October 2019 - Member Meeting
7/20/2019 - Area 515 Member Meeting
Total Number of Members Attending: 19
Total Number of Full Members Attending: 15 + 2 by proxy
Quorum was reached (10 Full Members were required)
Board of Directors Attending:
President: DaveVice President: RayTreasurer: MegSecretary: BradDirector of Education: BaileyDirector: Jason
Absent:
Director: Tom
State of Space
Mostly solid if measuring by mass, mostly gas if measuring by volume
NO, this joke will NOT get old.
Currently 55 members
Currently 20 Full members
All members encouraged to work on growing our ranks. We should evangelize more, also promote corporate memberships more.
People to Recognize
Chris J - for his work improving the woodshop
Jake L - for his work improving the woodshop
Jason B - for his work improving the woodshop, assisting with electric & network wiring and general help with space improvements
Caroline L - for work upgrading Piranha CNC, tuning 3D printers, helping construct styrofoam cutter, and other general help with space improvements
Bailey S - for doing a ton of behind the scenes work on grants and organizing classes
Frank W - for always being willing to pitch in on things like space clean up days
Tim S - for selling stuff on eBay
Other Space Improvements
We now have 3 lasers! Pew! Pew! Pew!
Welder now has gas bottle
Wood Shop now has a ton of new tools
Electronics now has enough resistors for a decade, plus have had a lot of other donations, plus has a tab welder
Prusa has been a wonderful workhorse 3D printer
Loom in Textiles is now ready to use, plus there are lots of sewing machines
Auto shop has gotten lots of use
Piranha CNC has better, quieter spindle & works with Fusion 360
Chris and Ray are trying to get more nice tables from John Deere.
Kudos given to current board of directors
Some members that recently rejoined after being absent over a year were amazed by the amount of progress the space has undergone!
All appreciate how responsive and helpful our landlord is.
Financials
We are currently in the black for the year.
We were $2255 in the red for this past year - largely due to one time Wood Shop purchases. However, once sale of donated tab welders was taken into account we were back in the black.
We are in the black from month to month.
Tool Funds Update
Tool Fund Totals (as of 9/30/2019):3D Printers $86.10CNC $130.79Laser $137.11Metal $57.16Wood $249.26Electronics $75.00Automotive $180.00Textiles $20.00
Meg has created a report format to update tool stewards each month.
Misc Financials
3D Printer Area is thinking about selling some of its excess printers, namely the Anycubic and Makerform.
Isaac is interesting in donating auto parts
Happy Mole Day!
People were largely unimpressed with the Secretary's enthusiasm for this Chemistry-minded holiday.
Rent More Space?
Possible uses for it:
- larger CNC router
- second auto shop bay
Considering asking to rent the rest of the space in the main room area. No one spoke with landlord to see if he would agree to it. Proposal was tabled until Dave can talk with landlord about it.
Pop Fund Difficulties
Money may have been disappearing from the jar above the refrigerator. Certainly we have not had as much cash in there as we have had in the past.
Last year, $71 was deposited in the bank from the jar, this year only $15 was deposited.
It was suggested that we're generating less revenue because part of the space is now air conditioned and people may not be drinking as much pop.
Anecdotally, many people said they purchased supplies without reimbursing themselves because the jar didn't have enough funds.
Several ideas were presented in response, including
- asking people to put pop money in the donation box instead
- putting a security camera by the jar
- put up a poster with eyes on it
- leave a notebook asking people to record reimbursements & donations
Ultimately, it was decided that nothing should change in the short term. Hopefully making members aware of the problem would resolve it.
All members who reimburse themselves out of the pop fund should leave the receipt for their purchase in the jar.
Front Signage
Tim and Tom agreed to form a committee that will spearhead the effort to mount a sign on the front of our building.
Lighting up the sign at night was requested by many members.
It was also asked that we keep the sign "classy."
SalesForce Hackathon
On Sunday, 10/27, a gaggle of programmers will descend on the space and attempt to replicate our current member and tool tracking inside the Salesforce environment.
Communal Project List
No one quite remember why this was put on the meeting agenda. Various group project ideas were discussed.
At one point we had budgeted for each Tool Area to get a white board (aka. piece of shower board) for communicating with members. These have not been purchased yet.
Historically, group projects have worked best when there was one person driving and (largely) financing the project. A person in charge who will also direct other people how they can help. Any communal project list would be mostly irrelevant to this process.
Volunteers Requested
Our Social Media presences have gone largely silent since no one has picked up the job of updating them. Volunteers were requested at the meeting. Two people expressed some interest.
One of these people suggested the space's Twitter feed could become like Wendy's twitter feed, that is largely snarky comments.
Also, people were asked to help volunteer for Snow Day.
Vote to Move Members from Supporting to Full
Caroline was technically listed as a Supporting Member, although in discussing it she probably qualified as a founding member since she had rejoined. The Secretary asked for a quick vote just to keep within bylaws. She was unanimously voted to Full.
2019 Board Elections
There is only 1 person running for each slot. In light of this, the election was held by a single show of hands.
President: Dave Champion
Vice President: Jake Leister
Treasurer: Meg Krajicek
Secretary: Brad Freese
Education Director: Bailey Steinfadt
Director: Tom Pesek
Director: Jason Bentley
In a ceremony completely devoid of pomp and circumstance, Ray gave his key to the donation box to Jake. Jake will also be added as a check signer.
Classes & Events
Upcoming
Pillowcase Sewing Class on 10/26/2019
Felting class on 11/16/2019
Classes Discussion
Free classes should also be listed on Eventbrite now. Previously Meetup was used for these but they may (or may not?) be changing their terms of use. The proposed changes could open us up to paying them a lot more money, and since Eventbrite doesn't charge for free classes AND syncs with Facebook, we should be using them anyway.
A Bat House Building class was also proposed.
Person 1: "Can we have a class where we build mosquito houses?"
Person 2: "No!"
End of Meeting
Regarding front signage:
Person 1: "Keep it classy"
Person 2: "Well, Tim's off the project now."
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