Meeting Notes 2011 02 08

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Meeting notes for February 8, 2011 general meeting[edit]

A Noisebridge meeting! Started at 20:30.

What Noisebridge is!

Moderator: Al

Notetaker: Seth

Introductions[edit]

Hi everybody.

Consensus process[edit]

Announcements[edit]

On Friday 2011-02-11T18:00 there will be a meeting of people who are interested in learning more about consensus or improving their participation in the consensus process or the process itself.

Recurring events[edit]

Apart from the ones listed on the web page,

  • Be the Hack is meeting on Tuesdays right before the general meeting.
  • Note upcoming 5mof on 2010-02-17!

Consensus items[edit]

Stickers[edit]

Mitch making stickers -- Noisebridge to pay.

Mitch describes the various sizes of vinyl stickers that he can have made with Jakprints $825 (the one we've been using before) or Sticker Giant $775 (one that Josh recommended). This does not include shipping.

We will get them in two sizes and in both black and white and black and red. Black and white was originally a mistake, but people continue to like them.

Q. What is the state of our treasury? Can we afford it?

A. We will ask the treasurer.

Treasurer. Yes, we can. We will still be above our three months' expenses in the bank. Our finances are currently stable again.

Mitch will purchase the stickers from Sticker Giant this time.

Consensus item is approved.

Treasurer's Report[edit]

Bank balance is $17,750.78. We have paid rent for February but not for March.

Donations are higher than they were in the fall, though not as high as right when Shannon first publicized that we were having financial trouble. However, income still remains higher than expenses.

Discussion items[edit]

Cleaning[edit]

Proposal: Noisebridge should buy a vacuum cleaner. We have a shopvac but it's too loud.

Seth: Can I play the song?

Other people: No.

Proposal: We should get a professional-type backpack-style $300 HEPA vacuum.

- We should keep financial discipline by not spending our funds on everything.

- Can't we buy a $30 vacuum on Craigslist?

- Wouldn't it be easier to ask for a donated vacuum cleaner?

- We can hack the vacuum cleaner into a backpack.

- But it wouldn't have a HEPA filter.

- We can find working vacuum cleaners on the street.

Suggestion: Mitch will try to find one on the street and Rachel will hack it.

- According to Danny's survey, people complain about the space being dirty much more than they complain about mailing list drama or anything else.

- But we have brooms already!

- A vacuum cleaner might lower the barrier to cleaning compared to a broom, because it's more fun.

Q. What about putting a broom in a backpack?

- Buying the vacuum cleaner would cost money but it would make cleaning more appealing.

Q. Let's ask the treasurer whether we can afford this expense!

Treasurer: Yes, we could afford this now. But given that expense, why don't we hire instead hire a cleaning service that already has one of these?

Discussion about the idea of hiring a cleaning service. This might be expensive because of the size of the space.

- Buying a vacuum is a one-time expense, unlike hiring a cleaning service which is a recurring expense.

Treasurer: Buying a vacuum is obviously cheaper than hiring someone but maybe we shouldn't buy a vacuum if we hire someone.

- We were discussing hiring someone to clean the bathroom only, but we haven't agreed on this yet.

- Perhaps we should buy a cheap vacuum and see whether people use it.

- We should get quotes about what cleaning services would charge.

Q. How much would people be comfortable spending on a cleaning service?

- We could get a machine that wet-cleans the floor rather than just a vacuum.

- If it were clean, maybe more people would join and more people would use the space. This might actually make up for the extra expense.

- Danny's poll didn't actually ask whether people would use the space more or differently based on cleanliness. We just know that it's the most common complaint.

- There may be a baseline amount of effort going into cleaning the space which could go into other kinds of improvements to the space, like organization. This would be great.

Q. Roomba?

- People would turn them into killer robots. (NB: the company that makes Roombas actually makes military robots too!)

- Also, we probably have too much stuff for a Roomba.

- We just discovered that we actually DO have a vacuum already!

- The problem may be the clutter, not the cleanliness. If only we had a larger space, it would be less cluttered because we would have more places for things.

- It's not clear how the cleaning would affect the organization. There are rival theories.

Q. Does anyone want to get quotes?

- Andy did already or said he would be willing to. Claudia has a contact with a housekeeper and Andy has a contact with a commercial office cleaning service.

- We should label more things in terms of their purpose and destiny.

- We could get a truck and take some stuff away.

Q. What about the nerf guns? How can we decide on whether to get rid of things?

- The consensus process may not be the right way to decide on individual items.

- Shannon is forming a "hitting crap with a hammer" committee (consisting only of himself). If your stuff looks like junk, you should make it look less like junk so he won't hit it with a hammer.

- Excellence vs. do-ocracy. It would be better to photograph things and write to the list about them before throwing them away.

- Throwing away the stuff in the trash room!

- Webcam in the trash room!?

- The trash room could be a staging area for things that will (actually) be thrown away!

Treasurer: Taking things to the dump incurs monetary expenses, as doing renting trucks. Hopefully people will donate those expenses when they rent them. However, if things get carted to the dump Noisebridge will reimburse them for the dump fee.

Shannon will reimburse them for the truck rental fee for this purpose.

Turing[edit]

Shannon wants to talk about Turing (the room) after the meeting.

Membership binder[edit]

Names were read.

Meeting ended at 21:30.