Hackspace Foundation Meetup #1

Discussion Events
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Thursday 6th August 2026 @ 20:00-21:30

The theme for the event will be looking at buildings, buying, and owning property, but also doing the usual go round of where people are at.

You can RSVP here: HSF Meetup #1 — Fantastical RSVP

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Notes from meeting:

Attendees:

  • Tommie - SLMS (750 members)
  • James + Jess - Swindon (100 members)
  • Samuel - Brighton (146 members, buying new tools, renting from private landlord, 63 years old)
  • Sadrina - East Essex Hackspace (190 members)
  • Khurram + Andy - Tee Side Hackspace (84 members)
  • Andrew - Surrey and Hampshire (23 members)

Experiences of looking for spaces

SLMS

  • CLG
  • £190k in the bank
  • £1900 pm surplus
  • ~£59k pa rent
  • have rates relief
  • Likely to be kicked out for the 10 year review period of the arch
  • Considering buying, can’t afford.
  • Likely to wipe out costs when we move.

Teesside

  • CLG
  • 1600sqft, 2019, deal half price rent - £1800 a month (trending towards deficit) CLG
  • Looking at moving to a charity
  • Charity commission is under funded/resourced.
  • Middlesborough Community??? - helping small groups get off the ground
  • Offered 9000sqft unit by council for a fixed amount but it’s covered by them
  • Issue was business rates, £8k PA.
  • Don’t qualify for mandatory relieve, 80%
  • If we’re looking to grow we need this.
  • We have:
  • Hang out space
  • Wood working a bit smaller than 1 person at a time
  • Metal work garage
  • Looked into charity space more
  • Needed to organise things more in the backend.
  • Slowly working on the application over the past year, sat with directors then members.
  • Charity commission has predefined charitable purposes, fitting within those makes it easier.
  • Charity status saves 5% on energy bills, Save £900 on Google and AWS services which become free.
  • Gift aid - 20% VAT back.
  • Scrutiny on charity - what is reasonable for a charity to do.
  • Find it difficult for a Hackspace not to fit in the charity - recreation, education in some cases.
  • Good connections with local authority helps.
  • Art community → annoy the hell out of the local authority. Social media noise about what you are doing. (Art community good to follow and tie into).
  • Gift aid - £5 fee, and top up donation. (currently min £6, then recommend £17) - Gocardless implementation issues.
  • GoCardless allows you to split it up in transactions on the org side, but single payment

Brighton

  • No decision so far
  • Downpayment needed
  • Missed out on a near by building
  • Looking at leases (repairing leases)
  • What is the premium for these leases
  • Restrictions on leases (naked flames)
  • Men in sheds contact but it all dissapeared.
  • Quite often you can get a rent free period.
  • Reinstatement costs.
  • Experimenting with moodle

East Essex Hackspace

  • Lease with the council
  • CIO
  • Peppercorn rent
  • Lease expires in 1.5 years
  • Expressed interest in new facility.
  • Stuck in limbo with the council about this, conditions, etc…
  • If that falls through then we were looking at buying somewhere, comes with problems with residential area, lack of parking, noise concerns.
  • Industrial state, barriers at 8pm - pass code not shared with 200 members.
  • Extend existing space to the side.
  • Waiting to figure out.
  • Gone from £10 month, gone to £5 set, with optional extra donation recommended £20 and then on the donation part we can do gift aid.
  • Turn over: £32k → mostly goes into electricity etc…
  • Solar panels grant
  • Might try keep the existing building for certain things.
  • Buying new kit, consumables.
  • Always growing our tool library.

Swindon

  • Crampt
  • Rent is ~£1900pm
  • Look at other places sometimes, look good on paper but then tends to come with problem spaces?
  • Don’t pay for bathrooms right now as it’s provided by the building, so we don’t pay a cleaner or for that space.
  • Concerned we don’t have community to rebuild in a new space.
  • Negotiated a 3 year lease with defined max rent increases.
  • Didn’t change notice period.

SHH

  • Stable
  • Changed 3 years ago
  • Rented a remote above a music bar in Guildford, small room, went up to £800pcm
  • Searched for a space, rent the back half of a sea cadet boat shed.
  • 500sqft + the other half of their space when not used
  • Mostly open source, barring electronics room
  • Safety requirements - can’t have people in during the specific meetings they have
  • Loads of outdoor space.
  • No running water or toilets, apart from when the directors are onsite to open the main building
  • £450pcm

What do we want from HSF?

  • Insurance - knowledge sharing
  • Has money - not how best it could be utilised propping up the pace
  • Knowledge and training
  • What do they have in terms of assets:
    • Forum
    • Insurance brokers
    • John from Wessex
    • Sharing risk assessments
    • Do we have a google account for a folder of RA?
    • Grant applications using AI - £8,500 over the past 2 years.
  • Write and review a playbook
  • Find a chair
  • Lobbying
  • Put the names for all of them under HSF UK
    • Hacklab
    • Makerspace
  • Writing to MPs, working with local councils.
  • We need more cases £800k, UK space agency. / Good news storeys

Should we keep doing this?

  • Ongoing conversations is positive
  • Builds on the telegram so we know who’s who
  • Quarterly - too little
  • Attendance - if it’s low frequency, low attendance.
  • If we do it frequently we’ll get more people attending.
  • Agneda ideas:
    • Improve the directory
    • Moodle

Next meeting

Thursday 10th September 20:00-21:30

Theme: Becoming a charity status

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Khurram’s notes: 2026_08_06_HSF_Meeting - Google Docs

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I couldn’t make the meeting, but here’s a quick update from us:

Swansea Hackspace (35 members)

Private lease £5k/year. Fairly run down building, all renovations / decorating covered by hackspace funds and grant money.

Successful in getting two National Lottery grants in a row (Awards for All Wales). Just finished the most recent one, which we spent on renovating a room to be a wood and metalworking workshop.

We are running at a very small monthly deficit, but have enough cash in the bank that our short term future is stable. 5 year lease, renewed once already. Buying property is completely out of the question; we operate on a very low income.

What I’d personally like from the HSF:

  • paid legal advice about health and safety law in the context of hackspaces
  • anything to make insurance more obtainable long term
  • any form of marketing and advertising help

I’d rather the HSF focused on the bigger picture, rather than getting involved with finding individual spaces. Insurance comes up a lot, and that seems like a good place to start.

I’ll try and make the next meeting!

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