Meeting Notes 2016 08 09

These are the notes from the The 422nd Meeting of Noisebridge.

Date: Aug 9, 2016

Note-taker: Roger;

Moderators: Steve.

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

Meeting Summary

TLDR what happened at the meeting:

• Announcements: Joe & some friends are getting a probability group started
• Finances: Give us money
• New members:
• New philanthropists: Jason
• Consensus Items:
• Discussion Items: Scotty wants to swap Philanthropist and Member on the meeting template. We think this is good.

Introductions

• Invite a knowledgeable volunteer to explain what Noisebridge is about:

Noisebridge is a 501c3 nonprofit that provides a space for creation, collaboration, and learning about technology and creative projects. Noisebridge provides space, power tools, and infrastructure to help the public learn new skills and create cool things. Noisebridge continues to exist through and depends entirely on membership fees and donations. Our code of conduct is 'Be excellent to each other'."

• Introduce any experimental or unusual moderation techniques that may be using during the meeting like: direct responses, limited speaking time, orderless stack, &c.
• Round of introductions (remember, announcements come later):
  • What's your name
  • What do you do
  • What do you maintain at Noisebridge?
  • if you are new: how did you hear about Noisebridge?

• Steve, Member, Software developer, Making computer art

• Matt, Work too much, commute too much

• Joe, Software developer, doing circuit hacking monday, wants to become a "philanthropist" (note quote fingers)

• Colin, Recent grad from Seattle U, (prospectively) interested in becoming a member. Interested in machine learning/ image recognition

• Chris, hardware

• Roger, notes

• Joyti, attorney/software developer

• Ryan, doing a lot of creative things (comes here for gamebridge often)

Short announcements and events

• Cool new projects? Something you'd like people to know? Say now, but keep it short! One or two sentences please!
• Any happenings at the space of which members should be made aware.
• Don't hog everyone's time since we all just want to hack!

• Joe & some friends are getting a probability group started. We've worked through linear algebra, and we're now working through Probability Theory by E. T. Jaynes. We're planning to meet weekly, time TBD. When is the Turing room available?

Safe Space

Note: This section is experimental. We discussed it at Meeting_Notes_2016_06_28. We're going to try it for the next meeting, and see how it goes, and then discuss in the discussion section how it went, and how we'd like to tweak it.

Noisebridge is a safe space. Invite a volunteer to describe what that means. (We don't exclude people based on who they are. The diversity of noisebridge makes it better)

Some specific points you might prompt the group to touch on, if it doesn't happen naturally:

• What to do if you feel uncomfortable.
• Noisebridge strives to be radically inclusive. What does that mean?
• Noisebridge has an antiharassment policy. What does that mean? (Sets explicit boundaries on what "being excellent" means)

Scotty: We also added this because we still need to work through these definitions and these processes as a community.

Ryan: Have we thought about making a list of people at NB who would be good people to talk to (training, emotional wherewithal, etc.)

Scotty: NB isn't in a good state to provide trained psychological support, but there certainly are people that have experience helping with these issues.

Scotty: Again, this is actively a WIP. If you think there are possible changes/improvements, let us know.

Membership Binder

• Invite a knowledgeable volunteer to describe membership, and the application process.

Being a member of Noisebridge is not like being a member of a gym or your local chess club. Anyone can come to Noisebridge to hack and learn: you don't need to be a member for that. At Noisebridge, membership is something different: it means taking responsibility and committing to help to maintain, improve, and govern Noisebridge. As a member of Noisebridge, you don't just come here to hack and learn, you actively work to improve what you see around you, help to deal with problems, and make this community and space better than it is today.

• Read off any names from the binder for the past month. Mark down a check or other indicator on every open application to keep track of how many weeks they've been read out.
• Anyone eligible to join this week should
  • introduce themselves,
  • answer any questions members may have for them, then
  • leave the area in search of gifts (traditionally beer and a lime, or cookies) for the rest of the group.
• The rest of the meeting should reach consensus on whether they may join.
• Remember to applaud new members when they return.

Shit's empty.

Philanthropists

• Invite a knowledgeable member to describe Philantropy, and the application process.
• Read off any names from the binder for the past month. Any applicants must have their sponsor present to vouch for them.
• If there are no objections, they're a philanthropist! Their pledge should be handed over to the Secretary posthaste, after which their token will be updated to give them the 24/7 access they've earned(?)

Jason (who helped a ton with Sparkleforge) applied for philanthropy

Financial Report

• Funds in bank:
• Noisetor (See the bulletpoints at the bottom of http://noisetor.net/finances/#summary):
• Any other details by those participating in handling our financials

Give us money.

The Equipment Fund stands at $12,250.09

Our electrical bills went up like $80, and coincidentally we just got a kiln and a laser cutter.

Consensus and Discussion

• invite a knowledgeable volunteer to give a brief primer on consensus process
• It is important that everyone in attendance understands at least:
  • Blocking with verbalized principled objections.
  • Why we use consensus over other approaches to decision making.
  • How consensus isn't a legislative process
  • Why consensus isn't applicable to some things like conflict resolution, resolution of time sinks, and the like.

Proposals from last week

(Add any items which are consensed upon or someone has raised a principle objection for to the Consensus Items History page.)

Proposals for next week

(Add any new items for consensus to the Current Consensus Items page.)

Discussion Items

If any important discussion happens, it should be happening after forward progress is made during consensus.

Scotty: I have a proposed change to the meeting format. Rearrange the order of philanthropists and members. Philanthropy is a better starting point for people getting started in the space. Steve: That's a great idea

Scotty: Also, discussing access. Slack access, key access, and general discussion on what it means to participate in Noisebridge. Alex: Yes. This is always a part of how we define membership/discussion/philanthropy Jason: Do we have a script/way to discuss these processes? Scotty: I guess this is what we're trying to do. Roger: This is great. We have unwritten things that we say every meeting.

End of Meeting

1. Return the membership binder to its rightful location.
2. Discuss any items for which there was not time during the meeting.
3. Enjoy the company of your fellow hacker, robot, or robothacker.

Note taker posts the notes

1. Clean and tidy the meeting notes including removing all these really verbose instructions.
2. Fill out the short summary at the top listing just announcements, consensus items, discussion topics, and names of new members and philanthropists.
3. Copy paste the notes to the next meeting page. (They will become Last meeting at midnight.)
4. Email the meeting summary to Discuss and Announce lists.
5. CC on the email treasurer@noisebridge.net and secretary@noisebridge.net if there are new members and philanthropists.
6. Edit the Current Consensus Items if anything is proposed for consensus next week.
7. Edit the Consensus Items History if anything was reached consensus or failed to reach consensus this week.

Fun things to do after

• 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.