February 2024 - Board Meeting

02/07/2024 - Area 515 Board Meeting

02/07/2024 - Area 515 Board Meeting

Attending:

Absent:

Vote to approve minutes of January Board meeting
Yes: 7
No: 0
Result: Passed

We received some junk mail from Shopify. Jake mentioned it might be a good platform for tracking members and member training and said he would look into it.
Squarespace was mentioned, but it's more of an ecommerce site. Also, we've mostly all but given up on salesforce given its steep learning curve.

The annual Zapier charge went through.
Meg reimbursed Jake and Dave.
Per our requirement as a nonprofit organization, Meg created a written financial Statement of Activity for 2023. We still need to write a budget and get it approved by the members.

Brad requested that the Tool Fees be updated.
- Almost all of the Tool Fee payments are through PayPal, and PayPal history is difficult to go through because there are a lot of transactions and what they are isn't well labeled. Jake and Meg discussed ways to improve that going forward.
- However, there is Zapier automation that detect a PayPal Tool Fee payments and records them on the "PayPal Records" tab of the Tools sheet.
- Brad also requested that when updating the Tool Fees, that the actual money received be listed, rather than the listed fee. PayPal takes a small percentage of payments, so when $20 are paid for a tool, only $19.11 or so goes into the space's bank account.
- Meg found that for the past 2 years, Tools Fees have brought in about $1300 - $1500 per year.

Darron's boss's property, which we were considering as a new location, will go on the market in the next day or two and will probably rent quickly.
After some extensive spreadsheet calculations, we found that we would probably need about 145-150 members in order to break even at that location.
Ultimately, most members of the board decided it would be better to spend more money on new tools than a new location.
Even though our landlord is no longer actively wanting us to move, he's highly unlikely to rent us any more space.
After discussing the idea of renting storage space to members, our Treasurer said that we'd probably have to pay taxes on that income. It might also be problematic to our nonprofit status.

Jake mentioned that when he gives tours, he has a hard time explaining all the stuff that's being stored outside of cubbys. He'd like a consistent storage policy for the Wood and Metal Shops.
- Examples: One member of the Metal Shop has a whole rolling bench to himself. Another member is using a whole shelf under one of the tables in the Wood Shop for his own projects.
Dave's expectation has been that Stewards can use spaces for storage, and that all members' things must be in their cubbys. Anything outside of that Stewards decide on a case by case basis.
Carlin advocated giving preferential treatment to members who are here full time (or almost full time).
It was also mentioned that the Board should be able to review all personal storage space.
Dave said this should be something the Wood and Metal Shop Stewards should discuss further, and the next Steward meeting would be a great time for that.

The Tool Steward Meeting will be at 2:00pm on April 13th. One hour before the member meeting.

Chris said he doesn't want the rest of the table tops and desk frames like what's in the 3D Printing room. We can do what we want with those.
Derek will start offering knife making classes soon.
Brad made a plea for more signage & labeling at the space. For instance, a couple years ago all the tools stored in the classroom were marked with red tape, to indicate they're classroom tools. However, nobody knew this who wasn't already involved in it because no sign or label was ever created to indicate the red tape's purpose. It was decided that labeling things should go on the Steward meeting agenda, and Brad calmed the heck down again.

Jason and Carlin have been managing this. They've raised about $600 for the $1200 total. Carlin has a specific brand that he wants.

Vote to use general funds to cover the rest of the cost of the new leather sewing machine (estimated around $1200)
Yes: 7
No: 0
Result: Passed

Brad created a mail merge script that can send each member a list of what tool fees they've paid and what they've been trained on. The board was okay with him going ahead on this provided he do a test email first.
In other news, Brad also finally found where the late-payment emails are coming from. They're created by a Google Apps Script in the Current Members sheet. The script runs once a night.
Brad also created a script that takes each tool on the Tools page, and lists all the members who've been trained on it underneath. It also runs nightly, and the output is on the "Tools - Output for Stewards" tab of the Tools sheet.

Every once in a while Jake will take old members (old = expired for more than a year) off the Current Members sheet and puts them on the "Old Members" tab.

One member suggested we create a team of people willing to sit at table at craft fairs and things like that. The CEC already keeps a tote box of stuff ready to show off.
Carlin suggested that we focus on farmers markets rather than craft fairs because farmers markets are better attended. If do this, we should try for the Valley Junction farmers market. The downtown one has a long waiting list.
The big question mark about this idea was whether the table would be used for selling members' stuff or promoting the space itself.

I've typed up so many meeting notes now that I can spell "miscellaneous" correctly on the first try. That's weird. When I say the word "weird" in my mind, it feels like the i should come before the e. Deep Thoughts, by Secretary.
Brad added a menu link on our website to our YouTube page. It mostly contains how-to videos that Jason has made.
Brad floated the idea of a page on the website that could link to members' online shops. Meg pointed out that it would tricky because we can't be seen to endorse any of them. Our lack-of-endorsement would have to be explicitly stated.
Any projects that appear on social media sites should be credited to the member who made them, not credited to the space itself.
John volunteered to create a form that would allow members to write blog posts about themselves. It was mentioned that Derek is very gifted in online communication.
Brad suggested that we start taking photos of new members. Dave extended this saying we should start a formalized new member initiation process. Ultimately it was decided this should go on the Steward Meeting agenda.
Jake is waiting for a sale to purchase the new dust collector that the board already approved the funds for.
Dave expressed a preference for upright, bag-less vacuums.

"You underestimate my ability to break spreadsheets" - Dave, after discussing the new spreadsheet scripts.
"Sitting by yourself at weird tables... sounds like just our thing!"

Last updated 1 month ago