Membership – Hand Eye Test

I love the Toronto game scene and/or what you guys do but I don’t live in Toronto. Can I become a member?

Chris White — Wed, 06 Jul 2022 23:08:15 +0000

You can! International pals welcome. Any other questions? Please email us!

What’s the difference between being a paid member and a volunteer member?

Chris White — Wed, 06 Jul 2022 23:06:16 +0000

Not much; the perks are basically the same, although Annual Members get a free t-shirt when they sign up. The only difference is the way people choose to help support the organization, either with time or money (or both). These two contributions are very valuable to the running of our daily operations, so huge shout out to our members!

Don’t you get support from arts councils and other public funders?

Chris White — Wed, 06 Jul 2022 23:05:52 +0000

Yes, we do, and we make a small amount of money go a long way! But public funding is always vulnerable to political changes, and there is a limit to the kinds of things the arts councils are able to fund. To continue the work we do, we need to be bringing in a mix of income streams to keep the organization viable. Having additional support from a variety of sources allows us to have a greater flexibility in the kinds of things we program and the number of people we’re able to pay. (Incidentally, all of our revenue and expense information is accessible to our membership during our Annual General Meeting.)

What will my membership dues go towards?

Chris White — Wed, 06 Jul 2022 23:05:32 +0000

The vast majority of our budget goes towards paying people to run programs (WordPlay, Game Curious, one-off events, etc). While no one is full time or salaried, coordinators are paid an hourly wage. We also think it’s important to be able to pay guest speakers, presenters, mentors and artists when they contribute to videogame culture, so the more money we have coming in, the more interesting and diverse content we’re able to put out. We have a long wish-list of initiatives we’d like to get off the ground, but the reality is that we sometimes have to wait for the right financial opportunities.