Meeting Notes 2020 04 14

These are the notes from the The 573th Meeting of Noisebridge. Video meeting: https://zoom.us/j/972291454 help take notes at - https://pad.riseup.net/p/nbmeeting

This meeting happening online via: Date: 04-14-2020

Note-taker: Mark

Moderators: Ryan

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

Meeting Summary

FIXME FILL OUT AT END OF MEETING AND SEND TO MAILING LIST TLDR what happened at the meeting:

• Fundraising Update
• Announcements:
• Finances:
• New members:
• New philanthropists:
• Consensus Items:
• Discussion Items:

Introductions

• Ryan he him : doing VR live streaming, having internet issues
• Tyler - he/him - really impressed by the Discuss integration
• Tiffany - she/her, Free Code Camp and sewing stuff
• Mark - MetaGuild, VidyaGames
• Robert - DOES CIRCUIT HACKING MONDAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY :)
• TJ - robotics and all that cool stuff
• James - he/him - curious about $25k grant due tomorrow

Short announcements and events

60-second description per item in bulletpoint. Once again: Ludum Dare Game Jam this weekend! https://ldjam.com

• James: There is a $25K grant from the Mayor's office available to 501c3 arts organizations!

Might only qualify for $10k

• James: I started the form and added a bunch of your names to it already.

its under an account is using:

 * av@noisebridge.net
 * password in socialmediawg secrets on slack

• Ryan: We're trying to upgrade Discuss, could always use more help. Certain groups would like help with setting up new website, Jitsi server, etc. Check on Slack and Discuss if you'd like to help.

 * https://discuss.noisebridge.info/t/need-help-setting-up-videoconferencing-software-jitsi-for-noisebridge/1595
 * https://discuss.noisebridge.info/t/new-noisebridge-website/1309/5
 * https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Unicorn
 * https://github.com/noisebridge/infrastructure/issues/251

Excellence

Our One Rule is to Be Excellent to Each Other.

(What does that mean? How does the Anti-Harassment Policy fit into this? Are we SURE we know what being Excellent is? This is an important and fundamental conversation at Noisebridge, so let's give it like 120 seconds.)

Excellence is about respecting your peers in the community and doing cool things that help Noisebridge, its people, and yourself!

Participation

Everyone at Noisebridge is a participant at Noisebridge.

(What does that mean? How do you get a door key? Access to Slack, Discuss, etc?)

Slack and diiscuss is currently the main way to participate. Access to Slack is done by invite. Get to know some community members!

Philanthropists

A Philanthropist at Noisebridge has earned enough trust from the community to open and close the space.

(What does that mean? What do we expect from Philanthropists? How do you become one? etc)

High trust level - recurring payment to noisebridge 24/7 access, responsibilities, including taking care of the space, closing it when necessary, etc

Kinnard needs to contact tyler

Alex: Is there a video link?

Membership Binder

Membership in Noisebridge entails community Trust in Consensus.

(What does that mean? What do we expect from Members? How do you become a Member? etc)

highest trust level can block Big C concensus 4 week process

no one

Financial Report

Anarchist societies under a capitalist state need money to survive and thrive, yo. March 2020 Update https://discuss.noisebridge.info/t/financial-report-q1-2020/1666

Crypto selloff progress https://discuss.noisebridge.info/t/crypto-selloff-schedule-4-6-2020/1639/6

• Funds in bank:

* 168000 cash
* 103000 crypto
* 271402.55 total
* 38% still crypto
* we have sold 3.75 bitcoin so far in this process
* Noisetor https://github.com/noisetor (See the bulletpoints at the bottom of http://noisetor.net/finances/#summary):
* Any other details by those participating in handling our financials
* The latest financial reports from the treasurer are available at https://noisebridge.net/wiki/Finances

Reimbursements (almost 1 year) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15HsJqcqxwcBZn6UgK7xR6YD3C6UFLBwOcBmbB8Xy6yI/edit#gid=0

Tyler proposes resetting the dedicated funds since they're just speculative at this point.

Ryan: We should probably keep the equiptment fund, for 50% funding of purchaces.

James: there was supposed to be a high limit, a cutoff for how much noisebridge can contribute, i dont remember what it was...

We should look it up, should be findable on the wiki. Equipment fund was originally created with group input. Might have been entirely through do-ocracy or Consensus. Start searching!

Ryan: We could reset and maybe let the guilds be in charge of their funds?

Tyler: We could have the guilds decide what they want funded, like a gofundme for specific equipment

James: What about those groups that fundraised for a long time? No way to confirm the funds they raised, even over many years? Is there any way to figure this out with info we have now?

Tyler: yeah but it would be a difficult, manual process..

James: Was tracked by selecting a project when you donate. Has not been migrated over yet. https://donate.noisebridge.net/ Note "General Fund" is the only selectable option now. They used to be tons of options in previous portal.

• https://github.com/noisebridge/python-nb-donate/issues/44
• https://github.com/noisebridge/python-nb-donate/issues/43

Any help with learning how this projects functionality works is greatly appreciated! See these links and let us know!

Here is the old portal we no longer use:

* https://github.com/noisebridge/donate.noisebridge.net

Tyler: How much money do you think is in the VR and GNAR funds?

James: Not sure, but check out the links above.

Tyler: Go to github, look who most recently worked on the donate page, see if you can ask them if they made a backup of the fund data.

James: Could be possible to find out if these "project" donations were stored somewhere by previous maintainers. I'll ask the old maintainers if they can assist.

lxpk: Could we use Quickbooks or something like that?

Tyler: We do use Quickbooks. We're not using Little Green Light(?) anymore, but Ruth did back up the data from it.

lxpk: Could we integrate Quickbooks to the donate page?

James: If we can figure out what the old donations were (see discussion above) we could combine it with a new system that tracks everything via quickbooks or similar.

Discussion moved to https://discuss.noisebridge.info/t/we-need-help-finding-project-earmarks-for-previous-donations-via-the-old-donation-portal/1667

Fundraising Update

How's it all going

Applying to grants if we have time by deadline of tomorrow at 5pm PST. Volunteer help appreciated. See announcement in announcements section:

* https://discuss.noisebridge.info/t/25k-grant-might-apply-to-noisebridge/1665

GuildMaster's Report

What is the current state of structural organization at Noisebridge?

• https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Guilds
• What is a guild? (Ask a volunteer to describe)

lxpk: A guild is a going concern of people who want to facilitate events or maintain things at noisebridge, typically a group of people dedicated to keeping their things of interest operating and maintained.

james: another thing mark has been interested in is different groups writing up a charter, helping them dictate the way that they are going to organize and achieve their goals. This also helps with Guild participants changing and trying to know where the group left off.

• What guilds are active? (Read the active guilds from Guilds wiki

 page) -- https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Guilds#Active_Guilds

• https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/MetaGuild

• (For each guild mentioned, ask if guild rep is present for a brief status update)

• Would you like to join or start a guild? Checkout our guidelines or contact MetaGuild for help.

Metaguild had a meeting on Friday to ammend our charter quite a bit. Solidifying things, but still seeking input. We're not 100% there and we want community input. Still loosy goosey, but we look forward to getting this officially active. We are not yet "active" per our own definition. Help us figure it out! We want to make this air tight and have it working well in conjunction with our values as Noisebridgers.

https://discuss.noisebridge.info/t/metaguild-charter/1611/7

Ryan - will work on errors on the wiki pages. Some of the links dead or re-directs in wrong order.

Mark - Let's continue this offline. If you want to start a guild, please model up a charter! There are four requirements for writing a charter. They are written on in the metaguild charter. Section describing your ownership and how you transfer it. Another with ranks, another with badges (achievements), and a "Guild Identity"(info on how the guild operates)

Here is a draft of the Charter if you want to check it out and try editing it: https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/MetaGuildCharterDraft

Circuit Hacking Monday: Currently using Tinkercad to teach online. I've had very low attendance(small numbers of peeps can be good for the learning process, but not as a tool to expand the Noisebridge customer base.) as trying to teach electronics over the intrawebs can be hard and weird for people, I've been thinking part of the experience is to hold the resistor in your hand and burn your fingers with the soldering iron. Maybe VR Soldering stations?

VR Guild: Nothing currently happening as we can not go to noisebridge. Currently looking for donations for upgrading the VR setup. > Can the VR peeps do any livestreams from home? Yes Pyconaut is. Google Cardboard VR? No that system is dead (google graveyard) :(. Help us build VRchat Noisebridge

(Robotics -- we just moved our Slack workspace into the

1. robotics) meeting on Wed?

Consensus

Consensus is how the Noisebridge Membership may change how Noisebridge works.

(How does Consensus work? What types of things are good for formal Consensus? What is small-c consensus? What is a "block"?)

Consensus is the process for seeking group approval on any item. Normally accomplished via do-ocracy (taking action), but sometimes you want to confirm consensus because it means we are renting a new space, etc. 1st week is discussion, proposed at Tuesday meeting. 2nd week is formal consensus. Anyone may propose, but if even a single full Member of Noisebridge decides to block this process, we will fail to reach consensus. This means the item falls back to discussion and usually ends up being resolved by do-ocracy, or the Member blocking can possibly change their mind and switch their block to standing aside (no Block) or actually supporting the action. Consensus can be tough to explicitly achieve, and often depends on communication with all of Noisebridge's members. Best to get comfortable with the community and find your flow.

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.)

none

Proposals for next week

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

lxpk:

Consensus item for 2020-04-14: Real-estate decisions decided by board ratified by 24 hour notice special member consensus

Modified from 2018-03-06 consensus which worked to get a lease. https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Consensus_Items_History)

Adds "building improvement decisions" to the list of decisions which board can initiate.

Real-estate decisions are time-sensitive and require an accelerated consensus process:

1. The board officers of Noisebridge may enter into loan agreements, building purchase negotiations, lease negotiations and building improvement decisions in the interest of acquiring a suitable building to be our permanent home. This authorization lasts until a permanent home has been secured, or until Noisebridge has either renewed the 2169 Mission St lease or signed a new lease and any related building improvement decisions are completed at which time the measure will be ended by a 24 hour Consensus.

2. The Board Officers shall keep a log of non-sensitive information stemming from the authorizations above to be published as a “note” on the #the-board, a Noisebridge wiki page, and the Noisebridge discuss mailing list, at a minimum interval of every 2 weeks.

3. In the event that a purchase, lease or building improvement decision is required in under two weeks, a special meeting may be called with at minimum 24 hours notice to form a special consensus on the lease, building improvement or purchase decision. The meeting will occur at Noisebridge and provide a mechanism (e.g. Google Hangout) for remote participation. A link will be provided to remote in the 4 channels described above and the pad.riseup.net/p/nbmeeting notes.

Ryan: Authorization should last a bit longer than the moment of a new lease so that building improvements probably done after lease is finalized can be decided. Some form of small C consensus or big C consensus should decide when the item has ended in effect since it likely will take 3-4 months before we become comfortable in the new space. Also, add in more things related to each building improvement so all will trigger a 24 hour special consensus period.

lxpk: Agreed, amended as such.

pyconaut: Where to post on Discuss instructions can be worked out next week without changing the meaningful language of the consensus item.

Discussion

Discussion Item 1

General Meeting Format...

(From pre-meeting lobby while waiting: We talked about what might be some solutions that respect people's time and hopefully keep people engaged)

Someone mentioned in the middle of the meeting that it may be best for people to just do-ocratically interject early to keep sections and meeting flow moving.

Discussion of changing meeting format.

Ryan: We could move boilerplate things to pre=meeting time to keep the business part of the meeting shorter. Definitions of consensus, membership, philanthropy, guilds, participation, etc. so when meeting starts people cna get straight into announcements, doing consensus items, approvals, etc. ending with attendance at 8 oclock sharp.

People who speak at the premeeting section could introduce themselves then.

This would be in essence the second half of the Noisebridge extended tour teaching new people how NB works from 7:30-8:00.

This should be reflected in how the meeting notes template is laid out.

Maybe extended tour section of meeting could be badges needed to join metaguild or something.

We could have that be one of badges for being guildmaster to be able to give tour or explain how NB functions.

Should there be general badges that all guildmasters must have?

Mark: I did suggest in charter for metaguild that Guild Masters should at least be philanthropist which includes knowing how to give tours. Not sure about ranks lower than that.

Ryan: Once we start doing in person stuff we should keep current metaguild master meetings at a new time.

Alex: It sounds like a good idea. We should edit the meeting notes template page so its ready for next week.

Ryan: I'll change Zoom info to be 7:30 and announce on Slack and Discuss if someone else can on mailing list.

Mark: I'll try to announce on mailing list. 7:30 pre-meeting, 8:00 generael meeting.

Mark: Leading the 'extended tour' section could be a metaguild badge, or doing it a few times. We need to incentivize older noisebridgers to lead this section, as it might not happen naturally.

Discussion Item 2

Real Estate Update

Tyler: We got redline back from our attorneys. Only thing we changed was definition of start date. We've done some more diligence on the zoning. We don't know what we're going to do about protections we're going to write into the lease. Alice suggested adding a lease break option for us if we are told by city that we're not allowed to be in the space due to zoning. There would be a time limit. They'd get back to us in 6 months in a normal year, who knows in a coronavirus year. Is this a good idea? Involves inviting an inspector. Are there other ways around it? Currently research is ongoing. Planning to send out redline in current form for 272 Capp tomorrow. I have an email out to Ronen's office, asking them if it's worth going down that path. In the past, they said they'd try to be helpful in any way they could. Hopefully they say we don't need a ZAD (zoning determination).

Mark: Question - how much of this should we make known to our potential new landlord in order to get on good terms with them? Should we reach out to them with our intent, saying we're looking into it and would like their help? Since they know the building.

Tyler: Zoning depends on the organization within the building. Prior occupant was an autoshop. They didn't do any building zoning review, based on public records. Most people don't do that, since you don't want to invite inspectors. Real estate agent doesn't really understand why we're asking all these questions.

lxpk: Do we know what zoning Techshop had? If they got away with not doing anything special, we might be fine.

Ryan: We should talk to Humanmade. I'm pretty sure they did go through a zoning review. They wanted to be as legit as possible.

Tyler: Yes, it would be good to know about Techshop and Humanmade's zonings. Our building department issue was because of the sprinklers (unlicenced building). Planning department issue came up because we wanted to change the zoning (triggers economic impact fees).

Ryan: Could we get a tour of the unit directly next to 272 Capp? It would add more restrooms and extra exit/fire escape.

Tyler: I don't know, but we could ask.

Tyler: If anyone knows a general contractor, we want to have them walk through 272 Capp once the coronavirus shelter-in-place ends.

lxpk: Have you talked to Jarrod? He probably knows people.

Tyler: Jarrod hasn't been very involved. He did comment on 272 Capp, but I'm not sure how involved he wants to be.

Tyler: bye noisebridge