Honorarium and class fees

Education
#1

I have a question about classes charging a fee and requesting honorarium.

Prior discussions have said that charging a fee to cover the cost of materials used in the class is acceptable.

Lately, I am seeing classes with a fee and requesting honorarium, but no imaginable cost for materials.

Prior discussions were concerned about instructors double dipping; getting paid both a direct fee from students and DMS honorarium.

Honorarium auditors do not see whether $50 goes to the instructor or $100 to a committee.

It is also unclear where the money from the class fee goes. To the committee or the instructor? To muddy the water further, I tried submitting a test class with a fee and not requesting honorarium and the system let me, so the answer is clearly not always to a committee.

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Honorarium Auditor Rejected Class
#2

Take this with a grain of salt since I haven’t officially held my first class but this was my understanding…

From chair: request the honorarium. Getting three people to come is not a problem
From other members: put a fee on it ($5) or people won’t come but will sign up and take all the spots. Make it more than $5 if the chair says you need to because it’s an expensive class like a jewelry session…or if for various reasons you need to guarantee your personal expenses are covered

Anything with DMS as a fee goes to the committee hosting to fix whatever materials are bought. If it’s through eventbrite I get the money (I doubt Vetric will be paying DMS the big cash they’re getting for the CNC sessions) I was never aware the committee got $100 if the honorarium was seeded to them.

#3

I should also add it’s not even clear what DMS preference is…examples of successful classes that have high demand, peak times when people want them etc. Does membership prefer a free class that isn’t as intensive or a long paid session like the upcoming paint and sip night? If I don’t have the required number of students am I behaving unexcellently to cancel it so I can do something else that would be more popular?

#4

It is my understanding that:

  1. class fees paid through DMS go to the designated committee.
  2. class fees paid through evenbrite or any other venue than DMS are paid to (who knows? it depends on who is the designee on those systems)
  3. Honorariums, if requested, are honored only in the event that fees are paid through DMS, and are paid $50 to the designated committee and $50 to the instructor, unless the instructor waives, and then all $100 goes to the committee.
  4. The honorarium auditors are to reject honorarium requests for “classes” that are really events, or which stipulate external fees.
  5. Finance folks are watching for attendance (hopefully fully automated within the calendaring system ) of 3 before honorariums are processed/paid.

To address what I understand to be Bill’s question, I do not know what justification needs to be made for requesting fees for a course, but since the $ goes to the committee, I’d think those would be fairly self-regulating: don’t feel the course was worth the “donation” to the committee, tell your friends NOT to take it…
Good question, though. IF an honorarium is NOT requested, but a DMS paid fee is, where does that money go? To the committee, obviously, but are we just guessing which committee gets it, since no committee is designated in the process? @Team_Finance I should think best equipped to respond on that…

#5

You likely see some classes like that from Machine shop, for HAAS training. This is an example where the fees go to the committee and pay for things like machine repairs and maintenance, cutter purchase, etc. This is disclosed in the class. I know this is similar to the way that MultiCam is “charged” also.

Any honorarium would be independent of those fees, and since the fees are going to the committee for maintenance, IMO it would be reasonable to also pay an honorarium. Not double dipping, by my definition.

#6

The honorarium and fees are independent if the fees are for materials.

Walter and I tried to come up with a posted list of honorarium rules but the pushback was pretty severe.

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#7

The $5 fee actually started when there was really high demand for the Wood Shop Intro. These were small classes limited to 5 people. They were free. People started signing up for 3 or 4 classes figuring they’d decide later.

That prevented people from signing up because class listed as full. Then the classes the person didn’t show up to weren’t full. The $5 fee basically stopped this - unless you wanted to pay $5 as an option.

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#8

I am very interested in this, since I intend to submit
some classes next week and they would have a small
supply fee, $5-$10 max depending on the class, The fee
is for material not currently stocked by Jewelry,( copper
sheet, copper wire, titanium earwires) They are things I have in stock

Now I could price then, charge jewelry, and get compensated or
I could charge a material fee, payable to me, The later is easier, the
first has the most control of the fees and yes, I will be requesting the
$50 honorarium and the same for the jewelry committee,
I just need to know first

#9

To make it easier… Why not only allow a “materials fee” when requesting honorarium, then make sure that the attendees have the opportunity to walk away with something in their hands.

  • Current Working Example:
    I set a $5 materials fee for the Dye Sub 101 class. Members walk away with a $5 packet of dye sub paper.

  • Possible Example for Woodshop Basics:
    Set a $5 materials fee. Members walk away with $5 “worth” of (Sand paper? Coupon for ?? Etc…).

That way there is no question. Any fees collected via the Events Calendar that are “internal” go directly to the applicable committee. The only money that an instructor would get internally via the calendar system would be honorarium. Any fees collected externally that are not intended for the committee (either via something like Eventbrite and/or via in person optional sales) would be listed clearly in the description.


edit for clarification
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#10

I’m sure I’m wrong. Just telling what info is presented to us noobs. The laser class I just took had only two show. I felt bad for the teacher. I did submit my next class as free.

#11

Depending on the nature of your class, you may or may not benefit from placing a limit on the number. No limit, no shows do not exclude anyone.

When I taught my Inkscape/GIMP class, I had nearly 20 registered at one point. Come class day, some had cancelled to make that number 16. There were some no shows and some walk ins. I made my three by a huge margin. It was lecture and demo format in the Lecture Hal, so there was no need for a low limit. Because I encouraged people to bring their computers and follow along, I had to move some tables into the room and that was the only time I wish I had set a limit, but it still would have been high, like 15 or 20.

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#12

Yes!

I do not care, but some of the auditors take a dim view of those who cancel classes because they do not have three or more registered, especially if one or two had.

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#13

I would have preferred a system in which classes were free with an option to pay a nominal fee to get a reserved seat. That approach is tougher to implement which may be why it was not done that way.

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#14

My understanding of the current acceptable practices:

  1. We don’t limit fee amounts, but clearly expensive classes are unlikely to draw many people.
  2. Fees collected though the DMS system are forwarded to Committees as revenue.
  3. Fees collected outside the DMS system, go to the individual instructor, who is then responsible for paying taxes on them. (Personally, I oppose this, as DMS pays the cost of the space, tools, maintenance, etc, and the instructor profits personally (enurement) while DMS pays for the equipment, and its maintenance and is not left whole).
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#15

As an instructor, I’d like to figure out a way to deal with people who sign up but repeatedly don’t show up. For classes with very small attendance limits this is particularly unnerving.

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#16

Teaching a 100 dollar per person workshop on a 50,000 dollar piece of equipment, for example, would be a lot like borrowing your parent’s BMW to drive for Uber. Sure, you might get to use it for free whenever you want, but without at least reimbursing them for the wear and tear, they’re basically contributing to your paycheck.

Maybe an equitable equipment usage fee (for perhaps students who are non-members) would offset this enurement issue.

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#17

Or a pair of safety glasses and/or N-95 particle mask.

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#18

I’ll point out, that class fees collected by DMS go into the committee budget, which in turn, goes directly back to the folks using the shop in the form of sharp blades, various consumable supplies, replacements, repairs, and even the occasional new tool. So students paying these nominal fees are in fact keeping the shop going, and focusing the revenue/expense of the shop, on those who use it, rather than the whole space.

For example, the Woodshop receives a stipend of $1200 per month from the Board. The annualized monthly woodshop expenses, have been running closer to $4200. The difference, is mostly made up with honorariums and class fees.

Revenue wise,the stipend works out to 24 members worth of dues per month. How many people joined DMS to get access to the Woodshop? Use the woodshop heavily? I can tell you from teaching a gajillion Woodshop Basics classes, that the number is easily in the hundreds.

Other than giving a huge shout out to my friends in the Woodshop, the point is, that it’s completely possible for a committee to be a net profit on DMS’ balance sheet. Without even looking at the books, I can tell you that CA is a net profit shop, and that the Machine Shop, if not already there, is probably getting close. All of them, are building popular shops we can all be proud of, simply by teaching lots of classes (some with minimal class fees). All three have actual committees with shared responsibility as well. Are there others?

So if the question is equity, then yes, class fees can be equitable, so long as they help pay the freight. On the other hand, class fees which enrich individual members, while using tools and/or supplies financed by DMS, are most assuredly not equitable.

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#19

I would not mind seeing higher fees that are non-refundable for no-shows. Most classes outside of DMS are incredibly expensive - check out Craft Guild for example. I don’t know if you can have different fees for the unemployed and student accounts. But I have a job and don’t mind paying while unemployed and student accounts take classes for free. As someone who sometimes has to cancel due to kids, I also like non-refundable fees so I don’t have to feel so horrible when I can’t attend.

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#20

A person’s motivation for teaching here, in my opinion, should harbor a sense of community and self actualization.

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