[D-Space] Sponsorship

[Thomi Richards]

Hi Alex et al,


A few thoughts below:

On 11 December 2010 00:02, Alex King <alex at king.net.nz> wrote:
> The sponsor benefits:
>
>   * 1 personal membership for a person on their staff, with the same
>     rights other members.  I would be encouraging them to take this up
>     and for us to gain another active member that way.
>   * Sponsor events (at least one per year).  Wine and cheese, a
>     speaker, highlight a couple of successful makerspace events and
>     creations, and generally give thanks to the sponsors.
>   * Acknowledgement in publicity - press releases, a sponsors board in
>     the space, and on the website etc.
>   * Opportunities for them to promote themselves to our members - not
>     sure what form this would take, probably tailor to suit each sponsor
>

These sound great - and reasonably easy for us to provide. Many
companies might enjoy the chance to meet skilled people in the
community as a part of their recruitment drive, so the last point may
be more of a draw-card than it first appears.

>   * Tertiary (they may want to give their students practical
>     experience in another context/ mix and do exciting stuff with
>     industry/cool people, and advertise to our high school members)
>         o Polytech - IT course

I can bring this up with the powers that be once we all get back from
Holiday. Having said that, I will certainly encourage any of my third
year students to join up - I'll probably only persuade a few, but it's
worth a shot!
>
> There's 15+ off the top of my head.  I have no idea how easy or difficult a
> sell this proposition is, but if we could get something going we might get
> close to getting the rent paid.
>
> Thoughts?
>

What about personal sponsorship?

> Talking of which, it's probably not too early to start planning for the
> opening event.  It would be nice to make something decent of it.

I'm thinking.... booze served by robotic waiters.

>
> I'm thinking along the lines of February 25th, 6 weeks after we get into the
> space and around the time students are back in town.
>

Polytech term starts mid-feb (can check dates later), I believe Unit
starts a couple of weeks after us (I recall in the past it starting in
early March, but that was several years ago, and probably out of
date).


I suspect that a large component of our success or otherwise will rest
in our ability to forge meaningful relationships with the
organisations you listed above. It'd be great to have people visit
places like LPHS & Polytech and give an engaging talk / presentation
about why they should join. I can certainly arrange this for the
Polytech - just contact me off-list and we can sort something out.
Perhaps a demonstration of a 3D printer or the like would be a good
visual aid? :P

Cheers,