[Noisebridge-discuss] Meeting notes for 2010-06-29

[Seth David Schoen]

June 29, 2010

Moderator: Al
Note-taker: Seth

* Introductions

* Treasurer's report.

We have $9,000 but we owe about $1,500.  So we have about $7,500.
That is only about half of the amount of money we aim to have in
the bank at all times.

Q. Are we still losing money month-to-month?
A. Yes, though not this month, exceptionally, because of a corporate
matching gift.

Q. How much do we normally lose?
A. About a thousand dollars a month.

Q. At the worst point, we were losing $1,000 but the amount we're
losing has decreased.
A. It hasn't necessarily decreased.

It appears that we would not have this financial trouble if all
members would pay their dues.  Pay your dues!

* What's going on at Noisebridge.

Spacebridge might need a hardy desert explorer to retrieve their
most recent payload from an extremely inaccessible desert canyon.
Beware of heat exhaustion.

* Happy birthday to Will!


Consensus items
---------------

* Consensus item: Spending freeze for nonrecurring items.  No more
  spending on things that are not rent or utilities.

- E.g. there is a concern about the buildout budget (which may still
be in effect).

Q. What are the nonrecurring items in question?

A. E.g. shirts and stickers.

Q. Would this interfere with Noisebridge's ability to accept
earmarked donations?

A. We already can't take earmarked donations because the legal
reporting requirements would be too burdensome.  If you want to
donate a particular item to Noisebridge, you should buy the item
yourself and donate it.

Q. Can we have a way to override this spending-freeze restriction
if we agree to this proposal?

A. Right now if you want Noisebridge to spend money on something,
you generally need to get consensus.  However, we've already approved
certain items in the past, such as further construction work, and so
this item would rescind our approval for those things.  However, this
item should not change the procedure for future expenditures.

Q. We should have an easier way to approve tiny expenses like toilet
paper.

A. People can take petty cash from the drink donations, buy the
toilet paper, and leave the receipts behind where the donations
were.

Q. How about "until Noisebridge is cash-flow positive and has
three months' expenses in the bank"?

Q. Who came up with this consensus item?

A. Jeffrey.

Q. What are the monthly recurring expenses?

A. PG&E, water, rent, Internet access, insurance [annual], garbage.

A. We could also refer to $100 for "facilities" (e.g., soap and
toilet paper) which are sometimes purchased from petty cash.

New text (for consensus next week): Noisebridge shall require consensus
for any non-monthly recurring expenses (enumerated) until the time that
we are cashflow positive and have three months' expenses in the bank.


* Consensus item: Funding buildout of dirty shop.  Doors, sound
  insulation, and previous buildout expenses.

The proponent of this item withdraws it.


Consensus items for next week
-----------------------------

* Proposal to spend $40 for dinner for Five Minutes of Fame.

* Assistant treasurer position.

Bylaws allow us to create assistant officers with the same powers as
the officers they assist.  Jeffrey proposes making Al assistant or
associate treasurer.  Or "the other treasurer".  This would split the
burdens of this task.  This is not proposed for consensus next week
since it's a large change, but should be a consensus item for two
weeks from now (July 13 meeting).

Q. What the effect on our insurance rates be?

A. We pay about $600 for directors' and officers' insurance so it
seems like it would be around $70 more, assuming it's a fixed
amount per person.  We can find out.

Q. Treasurer's job is the only one with real work, so it would be
good to be able to split it.

This could be considered two consensus items:

(1) To tell the board to create the position of assistant treasurer.
(2) To tell the board to appoint Al to this position.

Q. Has this been discussed with the board?

A. Only with a few people, since the board isn't supposed to have
power to act without consensus.

* Learn You A Origami group.

Potentially will be starting at Noisebridge.

(Saturdays at 2:00 p.m. there is an origami group called Bay Area
Rapid Folders, which meets at a library, not at Noisebridge.)

* Large-format printer.  Now available.  Try to test or fix it if
you're interested.

* July 30 fundraising dinner for Noisebridge.

Quirk wants to know how many people will attend.  This dinner will
occur on July 30 because Noisebridge needs money.

* How many people are interested in attending a meeting tomorrow to
discuss revising membership procedures?

None.

* People who are going to HOPE?

	The Next HOPE.  3500 people in New York City.  See thenexthope.net.

* Mission Science Workshop for kids this summer.  You can participate.  
  http://www.missionscienceworkshop.org/ <mariolh at gmail.com>

* Biotech group.

Frantisek is organizing a biotech group.

Q. What is the group going to do?
A. Food culturing: yogurt, kombucha.  And working on designing
equipment that would be useful for biotech projects.

Q. Would it be appropriate to call this "food hacking" instead?
A. Maybe.

* Elevator.

The elevator wasn't working today.  And someone had turned down the
volume of the walkie-talkie and then people ignored it when it was
called.  Please remember to close the elevator doors and please don't
ignore the walkie-talkie.

* Membership binder

Names were read; there are no new members today.

-- 
Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org> | Qué empresa fácil no pensar en
     http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/   | un tigre, reflexioné.
     http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/     |            -- Borges, El Zahir