August 2023 - Board Meeting

08/02/2023 - Area 515 Board Meeting

08/02/2023 - Area 515 Board Meeting

Attending:

• President: Dave

• Vice President: Jake

• Treasurer: Meg (by phone)

• Secretary: Brad

• Director: Carlin (joined late)

Absent:

• Director: Ryan

• Director: Tom

Approval of Minutes from Previous Meeting

Vote to approve Minutes of July Board Meeting

Yes: 4

No: 0

Result: Passed

A New Maker was Born!!

• Meg (our Treasurer) had her baby!!! Welcome to the world, Mila Krajicek!!!

Security Cameras

• Dave bought 2 or 3 new security cameras and hasn't been reimbursed. He plans to buy another two.

• One of the new cameras will be in the hallway, and one for outside.

• A pan/zoom/tilt model was tried but didn't work well because it lacked infrared.

• Don requested that it be officially documented that the board gave him approval to throw away all the analog security cameras. (See note in Meeting Adjourned section.)

Space Updates

• Dave will help Jerry install a new Verizon router. He bought a network switch that will help. (Note: Jerry shares his internet connection with the space.)

• There was a water leak in the bathroom labeled "Private" that has now been resolved. (See also "Did You Know?" in Meeting Adjourned section.)

• The Facilities Committee hasn't official met but are looking at various new locations via email. A building just across the street to the East was discussed. It's too large as is and would need to be divided up, plus a ramp added for an Auto Shop.

  • The CEC is working on a Google survey to see where members live in order to help find areas of town to look in.

  • After discussing, the board recommends the survey be sent to all members of the Google Group rather than just current members.

• Carlin will probably take his leather sewing machine home. New ones are expensive and if members complain we can run an "In for $10"

Current Members: 89

• There've been some requests for non-consecutive membership months.

Discussion Regarding Problematic Members

• Members will be referred to as Member 1 and Member 2

• Member 1 has a history of leaving messes (and Board members have had multiple conversations with Member 1 about this) and recently, was the last one to leave but left the lights and fans on and the doors wide open.

• Member 2 flagrantly and repeatedly violated Metal Shop safety rules, and after multiple conversations with Board members, continued flagrantly violating said rules. It was reluctantly decided to revoke Member 2's membership. Since Member 2 had just recently paid for a full year, the Board decided to refund the rest of his payment.

Clean Up Nights

• In the past only a handful of the same people routinely show up for this. Dave is taking steps to get more members involved by sending personal invites. This most recent Clean Up Night was a big success, attended by 8-10 people, so efforts to promote it will continue.

• It was noted that during Clean Up Night, some members came in and worked, and thus prevented some areas from being cleaned. Ways to mitigate this in the future were discussed.

• It was questioned if Tool Stewards should be required to be present when their areas are being cleaned. As a Wood Shop Steward, Jake pointed out that he takes care of the Wood Shop the rest of the time. He has no interest in also coming for Clean Up night.

• The idea of incentivising Clean Up Nights was mentioned.

  • Offering a free month of memberships was brought up, but since it would be difficult to implement it might create more problems than it would solve. Plus since we are considering moving locations, voluntarily reducing our income now might be imprudent.

  • John suggested offering to feed people who show up to Clean Up Night. This got a very positive response.

• Another idea to incentivize Clean Up Night was showing members how much it would cost to have the space professionally cleaned and how much membership fees would have to go up.

Miscellaneous

• The job of recruiting more Tool Stewards falls on the existing Stewards.

• The CEC procured us a booth at the Science Center's Mini Maker Faire this year. They're putting together a sort of all-purpose event kit that can be taken to whatever events we show up at. The goal is for this kit to be small enough to fit in the trunk of a car.

  • It was discussed what other kinds of shows Area 515 should have a presence in. Apart from the Mini Maker Faire, ideas included Hamfest and the DIY Fair that was held a couple years ago.

• Dave will replace the electric cord on the MIG welder restoring it to usability.

Meeting Adjourned

• On discussing what would happen if the board thought that Don had stolen our analog security cameras: "Hmmm. Don stole this. Should we send him a 'thank you' letter?"

• Did you know? The "Private" sign on one of the bathroom doors was actually an inside joke from the previous building tenants. One of their guys spent so much time in that bathroom they called it his office, and the private sign was affixed.

• On discussing various things in the space we could throw away: "We can turn the microwave into something dangerous so we should keep that"

• On discussing the need to assemble an auto ramp if we moved into a new building: "I've watched a lot of Dukes of Hazzard episodes. I know all about ramps."