June 2018 - Board Meeting

6/6/2018 - Area 515 Board Meeting

Attending:

• Vice President: Don

• Treasurer: Meg

• Secretary: Brad - Attending via conference call

• Director of Education: Bailey

• Director: Chris

Absent:

• President: Tim

• Director: Tom

Vote to Expand Space in Rental Agreement

• The proposed new deal would be 3900 square feet (instead of 3000 sq ft) and the extra space would be 40% of the remaining space on the West (our) end of the building. It would be roughly a 19ft-wide strip extending down the West wall of the building, from the overhead door to the back of the building. That's roughly a 19ft x 50ft rectangle.

• Tim created an online poll and sent it to all members asking their opinion on the new deal. Below is a screenshot of the results as of 6/9/2018. The result was

  • 85.7% YES - expand

  • 14.3% NO - do not expand

• After receiving the member input the board voted on the same item

   Vote to increase rental space in new location to 3900 square feet
   In Favor: 6 (Tim voting by email)
   Abstained: 1
   Opposed: None
   Result: PASSED - Space will increase rental space in new location to 3900 square feet

• Brad volunteered to notify planning committee of space expansion

State of the Space

Moving Discussions

• The planning committee has been largely stalled, waiting for the decision on the extra space. Planning for the various areas has been split up into smaller groups

  • Taylor and Ryan are planning the metal shop

  • Jake and Chris are planning the wood shop

  • Bailey and Laura are planning textile room. They have requested a peg board for organizing the room.

• Members should be reminded to label all their possessions. Bailey volunteered to put up notices on the walls around the space.\

• Even if new space doesn't require painting, a member suggested we might paint it anyway so the walls look new.

• We will temporarily stop having Open Houses around the move as the space will be in disarray.

Ben's Welding Spool

• Ben purchased but didn't use a spool of wire that's compatible with the space's welding machine. He emailed the board asking $50 for it.

• Brad replied to the email suggesting he do an In for $10 to raise the money for it, as currently the metal shop fund only has $10.

• Bailey said that based on a brief internet search the price was good, but nobody at the meeting volunteered to organize the In for $10 in Ben's place.

Desoldering Iron

• Don raised almost 3/4 of the money for this through an In for $10 but did not get 10 members to donate. The board held a vote by email and approved covering the remaining amount. Don transferred the money he'd raised to the space, and Bailey and Meg purchased it using the space's debit card.

Dungeons & Dragons Space Request

• A D&D group emailed the space asking if one of their group could become a full member and then hold weekly D&D meetings in the space. How the space should respond was discussed.

• It was mentioned that the space has hosted other not-very-maker-related events in the past, but only as a one time things.

• All agreed that we have no problem with D&D using our facilities, but not at the expense of maker-related events.

• The D&D group is specifically interested in Monday nights, and 1 Monday night every month is devoted to the 3D Printing Meet Up Group.

• Because it would be an ongoing group, it was decided that we could offer them a corporate membership and that they would have to accept moving their meeting time to accomodate maker events.

Financial Update

• This month we took in $300 more than expected, probably due to renewed yearly memberships.

• Meg has not purchased a second CD, and based on the current interest rates no longer sees much benefit to doing so.

• An error was found in the CNC fund. The $90.04 expense will be transferred to the wood shop. Brad will write an email explicitly asking the Treasurer to do this.

Art Week

• Bailey will ask Beau to teach her to use the printer so that she can make a sign to put in the window telling passers where and when we'll be moving.

Miscellaneous

• Someone will be donating an etching press and has volunteered to offer some classes in using it.

• Some of the people at John Deere were ordering parts through Amazon Smile and making donations to us. They will no longer be doing this.

• Chris said he plans to bring an arc welder to the new space.

Tool Steward Discussions

Board Member to Tool Stewards Communication

• An incident occured where a tool steward was not notified of a new member being trained in their area. The event was discussed at length and the board member who originated the incident apologized for the lack of communication. The board member in question was chastised by several of the other board members.

Possible New Tool Stewards

• Jake and Taylor have booth requested to become tool stewards. Jake for wood shop, Taylor for metal shop.

• Ryan has requested to become a metal shop steward in addition to his current status as metal lathe steward.

• The board agreed that we need to formalize a process to designate new tool stewards. Proposals and debate over this will be done in a later discussion.

• It was suggested that the more trainers we have for everything, the better for everyone.

• It was also suggested that tool stewards should retrain each other every year.

Metal Shop Tool Steward Discussion

• Ben will be leaving the space sometime before the third week in August.

• Brad will be asking Dave C if he is willing to become back up steward for the metal shop so there is no gap in coverage. This was first agreed in February of this year, but Brad failed to follow up on it at the time. [See http://area515.org/wiki/index.php?title=Meeting_February_-_2018#Metal_Shop_Steward]

• Don will ask Ben for a more specific timeline for planning purposes.

End of Meeting

• Paraphrased Quote of the Meeting:

• Brad (speaking loudly into Cell phone): "What?"

• Chris (speaking louder for Speakerphone): "I said thank you for providing some comic relief to the meeting"

• Brad (speaking even louder): "What??"