Membership

Membership Process

Six8 was not set up to be a serviced office. It is a community of small businesses that just happen to share a workspace. For this reason, membership of Six8 is by invitation/request, and we want to get to know our members before they join.

For people that we know well, the process could be as simple as a one or two hour meeting with other members of the space so that we can talk about our goals for the Six8 community and your goals as a member. We would plan to cover the following topics/questions:

• What factors appeal to you most about working in a coworking space?
• What is it specifically about Six8 that appeals to you?
• What two or three things do you think will be your biggest contributions to the Six8 community?
• How would you describe your own “business philosophy”, or your approach to business?
• In what ways do you hope to collaborate with other members of the Six8 community?
• What do you hope will be the biggest benefit to your business from working at Six8?
• What are you biggest apprehensions or concerns about working at Six8?
• What other questions would you like to ask other Six8 members (current or future) to make sure they are the right sort of people for you to work with?

This is not a one way process.  We would expect you to want to ask the same questions of us, as this initial process is about getting to know each other, not about us interviewing you.

For prospective members that we don’t know as well (eg. you came to us via a referral) we would still go through the same process, but may also suggest that you come and work with us for a month or so while we all see how it goes.

Membership and Pricing

The charge for a full time desk is $7,200 per annum plus GST, charged monthly in advance. There are no long term contracts and members are free to leave at any time and will receive a pro-rata refund of that month’s membership fee if they leave mid-month.  Similarly, if a member is paying for a desk and is not using it, or does not otherwise become an active part of the Six8 community, we may suggest that Six8 is not right for them.  Our goal is to find the right people for our community, not just to fill desks.

We have special rates for two or three day a week members, although we have a preference for full time members.  All current members pay for their desk full time, but generally only come in three or four days a week.  Two/three day members will be assigned a desk and are likely to be sharing with one other member (ie. one person will have it two days, and the other two or three days – which days are to be negotiated between those members).  This desk sharing means you will not be able to leave a monitor, or anything else, at your desk unless the two of you make plans between yourselves.

Many, if not most, coworking spaces have casual memberships, allowing people to drop in just a few days a month.  We have elected not to offer that type of membership because the administration involved would add another layer of costs onto our model, and that would have to be passed on through higher fees.  This may change in the future, but we currently have no plans to offer casual memberships.

All members are given a key and will be required to leave a deposit of $200.  All money from key deposits is put into our Kiva account.

What’s included?

While we hope that your first questions will always be about the community and who you will be working with rather than the facilities, we understand that it is important to understand what is included and what is not.

You obviously get a desk, and also a basic chair.  Many people like to have more than just an adequate office chair, however we elected not to invest a lot of capital in chairs (and have to charge higher rates) because people have different preferences – not everyone wants an Aeron!  So we provide a basic chair, but encourage members that want something a bit better to bring their own.  (For two/three day a week members that have to share a desk, bringing your own chair is not be possible).

Included in the membership is 24 hour access to the property, free WiFi, free printing, access to our intranet, and use of other things like our 3D TV and pinball (set to free play).  We also have two meeting rooms – a 10 seat boardroom and an 8 seat meeting room – which can be booked via our intranet for no charge.  The use of all facilities including internet, printer, meeting rooms and the pinball (particularly the pinball!) is subject to reasonable use.

We are also running regular social events, both for fun and business networking, and have plans for educational events/groups like a business book club and TED video sessions.  All of this is included for no cost other than a charge for food and drink as appropriate.

Current Availability of Desks

We have two anchor tenants that, combined, take up ten desks. Those anchor tenants provided the security we needed to purchase the property and make our vision happen, and we are very lucky to have them. However, large teams are typically not part of coworking spaces and will not be allowing any more businesses to take more than two desks each.

Under our current plans we have room for up to eight new full time members.