January 2020 - Member Meeting

1/26/2020 - Area 515 Member Meeting

Total Number of Members Attending: 16

Total Number of Full Members Attending: 12 + 3 by proxy

Quorum was reached (12 Full Members were required)

Board of Directors Attending:

• President: Dave

• Vice President: Jake

• Secretary: Brad

• Director of Education: Bailey

• Director: Jason

Absent:

• Director: Tom

• Treasurer: Meg

• Currently 65 members

• Currently 24 Full members

Financials

• Have money in the bank, and another $5k in CD

• Plan to do a large tool purchase soon, either from bank account or CD.

• The cost to hire someone to do our social media outreach would be around $400 per month.

• Some members were worried that advertising could backfire, if we advertised a particular tool and it breaks, people who come for that tool may be permanently turned off.

• It was also suggested that we make anybody be able to post on our Facebook page. Some members belong to other organizations that do this and they don't often have problems.

• It was remarked again that, as an organization, our members don't often share the stuff they've made anyway.

• Jason has recently begun updating the space's Instagram feed. Instagram and Facebook are closely linked and Jason still needs permissions for the FB page.

• It was suggested that we could leave special cameras around the space that automatically upload photos to our social media accounts.

• Putting up signs around the space asking people to share photos was suggested.

• Getting a photo box to be more professional was discussed.

• Out of the 16 people present at the meeting, by a show of hands only 3 people post on Facebook regularly, and only 5 members log in regularly.

Member Communication

• The idea of replacing our google group setup with a "discord server" was discussed.

• It was asked: what's the best way of getting information to our members? It was noticed that a majority of google group users don't receive email updates, and not everybody consistently checks the forum in a timely fashion. An email list of current members can be copied from the Current Members sheet for email announcements. It was decided this should be an ongoing discussion.

Vote to Move Members from Supporting to Full

• Frank W was nominated to become a full member

   Vote to make Frank W a full member
   In Favor: 13
   Opposed: 0 
   Abstain: 2
   Result: PASSED

State of Space

• At rest, slight fluctuations in center of mass not withstanding

• NO, I will NOT retire this joke.

• The idea of renting more space next to the auto lift to use as a flex area was brought up. The president said he wants to get to 75 members before doing that.

• We want to do a full financial audit of the space. It's expensive and will need to be renewed each year, but will allow us to apply for much larger grants. We will hold off on doing this until after tax season.

• Tool Fund Updates - See January notes for numbers

• Metal Shop thinking of getting new pedestal grinder with wire brushes

Classes & Events

• We need a February class. Dan volunteered to offer a class on Corel Draw for members

• Making Things Fly will be coming up again this summer.

• Friday, January 31 6:30-9:30 will be Board Games Night

• March 28th will be a sharpening class (aka. making things pointy)

• We've had very disappointing attendance at recent events. The need for everyone to share and repost on Facebook was mentioned. It was at this point that we realized only 3 of the 16 people present regularly post on FB at all.

• It was noted that videos get seen more than anything else.

• Having an Octolabs printer that could feed video of prints to social media was suggested.

Resin Casting and Fume Extraction

• Recently a member was sanding a resin casting in the shop. The toxic fumes from this were bad enough that members in the classroom had to leave the building.

• People are working on solutions for this, obviously some kind of fume extractor is needed for shop area.

• Working with resin creates many hazards:

  • when curing it can spontaneously combust

  • dust from it is extremely toxic

• Ryan brought in a pressure chamber for pressurized resin casting. A Tool Steward for it is needed before opening it up to the membership at large.

Misc

• All agree what we all need more of is time.

• The Quad City Maker Space is wanting to share info about how we do things. They have a very good social media presence. Organizing a road trip to visit them was discussed.

• If a member uses an area enough, it was suggested they volunteer to become a Tool Steward for it.

• There's now an "In for $10" FAQ on our wiki site.

End of Meeting

• "Can we filabuster adjournment?"