Building a Rental Business at the Santa Cruz Center

Many Subud California centers have created enterprises through the rental of their space, a process that develops and changes over time. Here is the engaging story of the evolution of the rental enterprise at the Santa Cruz Cente

by Rachmat Martin

The group has learned a great deal about what kind of outside groups and events are compatible with our space and our personal preferences. Over several years, beginning in the late 1980s, and after some trials and errors, we dialed in on how best to accomplish the goal of increasing the income of the center. This experience has turned out to be a marvelous process of discovering and learning about a greater role of Subud in this community. The extension of our Center into the local community and beyond as a rental space exists as an evolutionary outcome of the historical use of the center by the Subud group in tandem with the needs of the local community.

In the 1970s, the Santa Cruz Center was a vibrant center made up of many enthusiastic young families such as the Martin’s, Bean’s, Fletcher’s, Van Tyle’s, Troxell’s, Horst’s, Goonetilleke’s, and Kelly’s. These growing families’ primary outside activity was spending uncountable hours at the new Center. Many, many months of week-end work parties transformed the old school building into a Subud home. The group grew to have about 125 members by about 1980 with at least 75 of these reasonably active. Around this time, the group took on the expenditure and labor of adding significant new space to the south hall to accommodate the large attendance at latihan of both men and women. Little did we know that this enlarged hall would later meet the size requirements of many grateful workshop leaders.

By the late 1980’s, the nature of the group had noticeably changed. The former young children of the 1970’s were now teenagers and the parents were busy attending to them as well as in some cases starting or running businesses to support large families. Some members had to move out of the area to find work. The social use of the center by its members gradually declined. By 1987, it became clear that our zenith had passed along with our founder.

We had been, for many years, the largest contributing group of members to the Region, for a short time exceeding even the much larger Los Angeles group. As income from local member contributions decreased, we wondered how to keep up our support of the Region. In the early 1990’s, some of us began to consider generating more income for Subud by renting the center to outside users.

This was not an entirely harmonious process as there were some members who felt strongly that the space should be used only for latihan and that others who did not live their life with the grace of the latihan would negatively influence our space energetically. We also made some mistakes by allowing a couple of “Rave” events and a few wild weddings, creating angst with our closest neighbors and also our own membership. We found trash on the property, dents in the walls, stains on the carpets, not to mention the disturbance to the otherwise peaceful atmosphere. Apparently, we had to learn the hard way!

We’ve had to attend to the inevitable problems of maintaining an old building, and we’ve sometimes had to call upon the CA Region for monetary help. In the late nineties, we realized that the old school light fixtures had to go. We replaced them with Italian-style hanging lamps that contributed a look of elegance that the halls deserved. Some of our members pitched in by purchasing a few of these.

Perhaps a decade later, our regular renters began complaining about the noisy heaters. And, more seriously, our roof was sagging. Further examination showed that the roofs over both halls were in danger of collapsing! So we cordoned off first the south hall and then the north hall and, after negotiations with the CA Region for the funds, we launched into the roof repair project. At the same time, we replaced the old industrial-type heaters with high efficiency, multi-stage, quiet, central heating systems.

Now, looking forward, we see three improvements that will be needed. Both halls still have the original windows, now antiques. New double-paned windows would cut down on energy usage and provide good sound-proofing from traffic on the nearby road. The parking lot is in need of resurfacing as well. And thirdly, because the building’s roof is well-positioned for maximizing the use of the sun, solar panels make sense. After eight years or so, the savings in electrical bills would be realized and thereafter might provide income by selling energy back to the grid.

It seems that owning a home is synonymous with a pretty steady stream of updates and improvements. But we feel we’ve been rewarded by the fact that many groups are attracted to our space. We have an eclectic blend of groups using our center, including yoga, breath-work, continuum movement, cranial-sacral classes, psychodrama, men’s and women’s circles, spiritual teaching sessions, the Mankind Project, Brazilian singers, tango dancers, African drumming, and others.

We noticed that if we keep the space very clean, orderly, and free of clutter as well as with a visually pleasing blend of flowers inside and outside, a well-cared-for landscape, and an off-street, safe and secure parking area for up to 60 cars, we had a winning formula. In the last several years, we have received calls from out of the area, out of state, and even Canada from group leaders looking to come to the Santa Cruz area. They had heard from the spiritual grapevine or from our website (http://www.subudcenterrental.com) that we had a place for groups wishing to hold their event in a quiet, country setting that included a consciously maintained sacred space.

Gradually, the virtues of the Santa Cruz Center have made it a well-regarded, semi-rural place for holding meetings, classes, and workshops. We have been in business long enough that word-of-mouth is our best advertising. We already know what kinds of groups like our space, and plan to continue with what works.

So now, with close attention paid to both our regular and new renters by our current rental co-coordinators, Ralph Davila and Rachmat Martin, plus a good rental website, the Center does a pretty good job of selling itself. Word has gotten out!

NOTE: this rental overview was first prepared in 2012 and is now updated for the Subud CA Blog.

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