Keyholder Proposal Procedure

The member requesting a key asks a current keyholder to sponsor their application. The current keyholder should only agree to sponsor an application if they fully trust the member requesting the key.

The keyholder sponsoring the application posts the application to the Maker Space admin list. They should give some background to the applicant and why they feel they should be issued with a key.

A minimum of two extra keyholders need to second the application by replying to the original post. These members should only second an application if they fully trust the member requesting the key. Although not mandatory it is wise for the member requesting the key to ask two keyholders to do this in advance.

A Security Officer will be appointed for the proposal. This should be a board member and by default, this will be the Membership Officer. The Security Officer can and should recuse themselves if they are not seen as impartial. In this case another board member will take over the tasks of Security Officer relating to the application.

All members (including keyholder and non-keyholders) will be able to comment on the proposal for seven days. Any member can object publically on the list or in confidence by emailing the Security Officer.

If after seven days two or fewer objections have been raised and no objections are considered serious and pertinent to the application by the Security Officer, the application has been fast tracked. The applicant can be issued with a key after a keyholders induction and signing the keyholders agreement.

If after seven days three or more objections have been raised, or one or more objection that are considered by the Security Officer to be serious and pertinent to the application the application can not be fast tracked. The applicant will be informed of the issues raised by the Security Officer and given the chance to withdraw the application to give time to address these issues. Alternatively they can respond to the issues raised and ask the board to make a final decision at the next board meeting.

At the board meeting the Security Officer will summarise any issues raised. The applicant can respond to this in person or in writing.

The board can either:

• decide that issues raised are serious and need addressing before an application can be considered again
• decide that the issues are not serious or just invalid and the applicant can be issued with a key after a keyholders induction and signing the keyholders agreement
• decide that the proposal needs further review and can be postponed until a later meeting.

A member can re-apply after withdrawing or being rejected at any time if outstanding issues have been addressed.