Hello and welcome to the second Hive Community poll where we ask the Community should we keep funding or wind down certain projects. I want to gauge the sentiment in the Community over various projects that Valueplan fund. Now post is not criticism of Valueplan in itself or anybody involved but it would be nice to be able to see who is for or against certain projects. You may agree with some sections of Valueplan but disagree with some of the projects funded so this poll should gauge the over all sentiment of the top funded projects. the new @hiveforum announced that they are planning for changes in the Valueplan structure which is most welcome and I am sure they will do a good job but this poll is more about the project than having a moan at the system itself.
We had the outcome of the rally car poll last week. Even though we only received 41 votes , 39 voted to wind down the funding for the car with 2 voting to keep funding. The vote was small but maybe an indication of the overall sentiment of the Community. Hopefully this upcoming poll will receive more votes. The second most funded account on Valueplan is @mcsamm who is the co-founder of the Community Wells project. Cheers to me aul flower @themarkymark for the great website.
Source
Now point to note that the $215,397.55 is not all for the boreholes. @mcsamm has attended some conferences promoting the Community Wells initiative and this is included in this total but the majority of it is the borehole drilling.Just filter his name in the valueplan wallet and it will bring you up the memo for each funding round.
I published a post about the boreholes and their cost per borehole a couple of months ago which you can see the cost of each borehole here. Now this is for a good cause so one has to be a little but more lenient on this type of charitable project. And let's get this straight. It is a charitable project. I don't see these villagers know what a laptop is. Nevermind blockchain technology. Sure, they have no water in the village. They hardly have fibre broadband!! So the best we can hope for is a newspaper article that will onboard users or the fact that Hive is giving to charity will come across well at crypto conferences and encourage sign ups this way.
Borehole number 1 was built in April 2022 to a total cost of 3639.50 HBD. Fast forward to 2025 and the last borehole cost 9,181 HBD to launch. So we are in a different stratosphere of funding compared to to that of 2022. In fairness personally I would have been happy with the 3,639.50HBD for the first borehole. Seems about right when I look at the cost of hiring a drilling machine in etc. Fair enough. But then when the funding gets to 9k we are talking some serious funding here per borehole so if it was me I would be asking for a materials and cost of labour break down so I could audit this. Not because I think anyone is pulling the wool over our eyes but to make sure that Hive is getting the best value for their money and I am sure that the Community Wells people would agree. I work in a job where my current role is to get price quotes for certain things. I work for owners of huge property portfolio. One of the first things these multi millionaires did was knock the fucking idiot out of me and made me get the breakdown. So many contractors which I trusted for years refused to give me the material + labour breakdown and they will screw you if you can be screwed. One contractor gave me a breakdown
Breakdown
the cost to do the job €5,425 the cost to not do the job €0
Bastard. It was the last time I ever got a quote off that guy.
If there are any tilers on Hive. They will buy 4 bags of grout for a job and only use 2. They will then charge their next customer for 4 bags of grout and only use 2 and all these little extras add up.
If we also use the same contractor for the same jobs we employ the sausage per day rule. Would you rather a sausage a day or a steak once a month which means we will keep giving you jobs if the price is a bit lower. The bad times are down the tracks and a contractor will be delighted of a sausage a day in a recession.
So you wonder why I am the way I am and get a heart attack when I see these volumes of funding.
Now the idea is good and lovely and charitable but there are serious things to think about with boreholes. Are the 20 boreholes still going strong? Does the Hive Community maintain them? I don't know the answer myself. Do we pay the cost of maintenance? Surely we don't build a borehole, have a party and move on? Do we? I don't know these answers. The borehole guys never got back to me on the many occasions when I tagged them which I found strange. But looking at some NGO reports , these boreholes need quarterly checks and have to be well maintained to stay functioning. One of the fundamental charters for human rights for any country is access to a water supply so it should be a government initiative that performs this role and not an NGO? Is there grants available? Not sure. There have been studies done about the ineffectiveness of borehole funding by foreign NGO'S in Africa similar to our own. One such study you can find here
Now this poll will be an interesting one because the Community Wells is one of those projects that makes Hive look great and make ourselves feel better about ourselves and on a number of occasions I have been told I was going to hell for even mentioning that this charity is costing too much. But seeing that Hive is now floating around the 14 cent mark, charity begins at home. These boreholes are fundamentally good and they promote Hive in a great light. I am sure the two guys are decent people as well because many have said so after attending Hivefest .
So what is it Hive? Keep funding the boreholes or wind down the funding and be happy with the 20 something boreholes that Hive as a Community built for us.
Please comment and let us know the reason for your vote.