Meeting Notes 2016 09 27

These are the notes from the The XXXth Meeting of Noisebridge. Date: September 27, 2016 Note-taker: Nick; Moderator: Roger.

• Halloween party for the Lasers in the works
• 2 New Members: Kyle and Roger
• Discussing Jason & Safe spaces at Noisebridge

Meeting Summary

TLDR what happened at the meeting:

• Announcements: Halloween Party!
• Finances: $61K. Lol, Google.
• New members: Kyle Ng, Roger Filmyer 🎉🎉🎉
• New philanthropists:
• Consensus Items:
• Discussion Items: Jason.

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.

Blake: NB is a hackerspace for creative technical projects J: But it's not whatever the hell we want- we must be excellent to eachother and repsect eachother and the space

• 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?

Shushone: Hi this is my first time here

Blake: Hi I'm blake i'm a programmer

Alex: Hi i am a tacher and I do game stuff

Ryan: I am ryan, I am particpating in stuff and food camp, doing a laser cutter class

J: I teach circuit hacking monday and a more advandced electronics course on WEDNESDAY

Vicky: I hack on things some times and shrug

Rozzi: I am a hacker

David: I am new in town and I had a dream I lost 10 years of my life in a PhD program, there was another guy who spent 15 years- dropped out and then died

Roger: I am a hacker by night and a hack by day- I am very proud of this joke, have been waiting all week

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!

• Vicky: JSlack and Naomi may help through a Halloween party - the date is TBD- it will likely be the 28th or 29th- we just started talking about it- it will be a costume party and a fundraiser for the laser cutter

Alex: There's a laser themed costume party? Where?!

VIcky: Here!

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.

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?

Blake: A safe space means we don't tolerate harassment- the thing that I like about this is that we discuss it every meeting and we get to talk about how safe our space really is- we do not tolerate sexism, and racism in the space.

Vicky: If we feel you are a danger to yourself, others, and the space we reserve the right to tell you to take a leave

Blake: This is not a space for bigoted hateful speech

Participation

Invite a knowledgable volunteer to describe who can participate at Noisebridge, including:

• Describe how to get an rfid key for the door system
• Describe how to get access to slack

Philanthropists

• Invite a knowledgeable volunteer to describe Philanthropy, 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(?)

J: A philanthropist is for people who get to know us and who we know and who contribute monetarily to the space and with knowledge of greeting people and closing the space with a vouch from a current member we add you and grow the space.

Roger: There is currently no applications in the folder for philanthropy but Rozzi might have been confirmed last week - we will check to see if he was confirmed Blake: Did you take communion Everyone: hahahahaha

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.

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

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.

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 Noisebridge Discuss and Noisebridge 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.