[Discuss] Reviving LibreBoston at A2

[grg-webvisible+blu at ai.mit.edu (grg)]

On Mon, Aug 26, 2024 at 03:35:15PM +0200, Zachary Liebl wrote:
> we think that we be able to easily get a meeting spot at Artisan's Asylum (Abbreviated A2).

Does A2 offer use of their space for free?  Or is there a budget for
renting meeting space?  (A2 has bills to pay...)  

A couple other possibilities come to mind for either or both groups in case
A2 doesn't work out, and MIT remains not an option:

1) The Cambridge Public Library has free rooms for "Cambridge-based
not-for-profit" groups, with a few down-sides:
 * you can only book one room at each branch once a quarter
 * only 2 branches (main & central) have rooms with capacity more than a dozen
 * they reserve the right to bump you for "library sponsored programs" (no idea
   how often this happens, and evening meetings might be safer from that?)
https://www.cambridgema.gov/Departments/cambridgepubliclibrary/iwantto/bookaroomatalibrary
(see also "meeting room policy" link on that page)

2) The Cambridge Foundry has rooms for smallish fees, based on annual
revenue of the nonprofit - I suspect BLU gets the maximum discount and FSF
gets no discount; is LibreBoston its own nonprofit?  There look to be a few
suitable rooms:
 * Red Multi Room - capacity 100, BLU could get for $16/hr
 * Design Lab - capacity 49, BLU could get for $16/hr
 * maybe The Point for smaller meetings - capacity 25, BLU could get for $10/hr
(with no discount (e.g. FSF?) each is 5x more expensive)
https://www.cambridgefoundry.org/sliding-scale-policy

One nice side benefit of the discounted organizational membership to The
Foundry is that one member of the organization (per day? ever?) can use
their various workshops for free.


> I am wondering if this group would be open to teaming up with FSF members to revive LibreBoston (http://libreboston.org/).

I don't	think I've been to an FSF/LibreBoston meeting (unless one of Devin
Ulibarri's meetings was a joint event?), so I'll leave it to others to
assess the compatibility of the group meetings.

--grg