[Noisebridge-announce] State of the Noisebridge Non-Panic (n+1 of 2(n+1))

[Danny O'Brien]

Hello, Noisebridge Saviours!

You're getting this note either because you signed up for a $10 a month
saviour donation to Noisebridge, or else you pledged you would, or else
you upped your existing donation in the last month, or you're a
Noisebridge member, or you're just reading this on nb-discuss or
announce. I think that just about covers everyone.

Quick update: Two weeks ago, Noisebridge was running out of money, so I
asked people who liked us to pledge $10 a month, either through PayPal:
http://nburl.net/save or by credit card at WePay
https://www.wepay.com/donations/noisebridge or BitCoins
1B5sJQ6Wu6AmK9xG5YTic4Nszw4PS7UMAM or giant cowrie shells or any way you
could.

Thank you! The last couple of weeks have been amazing. Hundreds of
people from the South Bay and beyond -- from Brazil to Austria, Berkeley
to Bernal --  sent us kind wishes, and with their pledges and donations,
hard filthy lucre. James Sundquist also organized an awesome fundraiser
last Saturday at the space, with bands, 3D printfests and vinyl and
laser cutter free-for-alls, food and drink, raffles and auctions and
start-ups and art shows, robots and LED rooms which brought new friends
and over $4000 for the space.

We pause now for some cute pictures of people with soldering irons
and/or hats at the fundraiser and beyond:
https://secure.flickr.com/groups/noisebridge/pool/

Although my favourite depiction of what happened is still:
http://simplytheguest.tumblr.com/post/46720265110/contributed-to-noisebridge-so-they-may-continue-to 

So, the results: two weeks ago had only $7K in the bank, with $2K
bleeding away from us every month. Now, thanks to everyone, Noisebridge
has $15K, and is not only breaking even, but putting a little away for
the future. With our pledges soon it'll reach the three month expenses
(or $18K) reserve that all good hackerspaces should have.

I've been scrabbling a little to find something to give you all by way
of thanks back. I still hope to some mails out to the saviours (and
other donors and members) later this week with some goodies, but I
thought everyone should know before then they should stop panicking, and
start DANCING.

Really though the best gift (I think!) is to work on making Noisebridge
friendly for everyone who is potentially part of our community. We're
going to have another party during the weekend of the Bay Area maker
faire, May 18th and 19th. We'd love it if you could come. We're going to
mess with a few things in the space to make it more welcoming. Not sure
how it will work out, but, again thanks to you, we'll keep
experimenting.

Thanks again!

All hail Discordia!

Your much reassured treasurer manque,

Danny

</panic>

PS Just to let you know the kind of thing we'll continue to be up to:

* This Tuesday, a crowd of Noisebridgers gave a tours to forty high
school kids, who went on to spend three hours learning to solder,
lasercut, and circuit bend, in front of their amazed teacher and school
district rep.

* On Wednesday, the SF Weekly included us in their front page story,
  with the Internet Archive and EFF as one of the pillars of the city's
  free culture, with interviews of some of the people hacking on the
  future in our space. 

* On Friday, we had a free talk by Phil Lapsley, the author of Exploding
  the Phone...

* ...plus the usual free circuit-hacking, Web, Linux, Ruby, Python
  lessons, Tahoe-LAFS and sysadmin meet-ups, and more. 

And that was just this week!

Here's that SF Weekly piece URL, so SEO-enhanced it doesn't actually fit on a line:
http://www.sfweekly.com/2013-04-03/news/aaron-swartz-brewster-kahle-internet-archive-electronic-frontier-foundation-noisebridge/full/