Meeting Notes 2015 10 20

These are the notes from the The XXXth Meeting of Noisebridge.

Note-taker: User:Patrickod Moderator: User:Jarrod

• One or two bullet points of high-level meeting summary.

Introductions

• J and Mari introduce Noisebridge

• Jarrod -
• Patrick -
• Ben - neuroscience researcher. wants to make some stuff w/ electricity
• Susie - middleschool technology teacher. Doing a big soldering event w/ at risk youth tomorrow!
• J - teaches circuit hacking monday
• Haresh - east bay hacker,
• Matt - taking the gamebridge class!
• Du5t - here becasue Leif was neat to him in Berlin.
• alex - hosted a deaf hack day at Noisebridge last weekend! Way cool!
• Alex - teaches music production and game programing.
• Mari - hacks stuff. tech is her artistic medium.
• Daniel - does things w/ code.
• Marty - programmer! first time @ noisebridge
• Henner - I write software by day, but do hardware by night. Right now involved with sorting the electronics area.
• Robyn - hacking with growing food.
• Scott - hackerspacer who does radio stuff
• Nick - used to work in fabrication, just arrived here, interested in web design
• Tim - working on JS stuff and learning all the things.
• Mike - likes to work on robotics.
• Douglas - also sorting electronics, does audio hacking too. happy that NB is still here and going strong.
• dan - expects people to get Monty Pythotn references. Does neurohacking stuff on Wednesdays also.
• Mel - coffee technologist. Trying to make a keurig machine make coffee and eventually accept bitcoin.

Short announcements and events

• Alex - myself and Douglas are restarting a geeks and depression support group that used to exist in the space. You should talk to us about it, and helping everyone with mental health wellbeing
• J - Running a soldering event tomorrow
• mari - this weekend we're hacking noisebridge! there's signs in the space about it. Noisebridge will be closed to regular hacking, only hacking on the space is going to be permitted for the weekend. As well as this, sudoroom is organising a similar event at some date in the future TBD. Talk to myself or Alex if you're interested
• Henner - working on organising the electronics area. We're at the point where we need folks to identify parts and put them into the database. It takes an hour or so here which would be really helpful. No experience necessary; all welcome. If you're interested chat to me.
• Henner - Secondly: for the REFRESH we need to order some square steel pipe to the space. If someone can get that material cheaply, and how to get it to Noisbridge please chat to me.
• Patrick - let's start a group working through the cryptopal Matasano cryptography challenges together Danukeru (daniel) has volunteered to mentor folks too.
• Daniel - Let's remove the rest of the kitchen. Completely remove it and open up that space for more hacking things.

Membership Binder

• Jarrod: what even is a member?
• j - a member is someone who wants to contribute to the space on a higher level, to take responsibility and ownership of the space. You donate $80 a month, you get 24/7 access to the space, and you become a part of the consensus process. There are no more privileges over anyone else in the space. You don't have to be a member to do anything at the space. You can come, teach, partake, and contribute all without being a member. To become a member you should spend some time in the space, get to know people and the membership, and find 2 members in good standing to sponsor you. The application is read aloud at 4 consective meetings, after which time, if you have the requisite sponsors and everyone is agreed you become a member!

• jarrod - reading membership applications.
  • jarrod reads Mari's statement. week 2, two sponsors: Patrick & Jarrod.

Philanthropists

• Alex - Philanthropy is a way to contribute and get access to the space, with a monthly donation, while not becoming a member. It's a lightweight process. You need a member to sponsor your application, and once it's agreed at one meeting you're granted access with your donation. You also keep noisebridge safe. When you're accepted your member sponsor will show you how to close up Noisebridge, and to explain to you what's expected of your behavior in the space. You can donate monthly @ donate.noisebridge.net
• Jarrod - Louis has an application but isn't here yet
  • Louis made it in from fidi.
  • Loius - I've been around at Noisebridge for a long time and seen many iterations and generations. I've worked on a bunch of projects, more recently the LifX bulbs at the moment. Wants to hack more and be more involved, to organise things around CCC this year.

Financial Report

• Funds in bank: 36,352 of which ~$11k Noisetor
• Actual: $25,000

Consensus and Discussion

Consensus

• Dan - consensus is a a decision making process @ noisebridge. relies on a lot of communication, it's arrived at informally. Consensus lets us do difficult things, and requires hearing and listening to people and their points of view. Blocking is the nucleur option, and should be avoided at all costs. In many cases simply stating your opinion and being heard is enough to change the course of a proposal. When something affects the whole space, it's appropriate to get "C"onsensus, but everything else is the realm of doocracy.
• Alex - One of the most important roles is that of members when proposals are suggested that might endanger the space, that members should work to diffuse and prevent such bad changes.

Proposals from last week

None

Proposals for next week

None

2nd floor lease

• dan - would like to hear Jarrod's thoughts on it.
• Tim - maybe we should write up what Noisebridge is to explain to new neighbors
• Jarrod - I don't think we can handle it, we have a lot on our plate with one floor as is. It's not also a way of protecting the long-term existence of noisebridge. It'd be great to get the board involved
• Patrick - we should start thinking about what the future of Noisebridge is. It can't always be 2169 mission st. We only have a 3 year lease, and we can't have this conversation with only 3 months left to go.
• Louis - maybe paid classes?
• Alex - we should really aim to use the existing class population to advertise the existence and awesomeness of Noisebridge. We should aim to get more students to become Philanthropists. It helps us make improvements here and otherwise build a warchest.
• Dan - Awesome to see a lot of members here tonight. Impressed by the ability to discuss things with a balance of perspectives; this is how consensus works and is built.

javascript algorithm study group

• tim - working with the algorithm study group. looking to make something that helps people with retention. we'd love some help proofreading what we've made.
• patrick - highly recommend you create a wiki page and email nb-discuss with it :)

REFRESH

removing the kitchen

• j - we should not remove the sink. the kitchenware is totally ok to go.
• jarrod - we should most definitely keep the sink

• jarrod - the entire REFRESH weekend and everything happening during it is a doocratic action. It's just that there's enough people all working together that think it's a good idea for the space to do this. You all have the power to effect change exactly like this. You can make changes to the space to make it more excellent, setting up a space to work on a $thing for example. Pretty much everything done here that makes the space better is done through doocracy.

• Du5t - so I've heard about it through the cards against noisebridge, but does that mean that food things in the space are generally discouraged?
• jarrod - not entirely, take godwafflenoisepancakes for example
• mel - does taking away such facilities mean more mess if it inevitably happens?
• douglas - there's not much left to cook / prepare food with. I think a coffee station and the like are great to have, but removing kitchen things is the best
• patrick - the kitchen being removed was very much by design
• dan - i used to enjoy using the kitchen years back. but it was a focal point for a culture war, and enticed a bunch of behavior that wasn't excellent. That coupled with a city inspection caused us to want to remove it. Beside that point, we do a lot of electronics here and we should have cleaning facilities such that people use them / take care of themselves. It was an experiment to remove it, we don't miss the sink full of dishes, and we don't miss the use of it, and it's worked out.

End of Meeting

• Reprise of the Hackernationale. [This is anarchy - we do what the wiki says!]
• PGP Key Signing could happen now (if it doesn't happen before any given Meeting). Ask others around the space or check the list to see who wants in on the action.
• Return the membership binder to its rightful location.
• Clean and tidy the meeting notes including removing all these really verbose instructions, then save them to the wiki.
• Send a summary of the meeting notes to the discussion list.
• Enjoy the company of your fellow hacker, robot, or robothacker.
• Discuss any items for which there was not time during the meeting.