Meeting Notes 2017 06 06

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Faciliator - darryl

Notes - lizzie

unmeeting!


augur -alright! noisebridge meeting. we're going to do a lesss formal thing than usual. rather than going through all the details.

lizzie - I have an item to add: what is noisebridge?


the list - what is noisebridge?


jervon - semi-community space! it's open to the community to hack on projects here. the only rule is to be good - excellent - to each other. that's the only rule. with that being said, if there is an issue that arises, something that shouldn't be in the space, someone will ask you to leave and let you know that's not tolerated in the space.


john - you're welcome to use the space for any kind of project, this space is defined by the community, not just the membership. everything here is donated and volunteer-run. whatever you want as long as you're not getting in the way of another event. this place is your playground.


augur - what we're going to do: introductions, announcements, longer discussion items.


augur - is darryl. he teaches lasercutting. works on robots and ai. and things like that.

gene - first time here. lately has been curious about electronics,a rduinos, raspberry pis. was wondering if nb was a good space to learn more.

matt - my general thing is to use tech to unleash creativity. working on ?, a youtube channel / blog.

alex - like 3rd time. first introduction! came a while ago. has a garage full of shit. wants to donate some of it. has muriatic acid and ? converter. has a lot of stuff to provide and time to provide. wants to find the best way to apply self to space.

kevin = likes to hack on software and photography (?) related things. brought lockers. muriatic acid might be the thing.

john - administrative stuff.

jeremy - freecodecamp, has a lot of time, ?

scott - haunting for 6 months. first came around ~3years ago. likes code, hardware stuff.

dan - looking to move hackdays (event in his apt) to noisebridge. has outgrown his apt. used to be a member in 2010. pretty nice to be back. background is code (since 10yrold) and ee and robots and computational chemistry. "just a hacker". let me know if it's cool.

jervon - accountant by day, code by night. want to have an event on the 21st of june. what do you actually want in life? (augur - let's talk about that in announcements).

diego - musician - gray area, can teach you ableton.

gray - likes operating systems, networking, sysadmin, hasn't been to the space in a while until past couple days.

luke - designer doing modular systems? learning programming.

nick - software engineer. likes to do a lot of stuff for the space. knows people and things.

lizzie - security, audio, electronics.


augur - announcements!


everyone wants to wait to discussion?


diego - gray area is having a quarterly event called unseen. awesome improvised analog electronics a/v stuff. improvised on the spot. 22nd! you all should come by. (gray area is a nonprofit for art and technology. incubator, creative coding, puts on shows.)

gray - chat about cross-cultural design and conversation about ?. unicode, emoji, etc. july 12th - echo user, $5.

augur - we now have a flammable stuff box. if you're looking for something that is flammable (spray paint, acetone, etc) it's in that box, in the dirty shop next to the club mate. if you want to store stuff, put it in there.


consensus items - someone want to explain consensus

gray - everyone is welcome to participate, members can block.

augur - the way that we run the place, we don't vote and look for a majority. we make decisions by consensus. two forms: little c: "hm I would like to put music on, or move couches. you go around and ask if people have problems with it. if no one has a problem with it, go ahead!" big C: that basically means you submit a formal consensus proposal at a meeting, it's discussed for two weeks, and if no one has asked to block it. anyone can participate in the conversation, but only members can block. it's like a veto.

matt - if there's not enough yeses then it won't go through?

augur - if no one has blocked it it becomes official noisebridge policy. not a yes/no symbol.

matt - so the default is yes?

john - if someone doesn't have a block-level concern, but if they still have concerns, it's good to talk about the solution.

alex - does that apply to extreme, major situations?

augur - usually we want to use little c consensus. we try to get away with it. big c consensus is reserved for things that change what noisebridge is. shouldn't be used for looking for where to put things.

john - wrt to the laser, people set up fundraising. large parts of the space were built without consensus. library, 3d printer area, etc. you probably would want consensus to like, sell the laser cutter.

alex - a while ago I wanted to talk about getting a CNC router.


augur - so we have one consensus item I believe. currently has been going the process.

john - it's been read out a couple of weeks. my younger brother thomas passed away a few weeks ago. we are going to set up a foundation in his memory. he recently quit his job to focus on writing. we want to make sure all of his money goes towards helping other writers. also people were asking where to donate money. I asked some people if we could be a fiscal sponsor for this potential nonprofit and got little c consensus among the board members. Making a nonprofit will take two months to a year. We're not planning on doing anything with the money until we're a nonprofit. skipping to third paragraph... (from here: https://noisebridge.net/wiki/Current_Consensus_Items

   "As some of you know, my younger brother Thomas died of a sudden cardiac arrest last Tuesday. He was only 25 years old. My family and I are devastated. I don’t know when I will be able to think about anything but him. He was my best friend and the kindest, funniest person I’ve ever known.
   

From what the detective and his roommates said, he died doing what he loved: writing. He was a New York Times and USA Today best-selling urban fantasy and science fiction novelist and collaborated with author all over the world. He quit his day job last year and committed himself fully to his writing. He has published six novels, with five novels completed and scheduled for release this year, and countless stories edited for others.

His friends in the author community set up a GoFundMe to raise money for funeral expenses and people have been asking if they can contribute to a charity in his honor. We are planning to set up a nonprofit Thomas J. Shutt Foundation to give grants, awards, and scholarships to young writers to support them as they develop their craft. Our first program will most likely be a small scholarship for local high school students interested in creative writing.

WHY FISCAL SPONSORSHIP?

We’re starting the process of setting up a separate nonprofit organization, but it will take a while and people are asking to donate now. For that reason, we are seeking fiscal sponsorship from Noisebridge to accept donations while we create an independent organization. We will begin creating incorporation documents this week, but getting approval may take two to twelve months.

We anticipate having our independent nonprofit set up before we give our first grants, which means that Noisebridge would act simply to receive donations, hold them, and keep track of them before transferring the funds to that organization. We anticipate that the new organization will have a board of directors composed of Thomas’ immediate family members. The board will create plans and judging criteria for giving grants, awards, and scholarships.

We will keep Noisebridge apprised of our progress towards becoming a recognized independent nonprofit, and will only transfer collected funds once we have demonstrated to the Noisebridge community and board of directors that we have reached that goal.

We anticipate that managing the foundation’s funds will involve some extra overhead for Noisebridge, with the bulk of the work falling upon the treasurer. Since I’m currently the treasurer, I volunteer to handle all of this extra work.

With lowercase-c consensus from the current board members and officers, I have set up a project donation page for the memorial foundation, which has already received several hundred dollars in donations.

https://donate.noisebridge.net/projects/thomas-j-shutt-memorial-foundation

I recognize that this does not line up with the official process for seeking fiscal sponsorship, which requires full consensus for Noisebridge to sponsor a project. This will be the first week of that full and public consensus process. If Noisebridge does not reach consensus to sponsor this project, I will deal with the consequences of creating the project early—mostly, risking disappointing any donors who need a guarantee their donations will be tax-deductible. I considered it worthwhile because of the time-sensitive nature of the issue. Our public memorial service will be taking place shortly before the Noisebridge meeting where this consensus proposal is introduced, and we want to provide visitors who want to donate to a charity the option of donating to the foundation.

I also apologize for only raising the issue with board members and officers before creating the project. It was not an attempt to sidestep full community discussion of the project. This is the worst experience of my life and I am having trouble discussing anything at all with anyone outside of immediate family right now. I did not want to air news my brother’s death too widely outside of the communities that already knew him until it became necessary. Thank you for everyone who learned about this on Facebook and has sent condolences.

I will not be back in San Francisco until June 5th, but if there are objections or concerns about this fiscal sponsorship proposal, I can discuss them online or over the phone.

FINANCIAL DETAILS

There will be several possible sources of funds for the Thomas J. Shutt Memorial Foundation:

Individual donations, either online or by check

Ongoing royalties from Thomas’s published books and books scheduled to be published this year

Cash, bonds, or other parts of Thomas’s estate, if any remains after end-of-life expenses and paying creditors

Donations from family

Profits from selling stocks, bonds, or other investments purchased with foundation money

Payments from any active life insurance policy—we are still trying to work out if he has coverage

We intend to set up and run this foundation in a way that ensures it will continue well after our own deaths. To that end, we intend to only spend 4% of the principal in a given year on grants and awards, with the rest of the fund invested conservatively in a mixture of stocks and bonds. For the period of time that Noisebridge would be acting as a fiscal sponsor, it would be purchasing those stocks and bonds. When our independent nonprofit is established, Noisebridge would transfer ownership.")

He was writing basically a novel a month. There may be 5 more novels this coming year. Gofundme covered memorial service, there was cash in the bank beyond that... We want the foundation to outlive all of us, so we're planning on investing conservatively. foundation will keep growing and expanding what it can give authors long after we're gone.

Also security deposit on his apt, tax refunds.

Will probably just keep it as cash until the nonprofit is set up. We do think our starting point will be ~10k, which will put us at the point of giving $400 scholarships to young authors.

This is the third week it's been read out but only the third week

Jervon - normally in a fiscal sponsorship, as an independence issue, you'll be running a foundation (not trying to say this is an issue) and also the treasurer: who's checking your work? normally on a fiscal sponsorship, there's some percent going to the parent org. if you have someone looking into it, you might have someone asking if this is actually a fiscal sponsorship, and they'll eventually be split apart, vs this is a noisebridge entity.

john - two questions: who is checking the treasurer's work? there's a shared treasurers@noisebridge.net account where former treasurers and board members have access to. myself, patrick, mitch, torrie, andy isaacson all have access to it. they know all of our cash on the bank. I also post updates when I rememebr on the breakdown. in terms of making a donation to noisebridge, mitch suggested that since I would be doing the work, it could be waived. I could make a 5-10% donation. I wouldn't take that from the foundation, just from myself. Maybe 10% of what's raised online.

Jervon - you could do, like, 1%. Just so you can say "this is a true fiscal sponsorship". You just need something nominal to say that this is independent from noisebridge, while you're still not actually independent. That's all.

John - I think that's a good idea. I would definitely be up for like 1% overall. The bulk of it is money that thomas had saved. I think that makes sense.

lizzie - tax issues? brought up last week.

John - We can definitely be careful. If one nonprofit gives it to another (that's not making a profit), so there shouldn't be taxes. We sometimes do things like the club mate reimbursement. Something like that would be even more questionable, from the persepective of the IRS.

Jervon - Is there a way we can set up a separate account to keep your funds separate? we know how much you received from the noisebridge site, and transfer that to a separate account, so there's no dispute going forward.

John - i think that's a good idea. Every now and then someone writes to the treasurer for a receipt. What we generally do is just write a receipt. That's generally been for equipment donations, and people figutre out how much they can write up. Wrt bank accounts, we do have a separate bank account holding Thomas' funds. It might make more sense to transfer the funds to noisebridge's account, since as a fiscal sponsorship what you do is take custody of others' accounts. We also are careful to separate out various categories in the account. We do have separate accounts (e.g. savings has very tiny interest, so we should get a better one...) vs the checking account.

Jervon - what I'm saying is that for like, fiscal sponsorship, we should know that this money is restricted, and when you form another organization, it might make sense to have a separate account.

augur - is this a suggestion for the best way to do this, or a legal concern?

jervon - the legal concern is that when he creates this organization, and we want to be clear that noisebridge has controls and is responsible for it. In theory we could lose our 501c3 status. If it's an independence issue, if there's someone watching, it might make sense to have a separate account. Vs putting it all into noisebridge's account, we're taking 100% responsibility. Just in case.

John - just for managing separation of concerns, it might be a good idea to have a separate account. in terms of risk, it's definitely a valid concern. So if we don't take anything out or put anything in, it will be simple. The way fiscal sponsorship goes wrong is when someone starts using it for profit, etc. So if we leave it and don't transfer it, it makes it clear that that's not happening. it might be a good idea to start a separate account, as well as for noisetor. Also we may want to switch away from wells fargo.

augur - any other questions and comments?

(no)

augur - this is the first week you're back, so maybe it should go through another week?

john - maybe. it's a little dicey. I guess we could do another week. we'restill talking with the IRS and there's a lot of paperwork. so we don't need to rush.

augur - so we'll talk about this next week. no other consensus items? (no)


discussion:

   + jervon
   
   + dan
   
   + kevin
   
   + alex
   
   + matt - is discussion time for asking questions? (yes)
   
   + gray
   
   + lizzie
   
   
   

jervon - on the 21st I want to host an event about looking into what you're up to into life? what is your big time goal? I want to hold an event in the small classroom from 7-10. I want to bring someone in and go through the process of how you can be someone big in the world and go through the process of

lizzie - what do you need from us?

jervon - approval, also add it to meetup.

augur - yeah, we can do that.

kevin - that's a wednesday. nothing else on wednesday.

jervon - I don't know how many people will want to come, at least two, maybe 5-6, maybe more.

augur - you could do it in here or church. turing is kind of green.


dan - like I expressed before I host hackdays in my friend's apartment. we'd like to have it here. every sunday 3-5ish. it would probably be people participating when they feel like it. focus is on working on things and talking about it.

kevin - like demos?

dan - it's pretty casual. we start with introductions and cool things to talk aout. there's no formal sechedule or anything.

kevin - do you want a projector or a big screen?

dan - sometimes. sometimes we livestream it too. sometimes we set up a google hangout too.

augur - I would suggest church. in case people might not want to be seen. church is easy to put up a sign. sundays are pretty quiet.

lizzie -we also have 360 degree camera that someone knows how to work.

dan - also discussion: what's the process for membership?

augur -did it lapse? or is it hiatus?

dan - lapse.

augur - there's a membership process on the website. you get two sponsors and wait 4 weeks. fill out the form in the binder! you can also become a philantropist for 24hr access.

lizzie - you don't need anyone's permission to set up a meeting. this little discussion is totally sufficient for you to start setting up Sunday meetings.


kevin - I purchased some lockjers and moved them here with the help of nick. I set up a donation on donate.noisebridge.net. if anyone wants to give me moneyt https://donate.noisebridge.net/projects/new_lockers


augur -any questions?

matt - can we get a locker?

augur - if you want a locker you should contribute to the conversation about where they should go and how to clean them.

kevin - also one bank is upside down.

scott - so are those up for grabs?

lizzie -I think it would be unexcellent to put a lock there

kevin - about 20 lockers.

lizzie - how much did they cost?

kevin - $100ish for lockers, $50ish for transport.


alex - I want to hang out more. is slack the main method of conversation here?

augur - we use slack for people who are at the space and come around lot. there's also an irc channel on freenode. also banana.

x - it's been fixed!

augur - it should zap you if you're unexcellent. so speak to me afterwards?

alex - yeah! it sounds like there a lot of problems to help out with, which is my motivation.

lizzie -btw, irc is a lot of people who don't come to the space. it's sometimes unexcellent.


john - btw we can reimburse half of actual locker cost with equipment fund!


alex? - is there a list of rules somewhere?

augur - noisebridge.net. but only "be excellent."


x - people are in the habit of posting a lot of files etc for slack. if you're not on slakc you can't get them. but as a request: use the wiki or the mail list.

john +- +1. who knows if slack will exist in 10 years.


john - wants to say something about the equipment fund.

augur - queued!

augur - raise your hand if you have never heard of the equipmenet fund b efore.

john - equipment fund was funded by a $15k grant. we were stable enough that it didn't have to worry about rent. basically :if you want a piece of equipment, we will reimburse half. up to $2500, after which you need full consensus. the first thing we got was the axidraw, welding equipment to build the booth, embroidery machine, band saw, guitar, othermill, 3d printers retroactively, equipment for building room, vr equipment. if it seems on the edge, bring it up to equipment fund slack. but almost everything qualifies. if you can spend half money yourself, it's permanently at the space, and it's not consumable, it qualifies. we still have ~$7k left. That's a lot of stuff. please use it.

alex - from last year?

john - single large grant we got.

alex - how often does that happen?

john - it happened once, and we haven't run out. possibly we should seek other grants. it doesn't happen often, just a weird thing where friend at google suggested it. then they gave us twice as much.....

augur - noisebridge is a nonprofit, so if you give us money, you can write it off.

john - but yeah, google made it as services rendered, so we just credited the extra $15k to future services render.


matt - I feel like anybody tha wants to donate any materials to noisebridge, there should be a box where we put stuff.

augur - donations go on the table behind a banana. donate things that are usable, not trash.

matt - but what about consumables etc?

augur - just put it over there or where it might get used.

matt - but what if we just had a big box where we put things that donate, and things get taken.

augur - we don't want it to be a trash bin.

matt - but there's a huge value that's not being leveraged right now of people with materials not being connected with people who want things. the solution is ... you know what! I'll just do it.

dan - alot of makerspaces have this big box where things get dumped out.

jervon - more garbage is expensive though.

alex- epseically electronics.

x - one thing to do is the hackershelves. could use more people contributing. there's an intake area (benches near).there's some well-labeled bins, where things can be put if they're donated. everything else needs to be donated.

alex - I come from ? - there's a spot that have streamlined what you're talking about. it's like a museum but also you can buy stuff. I wish I knew more about how they did it.

x - some other hackerspaces have free boxes. it should get dumped

lizzie - I don't think anyone is arguing. you can just do it, and if it's cool it's cool! and if it's not, something will happen.

matt - cool, I'll do it in the next couple ideas. I'll be careful to label it experimental.

augur - it might get garbage-collected!


kevin - I notice people wil lstart projects and abandon them where they were working on them. but maybe abandoned projects could go to that.

x - we have shelves and tags.

augur - we have project shelves.

x - put a date on it. if you're all gung-ho about something and leave it into the space.


alex - is there a way to find out which materialsare prized and desired?

augur - we could have a wanted list on the free bin.

scott - a lot of chipboard at e.g. grocery stores.

lizzie - can I suggest we move on from this conversation?

augur - we can figure out details afterwards.


jervon - what is noisetor?

augur - noisebridge is sponsoring tor.

john - we have two exit nodes we host. we got a lot of bitcoin donated and bitcoin got really high.

scott - can you know if you're using it?

lizzie - client will tell you.


gray - I don't have access to the space, so I was wondering if there is any member could give me one.

x - alex! do you know alex?

gray - yes.

augur - there was a consensus item but idk if it got implemented.

lizzie - you can PR a change.

gray - also I have debt but no income. also if anyone


lizzie - someone want to run 5mof?

dan - talk to me after.


ryan - high school wants to donate lockers. they're going to be keeping to be keeping this set of lockers for a year but then they will be willing to donate. something like 400 lockers...

augur - yeah it's good that there's a delay here.

ryan - if you know another place that wants lockers, get in touch.


x - noisebridge has been around for a long time. it's almost been all the fingers years. on or about august 11th will be 10 years of noisebridgery. so about 4 and some change years ago was our 5 year anniversary. so there's been some effort to throwinbg a ball / multi-day event. workshops , demos, parties, etc. no specifics yet. I'm down for the august 11thish weekend. mitch will still be in china. he gets back the next week and I'll be in another coyuntry.... we need to pick a date and formalize an agenda. some time between august and october. kind of leaning for october. it would be great if we could start to build consensus about what works and minimize overlaps, start lining up events and inviting people! also a fundraising opportunity. also a good time to connect with broader community, be excellent, and party on.

ryan - I helped with last year's party, which we thought was 10 years, starting early will be very useful. last year it got hectic.


anything else? meeting is over!