Wanted to come to this meeting, but I realise now that I’ve got a clashing appointment.
Here’s what I wanted to say in short:
New gear storage is extremely important. It’s hard to get across just how big a deal it is to store all that gear at a private house. I stored about half that amount for several years. Unlike Mike I didn’t have to put up with such frequent pick ups and drop offs, but it was still one of the hardest aspects of my time running Mordavia. Mike’s made an enormous and hugely undervalued contribution to the society doing the storage, all kudos to him.
Mike has declined the delightful opportunity to store gear for another year, so getting storage right should be at the top of NZLARPS’ priority list. It’s time to move to a sustainable approach. Unless someone has available a free large lockable space to store gear, where projects can pick up and drop off equipment at any time, we need to pay for storage. I understand that Mike and/or Scotty have hunted down a place where we can store gear in a shipping container for one or two grand a year. This is extremely good value for money, and a sustainable ongoing approach. Ideally the trailor would be stored at the same place, although I don’t know if this is possible.
The cost of storage can be paid for by amounts budgetted into the events that use the gear. If some belt-tighting can be done on society use of membership fees, those could help contribute too.
It’s not that we need to be “professional” about everything. It’s just that when operations get to a certain size, using private houses becomes a nightmare. Our free storage for all these years has been a pleasant aberration. I don’t think it can go on.
For the above reasons I propose a motion that NZLARPS seeks out and budgets for professional storage for all its gear (including room to grow), ready to take over when Mike finishes doing the storage.
EDIT: I haven’t read the constituton recently, but I seem to recall that society members can make motions even though only committee members can vote on them. Could be wrong, in which case perhaps some folk on the committee may wish to make the motion or something similar.