Editing Meeting Notes 2016 08 30 (section)

== Discussion Items ==

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

* Scotty - Expendables fund

=== expendables fund ===

* Scotty - we should consider a mechanism with which noisebridge can purchase expendables like sharpies, screwdrivers, toilet paper and the like that we use on a constant basis.
* robert - costco?
* scotty - not so much the where, but the funds. Right now it's ad-hoc "someone should buy toilet paper". Some things are better than others (sharpies for instance run out). There's also the open-loop pattern where we say "if you use a component from NB donate into the bin", but this money is accounted as going to rent and not for these components. So we have a net drain on these resources which only get filled when people donate components specifically. It'd be nice to close this loop to allow people to donate specifically to replace these items with their donations. It'd be nice to also earmark some portion of recurring donations such that we could replace these on a monthly basis.
* scotty - dunno how exactly to do this, so want thoughts. We have 2 things that are very hastily managed that are similar to this: 1. The laser cutter donation box, and 2. the laser cutter fund. We have money in the box, and we need to put it somewhere.
* robert - I agree. Took a chip out of the components and was looking for fund box over there.
* Patrick - Cash is the devil. Everything to do with cash eventually trickles into rent. Example: There is a box that says "Donate" by the front door. There are T-shirts across from it. We have no way to tell what money comes from T-shirts.
* Patrick - It needs to be so simple that a 5 year old can cover 12 months worth of administrative backlog quickly. I plan to have donate.noisebridge.net be able to allocate funds differently.
* Scotty - Could we, today, establish a separate digital fund as an MVP
* Patrick -Sure, I could hack on that tonight, or create a separate project
* Trent - Is it possible to make a recurring donation to an "expendables" project
* Patrick - That can happen.
* Scotty - I can't champion this, because I'm too busy learning Kyrgyz from a bunch of nerds in Bishkek (*Roger took some editorial discretion with this line*)
* Scotty - It looks like we're steering towards division of finances
* Joe - Doesn't accounting software exist?
* Patrick - ohgodwhy.jpg
* Patrick - Google spreadsheet is straight up better. It doesn't require constaint maintenance. Again, 5 year old being able to deal with it in a night.
* Patrick - NB needs to be resilient enough so that if the hackerspace shits itself (again) and no one touches anything financial related for 18 months, we're not completely screwed.


=== more lockers ===
* Robert - what would it require to make more lockers appear?
* Trent - There's a locker cleanup right now. There is a malloc scheduled for September 20th (verify in the lockers mailing list archive, list.noisebridge.net/lockers).
* Robert - "My grandpa lives in Watsonville, and he knows people who know people." He might be able to find someone who has some old lockers that could be donated.
* Patrick - They need to be small, optimally, since the space is very modular and this way stuff can be reconfigured.
* Scotty - If you have a locker and aren't donating, you suck.

=== bake sales? not cookies but software ===
* Patrick - We don't generally merchandise. We haven't sold them online, bar one fundraising event.
* Robert - There's a soldering thing done at Makerfair, for example
* Patrick - There's a noisebridge badge project, people sell equipment to make a noisebridge badge at cost. It got pretty far, but we lost out of steam because we were feeling the crunch from the Flaschen Taschen.
* Patrick - An idea, what kind of sites sell T-shirts

=== Trent's compulsory 1-minute libary training session ===
* Trent - We have a catalog. Not by location. Also we need more books. There is one javascript book and it's from 2006. That's terrible
* Trent - Also, the LEDs are hackable
* Trent - Right now, we need to take books that don't belong in Noisebridge off the shelf (he holds up a biology book as an example) and into one of those banker's boxes, so that we can donate it.
* Trent - Make sure, if you do fill a box, just let me know and I will record where the books went and put them away.
* Trent - In the detail page, you can find the location for each book.

=== Patrick (on John's behalf) talks about accepting grant funds ===
* Patrick - NB has 501c3 status and can act as a pass-thru 501c3 org for other projects. John has been thinking of a consensus process in order to make this a more common thing at Noisebridge, as it is a way to provide sponsorship/grant funding for a smaller project. It also can be a source of funds, since we could take a 5% cut as an administrative fee.
* Patrick - This is something that's very common. There are organizations whose sole purpose is to sponsor projects in this way. Noisebridge is finally getting stable, and is stable enough to do this.
* Patrick - Projects that go through this process should also go through consensus. It can be a problem if the goals diverge from that of Noisebridge. Specifically Defense.
(At this moment, a raccoon peered through the Mission street window. If we are lucky, we will be able to attach a photo to these notes)
* Patrick - If you have a software project that you want to work on, NB could accept grant funds on your behalf and disburse the funds.
* James - We could offer sponsorship of a class, gifting, without grants
* Patrick - Yes, we could do that.
* Roger - It's a good idea, but separate from this discussion.
* Jason - So Noisebridge will write grants
* Patrick - Noisebridge will only act as a vehicle to receive money as a charity. This is purely us existing as a 501c3 (Jason: Just like franchising) Yes.
* Patrick - There's a proposal that John has written up. It's in a draft state.
* Patrick - Related, Noisebridge has a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZXPP7qMSz4 sandstorm] instance at [noisebridge.sandcats.io].