divided equally among the memberships.
The rental of private space will be to individuals, and will be at about 110% of cost. If the lease is for $.50/square foot, private space will be rented out at $.55/square foot.
Anybody renting private space will need to have a full membership.
Anybody late for rent will be charged a fee of 5% per day, unless special arrangements are made.
We may want to offer a free membership for whoever is the business manager that makes sure that bills get paid etc. This won't include rental for private space.
Members may invite friends over to use the facilities, but other members have priority on resources. Anyone of these friends becoming a "regular" may be invited to become a member. There will be a donation jar, where guests are encouraged to chip in for the facilities. A daily donation would probably be about 1/10 the cost of a monthly membership.
We may decide to offer "associate memberships" at about half the cost of a full membership. Associate members would not get keys, voting privileges etc.
If oxygen and acetylene usuage for any shop torches is minimal, then it will be paid out of the general fund. If someone uses a lot of gas, they will be encouraged to chip in extra.
Likewise, munchies soda etc. will be bought out of the shop general fund, but if you consume "more than your share" you will be encouraged to chip in extra. Alternatively, we can sell the items to shop members and guests for a nominal profit.
Shared costs:
Various costs will be shared equally among the members. Even if each individual may not incur these costs equally, it's not worth the bother of bookkeeping to deal with splitting them up:
Power.
Insurance. This could be tricky. If we set the shop up as a business we get some protection from liability in case anyone gets hurt. It's probably worth checking out liability insurance for the business. We probably want to run it more as a private club, so that we don't have the exposure that a business where anyone can come in off the street would have.
Phone, net access, telecom in general. It may be worthwhile getting a landline. On the other hand, most everyone has cell phones. The ability to look something up on the net can be both an advantage and a distraction. On the other hand, it may be nice to share a fat datapipe for setting up webservers and the like.
Soft drinks and munchies. As mentioned above, we could either just make them a shared expense, or sell them for a nominal profit to cover the cost and bother.
Administration. I don't want to deal with paperwork. I'd rather pay someone to do it for me. I think the best way to do it is that whoever does the administration/accounting gets their membership dues for free.
Equipment. One of the big benefits of such a coop is access to
equipment that none of us would be able to afford individually. Some
items that are on the must have list for the shop would be:
air compressor
engine hoist
drill press
band saw
cutting torch
arc welder
Some items on the "I'd really like to have" list are:
lathe
mill
(even better if they are cnc)
car lift
Tubing bender
bearing press