New space meeting 2018 03 13

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Meeting Notes 2018 03 13

Riseup pad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/nb-new-space

Next Meeting: March 20, 2018 at 19:00

In Attendence

  • Kevin
  • Jim
  • Kevin'
  • Jarrod
  • AlexAlex
  • Nathan
  • Greg
  • Clarissa
  • Asya
  • Alex Peake
  • Silver


Overview

  • Messaging & fundraising
  • Lease space search update
  • $NBSP; subgroups
  • Co-tenancy update
  • Accessibility requirements


Messaging & fundraising

Kevin':People offered to fly out here and accept $4K to train us to do things. They're professionals and what not. Jarrod: could be useful if they did it for us -- training is less useful Jim: Foundation Center at Sutter and Stockton -- lots of grant writers there. Local has some value; we're in a rich area and we ought to find local, sympathetic people. $4K to tell us who they think we are is ...errr Kevin: 5% of our bank account to get started. Knothnx Jarrod: We probably wouldn't even take their advice Kevin: If we had $100K's, this would probably be a lot easier, but as it is grant writers will have to learn about who we are. Uless we find someone specific to education/technology Greg: Foundation center x2 They have different programs that might be helpful in this area. They pay money to maintain a database of organizations that received grants Kevin: They offer seminars/webinars on writing grant proposals Jim: Agenda item: we learn how to do this stuff Kevin: Outsourcing might make sense, given the effort on this front to date. Overcoming the learning curve has slowed us down Jim: Needs ass-kicking for optimal cooperation Kevin: People charge a lot of money for kicking ass in this town Kevin': Originally presented the possibility of hiring consultants to help us Silver: Big companies might be generous to places like this. I'm working on a project and I've had some success reaching out to companies. Google, Apple, ...? Noisebridge has a lot to offer -- this space got me into tech. Generates change in communities. Could make a strong case for Noisebridge to one of these companies Jim: What does it mean to go to these companies? How do we find the right companies and identify the right people in those companies? Silver: Presenting the hackerspace to them. They might not know about this place and the resources it offers. We just need the right people to approach them Nathan: We need to be able to expressing what/who we are, to companies, generally wealthy people Silver: I am super down to do this kind of stuff, but I would like to do this with someone else. I have puppy eyes Kevin': Anyone feel plugged into the fundraising effort? Someone seems to be working on copy(?) Nathan: I can contribute photo/video work. I think we should create a gofundme campaign. We should be able to show people what we are in 2-3 minutes. People with a lot of money rarely have a lot of time Kevin: Do we have a gofundme? Kevin': We have a Patreon Kevin: Naomi has been working on it Kevin': There is a fundraising channel. Would be empowering to us all to get involved with these discussions Alex: It would be really useful to have groups that work independently, then come to gether, to compare result, to motivate each other. That's not happening now, and it's SAD. Alex: Is there an entrypoint for people, task forces they can contribute to Nathan: It would be valuable to show people "here are the teams working on this" Silver: This being an anarchist space, that goes to show that people care enough about it to keep it around. #1 in the USA! Rich people are really generous Asya: #poverty There are billions in poverty. Another team can choose to do events. We could have items we sell to the public to fundraise. Selling as in donation Jim: Good track. Testimonials are powerful. Who has benefitted already? What have we made/done? Nathan: We have a history at Maker Faire every year. That's one instance of publicity Jarrod: the information you get by going there (the grant place) in person is much better than the information you get online Kevin: I like the idea of finding out where other similar organizations get funds Alex Peake: Building a Noisebridge-specific game. Need to build specific activities/skills you can learn here. Also need an overarching narrative. We need content. Game would be free but there would be opportunities for monetization. We need to make video-type content showcasing Noisebridge Nathan: First person, 3-minute documentary. Someone walks in off the street and tours the space

Takeaway: Let's create some task force groups. Let's pin announcement of new-space subgroups in the new-space channel


$NBSP; subgroups

It might be helpful to have focused groups for the various aspects of the Noisebridge Space Program which can run in parallel. Each subgroup should have a point-person, a bottom-liner. Each group should be able to provide updates at the weekly $NBSP; meetings. It may be helpful to create a channel on Slack in order to focus communication on said topics.

Weekly NBSP Meeting

   - Kevin'

Let's go to Google/Apple/Other big companies

   - Silver
   - another female bottom-liner? Naomi?

Grants team

   - Asya
   - Jarrod

Standalone Noisebridge Game

   - Alex Peake
   - Need content people to make content

Videography/Photography group

   - *Looking for a bottom-liner for this group*
   - Nathan
   - Scotty?
   - Documentation team to help people who've made things to document their work

Spacewalkers

   - Kevin

Live Streaming Arcade Cabinet group

   - Mark
   - PLAY GAMES TO SAVE NOISEBRIDGE!
   - Would be nice to get fundraising help and outreach to video game watchers
   - Join #nbgamingarchivists channel


Lease space search update

Kevin: 1504 Bryant. 10,000sqft property on Bryant. Divisible into two spaces. Accessible in theory, though there is a pinch point that may not be wide enough for chair access. One bathroom is not ADA. Owner is interested in upgrading the bathroom on the ground floor. There's typically a broker representing the building owner, but sometimes there's a tenant owner. They're helpful in negotiating a better deal. We've been working with Blake on this and looping him in on our search.

1144 Howard St. 8-9,000sqft. Two floors. Owner is weird. $1.67sqft/mo, which falls into our range. Owner wants to lease the whole thing for $15,000. We've spoken with 2-3 other organizations who might be interested in co-tenant'ing. That hasn't really worked out well. Partly because we don't really have everything together internally. Personally I think we should go with something that's within our budget. We should focus on affordability because affordable spaces are very few and far between right now. Used to work in this space and right now we're in a very low vacancy market (< 1% estimated). There are probably only 5-10 buildings on the market like this. We should look at opporunities based on what we can afford. Might be able to get a better deal through our tenant broker and/or co-tenants.

132 Missouri at 17th. Between Mission and Dogpatch; Potrero. 6,000sqft. $1.35sqft/mo Industrial. Pay for utilities on our own. That's preferable. Excitement. 30 min walk from BART

36-40 Shotwell at 14th. It's a hut. It has a roof. It's not cheap. $2+sqft/mo. Maybe $2.50

Jim: interested in electrical issues Kevin: That's my update Kevin': What is your view on affordability today, sans fundraising effort Kevin: Looks like we can afford $7,000'ish, though maybe higher if we continue getting more money as we have been recently. $90,000 in the bank, though $30,000 of that is earmarked for TOR. We need $40-50,000 to move in, plus moving expenses (trucks, movers, etc.) Alex Peake: I have a U-Haul truck Kevin': We have bodies, if nothing else Kevin: Only mention it because someone was estimating that we need $1/4M to move, though maybe that had to do with making a down payment. Worst case scenario, we find a business to lease ASAP. We only have 4 months left. We need a month of overlap at least Jim: We might want to rent a storage space temporarily Kevin: Spoke with John about what a Noisebridge graceful shutdown would look like. Basically going into storage, underground, etc. So far the current owner gives no shits about us. We need to respect that trendline Jim: Before there was building Noisebridge, there was coffee house Noisebridge Kevin': Anyone see any new properties? Kevin': Anyone want to do a tour? Kevin: Let's see if it's still available Alex Peake: I have a friend who used to hang out here a lot, Paul, and he's a superstar fundraising/grant writing person. I will get in touch with him. I will put him in touch with the grant team Jarrod: Shall we use the new-space channel for coordination? Asya: Grant writing should have its own channel Kevin: There's a fundraising channel Asya: Can there be a grant writing channel/tag? Kevin: Let's put it in the fundraising channel Kevin: I think there are two pieces missing from our process. 1) we need more people to check out buildings/spaces Silver: Noisy in the new-space channel. Maybe we can make a channel specifically for checking out spaces Jarrod: We can pin things to the sidebar. Highlighted/pinned items(?) Kevin: I don't have a good sense for who's down to look at buildings. Not sure if the people who were checking out buildings are still involved(?) We need to make a letter of intent. Ruth put one together for 1144 Howard. Formal non-binding communication expressing interest Greg: How is the timing on this going to work? How long will it take to sign on? Will we be paying for overlapping months? Kevin': We've discussed timelines and that we'll need to move quickly. We have a process for how this decision can be made quickly. Part of the letter of intent is negotiating whether or not we'll get the first X months free. We need to put something together that looks right to brokers Kevin: I need to stop expecting more people to jump in and get involved. People will probably get more excited when more is happening. We need at least a month of overlap to move Noisebridge over, and we should probably do that before August. That depends on what we can negotiate. It's a matter of whether or not they're going to wait for us. Depends on whether or not we'll be able to break the current lease Kevin': We need to have a plan to synchronize these things Silver: Who is the board? Are they at this meeting? Are they behind the scenes? Kevin': Trent and Patrick are long-standing members of the community. More responsibility than power Kevin: Board was elected this year under the banner that this board will do nothing Kevin': We've specified that the treasurer, president, secretary, etc. will decide Jim: This is to conform to legal expectations. They are the fall guys Kevin': These titles hold no significance. They can sign agreements. They are a legal interface. They act based on the consensus of the group Kevin: My faith meter is low for better oranization Jim: Discussion list might help Kevin: With an interest in keeping the process private, we've made a non-public list for these discussions (to avoid trolls, competing brokers, etc.) Kevin': Noisebridge has many known and unknown adversaries Jarrod: Hillary Ronen, district supervisor, coming to do something here tomorrow morning at 0915 Asya: Hillary begins the process of something. It's a huge process Kevin: It's a process we don't have much time for. We met on Friday with MEDA SF. They think our time line is too short. They acquire disressed properties and redevelop them. They're building a large mixed-use property at the moment. They offer other service which might help us, such as connecting us with other organizations. For instance loan organizations. In the short term NCCLA could help us to look good to a potential land lord. Presentation matters a lot. Having a CPA look at our books could be very helpful for optics. Things like that Jarrod: Did they happen to say what would make the time line better? Would there be a good reason to put us into storage and wait? Kevin: Reps from MEDA SF is going to be here to tour Noisebridge on Friday at 12:00. Would be good to have a bunch of people here Jarrod: Propose that we start a calendar on the new space wiki page Kevin: How about instead of a wiki, which it can be hard to find things on, could we have a Trello board for NBSP? Jarrod: We have a Trello board since December. There is a calendar plugin. Might be overkill. Wiki for now, can optimize later. Everything should be in one place (this page) Kevin: Another suggestion: to have mirroring between the Slack channel and the wiki page Jarrod: Slack channel needs curation Kevin: I hardly notice pinned items because they aren't immediately visible Alex: Bottom-liners, point-people for these sub-groups? Kevin: Agreed. Someone needs to care enough. Really flat organizations are hard


Co-tenancy update

N/A


Accessibility requirements

N/A