Membership benefits for 2026

We are happy to announce the official benefits you can get in 2026 by joining us as member of the cooperative. They have been approved by the board of directors (hallitus) of Majavan tila osk on 2025-11-13.

Benefits for participant members

The benefits for a participant member (osallistujajäsen) in 2026 include:

• access to the space during public opening hours (if any) and usage of designated shared areas;
• storage of up to 0,5 m³ of objects in a space designated for members storage;
• usage of the mailbox to receive snail mail and fetch it self-service (by request).

Access

Concretely, access means the ability to use our spaces for purposes compatible with the cooperative’s purposes, on equal terms with every other member of the cooperative, while respecting the uses by other participants in the spaces (such as people and associations who rented part of our space).

The available spaces vary from time to time depending on which spaces have been reserved for specific purposes (most notably by being rented out); they include for example the kitchen. Access does not mean the right to demand that someone open the space for you, as we are all volunteers and we don’t have regular opening hours.

Storage

As for storage, this is currently our main service and the most plentiful. As a member you are free to use any of the storage areas designated for usage by members, equally with others, as long as there is space and tentatively within a limit of about 0,5 m³ per person (equivalent to about 2 standard bike boxes). If you are unsure which spaces you can use, ask. Generally speaking, we have: several big shelves (pictured below), one of which is currently used for this purpose; two cupboards; many smaller open shelves. Depending on demand, we can consider additional storage facilities such as hooks to hang bikes or locked cupboards for slightly valuable/private objects.

As members increase, the storage space available for each member will keep decreasing. However, as of this writing there’s plenty and we’re nowhere near running out. We can start worrying about this when we have about 100 members.

Mailbox

As for the mailbox, we have a very simple and standard Stala PL 3 which can fit normal envelopes and small packets. The mailbox has been in use only for a few months (since our doors were renewed) but we have successfully received some mail to it. Opening the lock requires an abloy key which is currently provided only to 2 board members and 2 individuals representing our tenants.

Our mailbox is a suitable option when you need an official address to receive mail, when you are required to have one and publish it on the internet but you do not want your home address to be public. A typical example is when you are a freelancer and you have a toiminimi (sole proprietorship) or other business whose address gets published in YTJ and PRH (the trade register). Another possible use is for registering an internet domain name with certain TLDs which require a physical address but don’t provide privacy options to hide it from public records.

Alternatives on the market include a P.O. box aka Postilokero by Posti, which costs about 500 €/year, or various services which offer digital delivery of the mail received on your behalf (starting usually at 100 €/year but easily more expensive if you receive many pages in mail). For comparison, membership in our cooperative doesn’t cost anything after the initial purchase of a minimum of 1 share for 500 € (which is an asset rather than expense, as you can ask it back if you quit the cooperative).

Once you agree with us on the use of our mailbox for your mail, you will be able to receive mail at an address like

F.L. c/o Majavan tila osk

Kauppalantie 22, var 1

FI-00320 Helsinki

Finland

You will be able to access the mailbox whenever you want during opening hours, or (if so agreed) to occasionally fetch your mail in person from one of our participant members wherever they are.

Our mailbox is locked so it’s safer than the average mailbox you’d see on the Finnish countryside, but still it’s a shared mailbox, so it won’t be suitable to receive extremely private or sensitive information. As a freelancer, for example, you would probably want to use the mailbox for official public mail but still use your home address for your bank account.

Benefits for producer members

The benefits for a producer member (tuottajajäsen) include all the above plus the possibility of having all the keys to the space as needed to provide our services (by agreement with the board).

To be honest we have not been thinking about benefits for the producer members at all, as all 3 current producer members were also cofounders and are in this for the long run without any expectation of short-term benefits. Join us as producer member to make this change!

Benefits for supporters

The holders of supporting shares are not necessarily members (though all the current ones are) and they don’t get any extra benefits as members. Their rights are defined in the bylaws (7§, “Kannattajaosuuksilla on” etc.).

Background

We’re currently just 6 members, of which 4 founders and 1 new member who joined us in 2025. The new joiner inspired us to clarify our member benefits.

As a cooperative, we believe in mutual aid among members who support each other. In simplified economic terms, our members and shareholders join resources to provide benefits/services to each other. Our members can only be individual persons and not legal persons.

So far, Majavan tila osk has mostly existed to benefit a non-member, Helsingin Pyöräpaja ry, most members/participants of which are not members: this is acceptable, as our bylaws allow for it and most of our members are involved in Pyöräpaja anyway. However, the cooperative can only fulfill its purposes at the fullest and become financially sustainable in the long-term if a majority of its activities are performed by and for its members. In terms of our capital needs, that would currently require at least 40 k€ in fresh capital, or 80 new participant members joining with 1 share each.

We will have some financial updates soon, as the financial year ends and as we get some updates on the status of our building’s finances after the recent (very expensive) balcony renovations. We hope 2025 will close with a slight profit (in EBITDA terms) and that 2026 will as well. This means we’re getting more confident about getting new members without putting their capital at risk.