Meeting Minutes 11 Jan 2014

Meeting Minutes 14 Dec 2013

Meeting Begins at 14:30

12 members present

Minutes taken - Matt

Chairman - Kevin Loney

Directors Present: Kevin Loney, Janet Mader, Jim Akeson (late)

Admin/Discuss list moderating

Kevin Loney

Directors are busy, this is not necessarily directorial work. Removing spam, adding, authorizing, removing members.

• Need new people to do this.

Request for volunteers tabled:

• • Mike Morrow volunteers
  • David Bynoe volunteers
  • Hayley Erza volunteers

• Membership thanks the new volunteers.

Finances

Kevin

• Good news everybody - we are not broke.

• Tangent - Website event page is down. Ben's on it.
  • Later in the meeting Ben announced it was fixed

• End of December cash: $13,657.86
  • After bills, currently: $10,651 [Matt is not sure he heard this precisely]
    • Question posed: how much of that is available, how much is future dues paid in advance?
      • Christine does not have that info available, but can be figured out from spreadsheet.

• Spreadsheet issue with middle years hidden is a non-issue. Christine hid them from display to un-clutter it. View this by changing the "View menu".

• Tangent - Mailman has been putting our mail in Eclipse's (neighbor's) mailbox.
  • Issue hopefully resolved. Complaint made, label will also be enlarged.

Moving To Another Bay

Mike Morrow

• See discussion from previous month - Meeting Minutes 14 Dec 2013
• Jim & Robb were handling this, neither are present.
  • No update or progress
• Question posed: Last month a decision was thought to be needed to be made today, do we move forward?
  • Revisited after Jim arrived:
    • No deadline, landlord wanted to rent the bay Protospace is currently in, by February but out lease stands and landlord has been unable to rent the other bay.
• Is not financially viable for Protospace right now, with any cost increases
  • Even if rent and op costs can be kept the same, HVAC is an issue
    • If we leave our current HVAC system, (free to landlord, we paid), perhaps landlord would pay for a new one to be installed in the other bay, for free or cheap
    • Contractor that built our existing HVAC system has recently secured a large contract via Protospace's referral, may cut us a deal

Investigation

• Consensus seemed that an affordable deal is unlikely, but Matt and Jim will approach landlord this week to be sure
  • David B, Janet Mader, Danny P, Matt F, Hayley E, Kevin Loney, Jim Akeson toured and measured the potential space after the meeting
    • Update: David B and Janet Mader took measurements & made floor plan. Rentable side room is 1610 square feet, not 1800 as guessed last month. Gain of 700 square feet from current (including loss of mezzanine)
    • Update: Appears to have no HVAC in lower area, just one of the smaller rooms.
    • Update: Commercial kitchen suggested as a potential fundraiser/business
      • In order to manufacture food products, startups must use certified commercial kitchen, this has high rentable value. Janet knows someone who may set it up.

IT Infrastrucure

Ben Reed

• Ben Reed has added some hardware
• Kevin Loney contributed to code
• Wes contributed to code
• Formerly Ben was working on SpaceMan Spiff software, but is only updated by one guy. After much deliberation, has switched to Seltzer which has an active development community
  • Ben needs PHP, Python, and populating assistance.
    • If you know PHP / Python and would like to help Protospace, please contact Ben Reed
• New system handles keycard access, members list & contacts, finances/dues, etc.
  • Should remove much of administrative burden for directors, make it easier to stay on top of things

Laser Cutter

Kevin Loney

• Danny is currently plumbing cooling system
• Within the next week laser should be up and running (applause)
• Kevin will update the wiki for the laser with all the documentation links so people can look at it ahead of time
• First batch of training will be for trainers, first 5 or 6 weekends will probably have training classes to clear backlog
• Twitter account announcing laser is in use if for more than an hour

Member Vetting

• Mohammad was vetted, no objections

Restructuring Directorship

Matt

Protospace's directorship is somewhat broken

• Why do we have Directors?
• Why do we have 5, versus only 1, or 25?
• What does it mean to be a director?

Officially: Directors are responsible for the financial and legal well-being of an organization.

Other organizations dedicated roles: President, Vice-President, Treasurer, Secretary, + org specific roles

Historically: Protospace has opted for a do-ocracy approach where any director can do any job, no titles. Protospace has been around for 5 years. In small numbers worked okay for 2 years, in last 3 years some believe it has not.

Opinion:

• Everyone on the board should have a job to do.
• Everyone on the board should do something.
• If someone is on the board and we cannot send people to them to do something, they should not be on the board.
  • If this means we have a very small board that is overworked, then that is the reality and should be fixed

Issue

• Essential responsibilities are not being performed
• Some roles at Protospace may be missing
• Directors are working hard, and accomplishing less than they could
• Every Director may feel that any directorial task is their responsibility. One person could be running the organization burning out. Their responsibilities have no limits.
• Every Director may feel that they don't have to do anything. They have no assigned responsibilities, so there's nothing they can't ignore.
• Uncertain who to approach for any particular issue
  • Difficult to get a response
• Current directors are also Protospace's biggest volunteers, not clear what is or is not a director's responsibility

Solution

• Assigned roles
• Limit scope of each director to encourage them to do the jobs within their scope well, but not burn out doing everything
• Directors should cross-train to account for vacations, busyness, etc.

Suggested division of existing roles

Treasurer:

• Bookkeeping / Accounting
• Bank trips
• If you have a question about money or dues, you contact Treasurer@protospace.ca, whoever is assigned that task gets those emails.

Secretary:

• Government paperwork
• Meeting minutes
• Bylaw familiarity
• Keeping accurate, organized, accessible documentation

Facilities:

• Liaison with the landlord
• Resolve issues with the physical space

Ambassador:

• Approach and speak on Protospace's behalf for collaboration, media, etc.

Suggested new roles

• Volunteer coordinator (Dave B [volunteer@protospace.ca] will fill this role as a non-director for now)
• Membership coordinator (Possibly unnecessary if new software infrastructure simplifies)

Some things directors currently do, that they have exclusive access to, but don't need to be director jobs:

• Website
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Wiki

Note

• Each director present (Kevin Loney, Janet Mader, Jim Akeson) spoke about the role they currently play as a director and what scope they are happy and comfortable with in the future.
• After official meeting, directors met privately to address their structure and reassign roles

New Membership Dues

Matt

Proposal to make permanent $100 for first 3 months promotion (versus $50/50/50)

• Previously used twice: HVAC fundraiser & Makerfaire
• We have many members who pay once and then are never seen again, if nothing else, we would make $100 instead of $50 from those people
• When someone pays for 3 months, they're more likely to reappear, and find value in continuing as a member
  • It is easy to pay once, be busy the next 3 weeks, and then not want to pay for a 2nd month already, but if committed for 3 months, no penalty in showing up
• Makes it a little bit easier to become a member, discount
• Not mandatory, members can pay $50 for one month if they don't want to commit to discounted $100 for 3.

Proposal voted on: Passed 9 in favor 0 opposed.

Follow Through On New Members

Matt

Nearly 100% of our income is from membership dues. This is a vital component of how Protospace operates and should be a top priority.

• We are quite successful at recruiting new members
  • This is a lot of work
• We are not successful at keeping them
  • This is a lot of work wasted
  • Don't have the statistics to show this yet (spreadsheet issue)
• Members are not taught how to be involved
• Members are not added to the admin or discuss lists
• If a member never appears again, no one contacts them to inquire why
• No reminders for members that their probation period is up and they can be vetted

Solution:

• Automate much of this.
• Weekly director task suggested of adding new members to database, seeing who is available for vetting, contacting members.
• Dues payments and members quitting can be handled in a similar way. More efforts to contact people.
• Few minutes a week.

• Ben pointed out the Seltzer software he is setting up does much of this for directors so manual task checking is not as necessary

Tools Without Training

Matt

Protospace is filling up with tools that no one can use. Lack of training and training awareness means, functionally, only the people who own some tools are allowed to use them.

List (not exhaustive) of tools requiring training: Pick 'n' Place, Laser, Lathe/Mill, Tormach CNC Mill, Tablesaw, 3d Printer, MaxNC, Plasma Cutter CNC, Mig welder, Tig welder, Forge, Sewing machine, Wood CNC.

• Only the Lathe & Sewing Machine have a training courses
• Tools requiring training are not labelled, new members have no way of knowing tools were forbidden without training

Solution

• Color-coded, standardized labels on tools
• RFID lockouts for tools requiring certification
• Require new tools brought in to follow storage/infrastructure rules with a timeline of having a training course made
• Have more trainers so one person isn't doing it all the time
• Start updating the wiki
  • QR codes on every machine linking to wiki page

Dave B has offered to clear wiki tool backlog, make it up to date again.

Mike Morrow

How do we decide that a tool needs training?

• John Warga (lathe trainer) would like to see general safety class be mandatory for all members before using tools.
  • Currently his lathe training has a safety portion he would like to be moved to a separate class and taught by someone else
  • New members can take this during probationary month, required before RFID access to space
• If any member feels strongly that a tool is significantly dangerous, mandatory training will be ocnsidered

Solution

• Hayley will build a safety training course in the next month based on John Warga's material
  • Will also occasionally run it, but, many people should be able to run it

Jim Akeson

• How do members know if other members are members?

Solution:

• Protospace needs member photo wall, online & at Protospace. Many hackerspaces have this.
  • Ask members to look up any strangers they see in the space to verify if they are members

Meeting adjourned

• Adjourned 15:34.