Terms of Service

A. Community Guidelines B. COVID Rules C. What’s Included D. Terms of Service E. Rates (see the rates page).

A. Community Guidelines

The following applies to the entire Collective Agency community. It is a simple statement of the expectations within which we all work. Please read it with care.

  • Every society has rules of conduct by which the members of the society agree to abide.
  • Collective Agency is a society of creative persons who inhabit a common space.
  • In Collective Agency, individuals are prized for their individuality, but no individual has the right to inflict harm upon others or to destroy or lessen that which should be available to all.

To these ends, the following apply, in the physical workspace and, as applicable, online:

1. OWN responsibility for your actions.
2. HOLD each other accountable.
3. BE an active participant in your membership.
4. IF needed, confront with respect (how you’d like to be confronted).
5. HAVE a considerate level of voice (and language). Place cellphones on vibrate.
6. CLEAN up after yourself.
7. HELP to keep common areas tidy.
8. BE mindful of valuables; yours and others.
9. WHEN informally meeting in common areas, be considerate of other members. Book a meeting room if in doubt.

B. Health/COVID Rules (last updated December 21, 2022)

1. Decide not to come to Collective Agency premises or outdoor events if you think you might be contagiously sick, even with any cold or flu:  don’t come until cough/sneezing/flu symptoms are gone, unless it’s diagnosed as COVID-19, in which case:

     a) get confirmed by a doctor screening again that it is no longer contagious before you come in, or

b) do two rapid tests that you think are reliably done, 48 hours apart, with no new symptoms or positive tests around that time, where you’re sure the test is 100% negative, not even a very faint line. [Collective Agency isn’t judging tests; ask a doctor if you aren’t sure.]

2. If you have any other kind of non-cold cough, sneeze, etc, fully cover your mouth/nose each time with a tissue or into your elbow/arm just in case, even if you’re fully vaxxed and/or even if you’re wearing a mask.

3. Confirmation of being fully vaxxed is required before entering the suite for members, guests, and tours. [Contact Alex to get the link to fill out the confirmation form if you are or will be a member, or you can send a photo of your vax id card if you’re a guest or tour. Wait for confirmation within 1 business day.] Exceptions:

  • Access to the conference rooms and common areas that don’t require entering the suite are available for guests regardless of vax status.
  • Everyone six months of age and older is now eligible to be fully vaccinated for covid. Kids under that age can come in unmasked for up to 15 minutes daily.

4. If you’ll have guests, make sure they’re aware of and within all these terms before they meet you. Check with Alex that there’ll be room in advance if you’re not sure. Every item here also applies to guests.

5. Wipe down the desk at the end of the day, so it’s clean for the next person. There’s paper towels with water, or unscented babywipes or Clorox wipes.

6. Don’t accept mail or packages for other suites in the building for any reason.

C. What’s Included

All membership options include:

Access to the Collective Agency workplace at 511 SW 10th Avenue, Suite 1108, Portland, Oregon 97205, that’s very open and spacious yet cozy-serene-productive-relaxed feeling with lots of natural light:

  • 24/7 access during your days here each month.
  • Community:
    • Have conversations and become friends over time. Eating lunch and talking together most days is common. In the main work area there’s usually people talking for between 15 minutes and 3 hours per day.
    • Option to participate in or organize any community activities.
    • Conversations are great in the main areas, the kitchen, and the lounges. Classical, ambient, jazz or other instrumental music without words can play during the workday; usually there’s no music.
  • Many large shared computer monitors.
  • Three hours maximum per day in conference and phone rooms, common areas outside our main suites, and/or having guests.
  • Three guest day-passes per month.
  • Bicycle parking indoors. Showers.
  • One of the fastest internet connections in Portland.
  • Unlimited coffee, tea, bubbly water and hot chocolate.

Membership also includes:

  • A locker for storage.
  • A mailing address (directly to your name at:  511 SW 10th Ave, Suite 1108, Portland, Oregon 97205.
  • A free gym for members is located 4 short blocks away.

Membership with a reserved desk also includes:

  • A reserved desk and chair, and the ability to set up permanent equipment just for you. (Marked with a “Reserved desk for:” sign.)

Other Amenities:

  • A big loft room where everyone works most of the time
  • Community coworking and member events, plus Slack for messaging
  • Lots of natural light from big windows with street views, and all-LED lights
  • Fast and reliable internet access (wifi and ethernet available, 40-150MB down, 30MB up per computer)
  • Conference rooms and phone rooms, up to 3 hours included every day
  • Many 24-inch computer monitors, raise-lower desks, sofas, along with office supplies, cables and adapters
  • Heat and air conditioning, bicycle parking, kitchenettes, ADA access, Herman Miller chairs, plants, art…

And…

  • Gender-inclusive restrooms
  • Printing, scanning, faxing and copying
  • Projectors and screens, whiteboards, flipcharts, markers, easels
  • Potluck/community-style food by/for members

D. Terms of Service.

Contents:

Intro.

A. Before you start membership: 1. Hours 2. Basics 3. Day Trial 4. Payments

B. Phone calls, meetings, and guests: 5. Conference and phone rooms and other common areas 6. Phone calls 7. Guests 8. –

C. More on payments and rates: 9. Membership Payments — Fine Print 10. Rates

D. Location-specific: 11. – 12. Norms 13. –

E. Terms of Service-y: 14. Liability 15. General

Intro: Collective Agency membership legally is a license agreement including the community and shared office space benefits described on this page, and the community includes the online messaging and outdoor and indoor events.

1. Hours:

  1. Members have 24/7 access with door codes and keys.
  2. Regular business hours (when Collective Agency is staffed) are Mondays through Fridays, 9am to 5pm.

2. Basics:

  1. Each member must have a separate residence where they sleep.
  2. Membership or day trials are not open to people who think it’s very unlikely before signing up that they will be members at least 5 months total even if they like it (and even if COVID continues being a big deal longer than that). If you’re not sure, that’s totally fine and we’d like you to sign up.
  3. Tours are for: people considering membership, and press/journalists.
  4. Everyone here acknowledges the Community Guidelines are the core of these terms of service.
  5. Companies may have up to 20 members at a time.
  6. It’s 1 person per membership.
  7. Entry codes, security codes, keys, may not be shared with non-members for any reason.
  8. There’s always room for all members.

3. Day trials (still paused due to covid):

  1. Schedule a tour or day trial before you arrive.
  2. A day trial is once per person, and only if you’re considering becoming a member.
  3. Pay to reserve via the Rates page.
  4. The day trial doesn’t include having: guests, locker storage, or mail/package delivery.
  5. The day trial is for one calendar day, between 9am and 5pm. There’s a sign on the wall when you arrive. It says to call (503) 915-4769.

4. Payment:

  1. Payment is required to reserve.
  2. Your card is charged:  Monthly: first and last* month to start (and you’ll be emailed a receipt), and starting the next month your card is charged monthly on the same date each month (send an email if you’d like to get automated email receipts each month).
  3. *If at some point you wish to cancel your membership then email at least the day before your next billing cycle, and then your last month will happen. For billing questions or requests, email Alex at info@CollectiveAgency.co
  4. On the last day of membership or before, mail delivery, mailing address, and locker storage must be ended, along with any in-person access in ways that’s for members, and any keys must be returned.
  5. If lost or late, there’s a $50 fee for the key or set of keys.
  6. The rate you sign up at is the rate you keep, as long as you’re a member. Rates stay the same for current members forever (including the option to switch between all the types of membership rates based on availability).

5. Conference and phone rooms and other common areas.

  1. Collective Agency has a main suite. We also have “common areas” which include:
    • 3 conference and phone rooms in the suite,
    • 2 large conference rooms on different floors outside the suite,
    • Showers,
    • A gym (see section 13 of the terms below),
    • Additional seating areas in the building outside of our and other tenants’ suites.
  2. If you’re in common areas for more than 3 hours in a day, it’s your responsibility to self-track and pay $55 per hour for the extra time, rounded up to the nearest half-hour. Why: community vibes.
  3. You can reserve the conference room outside our suite: at least a minute in advance, or walk in if available. If you walk in without reserving, you might need to leave if someone else schedules the room while you’re in there, so it’s best to either schedule before, or to schedule after you walk in starting 15 minutes out.
    • Schedule your meeting for the most time you might need, so it ends up being the same or less than the amount of time you reserve for.
    • To view the calendar and reserve: the calendar for the two large conference rooms outside the suite is:
    • 1. Login:
      • https://app.buildingengines.com/
      • Username: alinsker
      • Password: email westend@collectiveagency.co to ask for the password, or look it up in the “member info” pdf. 2. Then click “Resource Schedule” in the top left of the screen. The calendar will appear. Click “Create Reservation” in the top right of the screen. Once you book the reservation in the calendar, it’s guaranteed – no confirmation email will be sent.
      • Select resource: “Conference Room” (West End choose the room that is *not* 605)
      • Event name: your name or initials.
      • Event type: “Single”, or you can reserve multiple dates under “Multiple”.
      • Click “Save”. Then check the calendar to make sure your event was added.
      • You can move your reservation by clicking on it then changing the date and start and end time.
      • To reserve evenings 6pm-6am or if the calendar shows availability but won’t reserve, email Alex. Email Alex with any questions, notes, requests, to see how to set up equipment in the conference room, or to cancel the reservation.
  • For all other conference and phone rooms, reservations are via the app (info is under the tablets) – you can email to check availability and reserve remotely or for recurring meetings, or use the tablets in person yourself.

6. Phone calls.

Be considerate and aware of phone call volume as top priority for other tenants and for members. Check out the Community Guidelines. Ask Alex if you have questions.

You can make calls in these areas only:

  1. Medium conversational volume:
    • Conference and phone rooms (all have ethernet and wifi).
  2. Loud conversational volume: the large conference rooms on floors outside our suite (but not loud enough that it would bother neighboring tenants through the walls! we’ve never received complaints)
  3. Super-quiet calls only, can be done at desks: if it’s loud enough for any words to be heard clearly at the nearest desk, it’s not super-quiet.

If someone’s talking too loud, writing on a piece of paper and showing them is great, “Could you take the call in the phone or conference rooms? We don’t do calls that aren’t super-quiet in the main suite.” Then they can say “Hold on” to the person on the call and walk to a good area.

7. Guests.

  1. Conversations are great in our suite if they are in normal voices, indoor voices/office voices, not loud or emoting. 15 minutes to 3 hours per day of people talking total is common.
  2. Any member can fill up any conference room with guests.
  3. Reservations for meetings with guests are recommended in order to guarantee conference room availability and have conference rooms clean and ready for arrivals.
  4. The member who is hosting the meeting is required to arrive at Collective Agency at least 15 minutes before their first guest is expected (so that people aren’t waiting outside).
  5. Members have the option of using all or some of their conference/phone room/common area time to host guests in our suite, if appropriate.
  6. Guests here for meetings have to stay within the same room or nearby area (except for restrooms/kitchenette). Guests here on a guest day pass can work in separate areas within the same building from the member hosting them.
  7. A guest here for a meeting can’t be at Collective Agency more than 3 hours total that day (unless they are a member or here on a member’s guest day pass).
  8. The member hosting the guest needs to be here the whole time that the guest is here – as an example: if you leave at 130pm, the guest needs to leave before you or with you at 130pm.
  9. Guests are the responsibility of the member who invited them, and are also responsible for themselves.

8. –

9. Membership payments – details on pausing and yearly prepaid membership switching and refunds:

  1. There is no pause option on license agreements for specific private offices or on any affiliated memberships with those private offices.
  2. To pause membership otherwise:
    1. A member may give at least one day’s notice, and get a membership credit equal to the pre-paid membership amount for future access (re-starting membership) at a date of their choice.
    2. A member may not pause membership sooner than once every two months after the most recent pause was started, and unpausing is for at least a full month or the remainder of their credit, whichever is less.
    3. A month-to-month payment must be used within 12 months of its being paused. A yearly prepaid payment must be used within 24 months of the start date.
    4. Before pausing the membership, all access to member benefits must be returned: the Coworking Visa, mail delivery, mailing address, locker storage, key fob, or any in-person access in ways that’s for members.
    5. A member who pauses or cancels membership, then rejoins, will rejoin at the current rate for all months that weren’t already paid for.
  3. If there’s a waitlist for a reserved desk, a member with a reserved desk will lose the reserved desk if they pause membership, and will be added to the reserved desk waitlist.
  4. A person or company with 12 months or more prepaid membership may switch out the person who has the membership for a new person, provided there is at least 5 business days notice to Collective Agency staff, and not more often than once every 90 days per membership. The key has to be returned to Collective Agency staff, who will give it to the new person.

10. Rates:

  1. There are no individual discounts, credits, reduced rates, or extensions on cancellations outside what is in the terms of service; everybody is treated equally under the rules. The only exceptions are: the Coworking Visa and open houses, both of which are rare (and not happening during COVID).
  2. The rates include everything except for these:
    • Printing at-cost if more than $8 per person per month (black-and-white text is 8 cents per page, full-color pages of photos are $3 per page). This is the responsibility of the member to self-track and pay. Payments can be made at https://CollectiveAgency.co/contribution/
    • Additional common area time above what’s included, as per section 5. This is the responsibility of the member to self-track and pay.
    • Keys must be returned on or by the last day or there is a $50 late fee per set of keys.
    • Each extra locker is $70 per month.

11. –

12. Norms:

  1. If anyone wants any or all of these while they’re in the suite, this is what happens for each thing they want:
    1. Ceiling lights on
    2. Doors and/or windows closed
    3. Music on between 9am and 5pm, within the limits written up.
    4. In-person conversation in normal indoor voices or quieter, not loud or emoting, as long as the conversation is within the Community Guidelines and the other terms. The effective temperature after windchill in the main room is always kept between 74.0 and 76.0 (76.9 degrees if necessary), regardless of what anyone in the space wants at that moment. If you want a cooler temperature, various areas of the rooms are slightly warmer or cooler, and the many mini- and medium-sized fans are a surprisingly effective way to cool down without affecting other members.
  2. One desk and one chair, and up to two shared monitors in the main suite per person here at a time.
    1. If there might be limited availability, please take your items with you when you leave the main room for awhile.
    2. Clear your items away when you leave for the end of the day and wipe down the desk, unless you have a reserved desk.
  3. Other norms are either written up elsewhere in these terms, in the “Membership Info” email, in the suite, or are via the Community Guidelines, Governance Guidelines, and Governance Process, which are posted on the wall.

13. Gym:

Gym access is for members who are: currently paying Collective Agency for membership, who ‘very likely’ or ‘definitely’ ‘very much want’ access. There’s availability. Full information and photos available upon request.

14. Liability:

  1. There is no liability for lost, damaged, or stolen equipment, unless that person stole or intentionally damaged the equipment.
  2. There is trip and fall, and building insurance, for the building.
  3. There is a liability waiver: as a person who may occupy the premises, you agree at your own risk to indemnify Collective Agency against all claims for any lawful guest to the premises who shall have entered onto the premises for the purpose of lawfully visiting you or who shall enter onto the premises with your permission. You agree that Collective Agency shall not be liable for any personal injury, damage, loss or inconvenience howsoever or wheresoever caused to any person, any company, or any property brought in by any person upon the premises.
  4. Collective Agency and its owner have no liability if someone gets COVID or any other virus; its insurance doesn’t cover that.
  5. Trespass/mail fraud/etc: Big penalties if a non-member uses Collective Agency services without an agreement (being a guest invited by a member, on a scheduled tour, having a prepaid meeting rental, or entering into a prepaid member agreement):
    1. Any party (individual, entity, registered agent, and/or other) who without an agreement for the time period of use, who uses or has used any Collective Agency service provided to members (services listed above in the Terms), such as: use of the address as one’s own for any reason, access to the space (unless as a guest), etc, for any reason whether personal or business, will owe:
      1. $1,500 or the regular member rate, whichever is more expensive, plus
      2. 100% penalty of (1) above, plus
      3. all legal and/or enforcement fees at a minimum cost of $100 per hour to enforce, plus
      4. any likely damages for a 5 year period following directly, indirectly, and/or inducedly from the violation and any actions while in use, to: the physical space, community, revenue, or other expenses.
    2. If multiple parties are involved in the violation, all will be fully liable.
    3. The trial jurisdiction will be Multnomah County, Oregon.
    4. If a law limits or prevents any part of this subsection 14.5, all applicable parts and penalties will still apply.
    5. The violation needs to stop instantly. Collective Agency’s business owner will have the right to decide whether or not to allow any of the parties involved to legitimately pay for services in the future.

15. General:

  1. Collective Agency is the trade name of the location and the name of the business, with these Terms of Service. Alex Linsker is the business owner.
  2. Violation of the Terms of Service, especially violation of the Community Guidelines, may result in termination of membership as determined by Alex Linsker.
  3. The maximum amount of money owed for any reason by Collective Agency to a person or company shall be the amount paid them for services in that month by that person or company.
  4. The Community Guidelines and other terms of service or policies may change in the future as per the governance process, which is posted on the wall at the location.