Meeting Notes 2015 07 14

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These are the notes from the The 365th Meeting of Noisebridge. Note-taker: Nthmost Moderators: Mitch.

  • We renewed our lease!!!!11one
  • Being "elite" is about trying to be a better person than you were yesterday. --fineline

Introductions[edit]

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'."

  • Alex -- plays in a band called OneF, played at ProjectX. Have announcement of Noisebridge event.
  • Nthmost -- (Naomi) looking for people who know how to hack task distribution systems in Python
  • Torrie -- newbie at Erlang, plase halp
  • Dave -- sometimes piglipstick, functional reactive programming. New Philanthropist.
  • Greg -- a dad and a python / SQL hacker
  • Nick -- here from miters, interested in social issues in San Francisco.
  • Ben -- also from miters for the summer. Machine shop, robots and stuff. Things that move.
  • Kelly -- working on AR glasses. Applying to be a philanthropist
  • Steve -- theoretical physicist / software dev. Trying to write a crazy-ass memory manager.
  • Jof -- network engineer and radio geek. Infrastructure geek!
  • Mitch -- mostly travel around the space giving talks, workshops, teaching people to make cool things.
  • J -- you may remember me from such projects as "The Reboot", "Maker Faire", and "CHM"
  • Chris -- founder of The Virtual Couch design studio. Love games, circuitry.
  • Mari -- hanging out at NB to learn new things, product called "Hit Record"
  • Johnny Radio -- been around for about 5 years. Done lots of music-related events, run nonprofit teaching disadvantaged teenagers how to build hardware.
  • Mark -- I come when I can, here tonight doing Gamebridge Unityversity.
  • David Cox -- He does a lot of things, see davidallencox.com

Short announcements and events[edit]

  • Alex -- Saturday August 15th -- 3 local bands -- celebration of lease renewal! hacking! being excellent!
    • Steve: Oh noes, some of us will be at CCC. Can we stream the show to CCC? maybe.
    • Nthmost: We're playing with concepts, like indoor minigolf. Concerns? Questions?
    • Mitch: As long as it's Noisebridgey!
  • Johnny Radio -- this Saturday, performing experimental instruments at Center for New Music -- "The Thingamathon" fundraiser to raise money. Starts about 3pm. BBQ and drinks.
  • Torrie -- 5 Minutes of Fame this Thursday -- this month's power word is "Wilderness".
  • J -- Geek Day of the Month is this Friday. Not just "techie stuff", bringing the community together, casual chat.
  • Nthmost -- Tomorrow is Dorkbot! Starts around 7pm.
  • Torrie -- our lease was renewed!!!!!!111one. We're going broke a little faster than before, so keep throwing money at Noisebridge.
  • Mitch -- Lots of ppl going to Chaos Computer Club Camp, August 13-17th. Lots of things!!! More bandwidth than Africa!!! Noisebridge has a village called NOPE.

Membership Binder [edit]

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.

  • Torrie: Membership is sort of like stewardship, which means paying dues (which keeps the lights on!) and gives you a sense of responsibility -- fix things, improve the space, bring friends, be part of the community. You in essence become Noisebridge! It's OK, it happened to me and I'm fine. --Torrie
  • J: Reminder: You do not need to be a Member to participate and contribute!
  • Mitch: Membership gets you 24 hr access to the space, and full participation in the Consensus process.
  • Mitch: Membership is kinda a big deal as per State of California -- a nonprofit corp (501c3) requires membership. As a member there are a lot of rights bestowed on you by the state.

Philanthropists[edit]

  • A new category at Noisebridge denoting ongoing interest in using the space and developing a relationship to the space and the community, but less formal of a process than becoming a Member. Only one sponsor is required to vouch for a philanthropist, and only one Member-detractor is necessary to cancel philanthropist status.
  • 24 hour access to the space.
  • Status can be taken away if one or more members feel that you are not being excellent. (Hasn't happened yet, but we've only been doing this for 2 weeks now!)
  • Gregory: Torrie sponsors, has given the tour and instructions. No objections.
  • David: Torrie sponsors, has given the tour and instructions. No objections.
  • Johnny Radio: Mitch sponsors and promises to give a tour and instruct in closing procedures. No objections.
  • Kelly Pang: Steve sponsors and promises to give a tour and instruct in closing procedures. No objects.

Financial Report[edit]

  • Funds in bank: $34,490
  • Noisetor: $11,000
  • Our rent just went up to $4,356 (was: $3960)
  • Nthmost, Signal, Patrick working on grant applications -- talk to them if you want to help or have suggestions.

Consensus and Discussion[edit]

  • a brief primer on consensus process
  • Nthmost: Our formal decision making process. We try not to have too many decisions come to Consensus and instead come to decisions more informally via "lowercase-c" consensus and do-ocracy. Checking in with the community when you want to do things is considered Excellent. Sometimes decisions must be agreed upon at the table; we talk through disagreements and only pass a Consensus item if everyone can agree on a plan. If we can't agree, we don't do it.
  • Fineline: Important to note that one Member can block a Consensus from passing. And I think that's a good thing -- it's a check on Groupthink.
  • Mitch: It's also important that we check in with people at the table who don't look happy about a possible decision and aren't saying anything. We want the whole community to be together in decision-making. That's the essence of Consensus.

Proposals from last week [edit]

nope

Proposals for next week [edit]

nope

Discussion Items[edit]

Reciprocal Membership with Sudo Room[edit]

  • David: some kind of reciprocal hackerspace Membership was being discussed at Sudo Room
  • Steve: doesn't that mean less money given to each hackerspace?
  • Nthmost: I have concerns about the alacrity with which they've been adding Members.
  • Torrie: right... there are different standards of membership at each hackerspace. There'd have to be a reciprocal vetting system.
  • David: what if it's not a membership thing, what if it's just that I'm splitting my time between the two and want to contribute to both?
  • Johnny Radio: is it possible for each org to still have a vetting procedure even in the context of reciprocal membership?
  • J: I don't think it's a good idea (reciprocal membership), but maybe something could be discussed on the Philanthropist side.
  • Mitch: I've been to 200+ hackerspaces, maybe an 1/8th of the hackerspaces on the planet. There is an informal version of this already -- if you show up at any hackerspace in the world, you're welcome. If you have a key to Noisebridge, you're way welcome elsewhere!
  • Torrie: In Portland, I visited the PDX hackerspace, and they didn't say get TF out of here, they said "come on in!"
  • Mitch: In the early days there were a lot of discussions on this kind of thing; didn't really go anywhere. This conversations comes and goes.

End of Meeting[edit]