October 2016 - Board Meeting

AREA 515 MAKERSPACE

OCTOBER MEETING 10/05

5 OCTOBER 2016 / 6:30 PM / 1725 GRAND AVENUE

ATTENDEES

Ben, Brad, Tom, Bailey, Ward, Tim

AGENDA

• Financial update

• Meetings and other engagements(fundraising update)

• Garage buildout

  • Probably electrical first

    • Are we ok spending money?

    • How much? What’s the minimum acceptable investment?

• Review digital assets

• Public presence and image (email, Twitter)

• Review board on-boarding. What do we need to document, where, and how?

  • Idea is to help new board members get up to speed.

  • Brad, Ben, how do you feel left out? What don’t you know?

1. Email functioning, financial info/records, general practices regarding group decision (e.g. major tool purchases, branding, rule changing or enforcement.

2. Is there a singular person for public interaction? If not, how do we coordinate? If so, how does that person share with the board and membership?

   • If the entire board turned over, do we have enough documentation for new people to take over?

Brad: Brief discussion of Barnes & Noble Invite

MINUTES/NOTES

1. Request to not be snippy or rude or in any way negative in the public sphere or while attached to the Makerspace image or name.

2. Considering partnership with Iowa Energy, Tim will meet next Monday.

3. Barnes & Noble on University wants to do a Mini-Makerfaire. Do the booths have to be manned? We want to leave a display. No one wants to man the booth. We are willing to do it if we don’t need to be there

   1. Wade might be able to do a day.

4. Bills due, e.g., P.O. box

5. Capital Crossroads allocation of community money. Plan 2.0 is due at the end of 2016, Jay and Meg (who?) are supportive. We want to avoid their overbearing control. They want us in Des Moines so they can keep making various “Top 10”-ish lists.

6. They have program funds. It would be nice to have an Artist in Residence program and have them fund it. We would use the grant to fund membership fees, tools, materials, an artshow. Proposed term for artists: required to show at our artshow. Ben will assist in writing the grant, funding due October 19th.

7. Our grant writer isn’t so great. Skip Brie, talk to Adam Johnson (the intern).

8. Figure out costs so we can have a final tally for grant, e.g., show, advertising, food, consumables.

9. Garage enhancement. Any fees from classes held in the garage (Kelly/steaming/paint removal) will go to garage funds. Tentative suggestions of $2500 for garage buildout (of ~$11,000 in funds, counting insurance payments and other bills).

10. Review digital assets.

    1. There is a Dropbox (Tom’s) that contains tax info. (Where is the physical copy? Bailey will look?)

    2. Member announce list, just for paying members. Under Google Apps, giving us up to $10,000 dollars in credit from Google due to our non-profit status. That money is not being spent. Ben or whoever is cleared to go wild on the account.

    3. Can we automate any tasks? Yes: cross-reference paying member, members with access, and Member Announce lists, since these are all the same. Brad will work on automation.

    4. There are issues with Paypal, and updating the accounts. Right now many people are paying old dues because the list is not updated. Paypal updates are not automatic.

    5. Can we have a widget that guesses/shows how many people are in the Makerspace?

    6. The domain is registered to a generous member who does not want to pay for it anymore. We need to transfer ownership. Bailey will take care of it.