Meeting Notes 2018 08 28

Noisebridge meeting 2018-08-28

Meeting Notes are at https://pad.riseup.net/p/nbmeeting; help us take notes!

Moderator: rebecca

Note taker(s): rebecca

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Introductions - Name, Pronouns, What you hack on

Rebecca, She/her, functional programming, type theory, AI, laser

Alyx, he/him they/them, mostly laser stuffing, machining things, photography, glass blowing, etc. -- also like teaching.

Justin, he/him, laser bongs, other electrical gadgets, building and making things

Steve, he/him, machine learning, theoretical physics, CG

Yash, he/him, machine learning, statistical modeling, blockchain dev

Matt, he/him, drawing device on rails (?) like a 3d printer CNC thing

James, he/him, working on not being a hack at writing SFF, indie pub, photography and green screening

Matt/@rando, he/him, electronics, hacking on the stuff in NB, and the architecture of NB, like helping people so please ask!

Matthew, , [arrived after introductions, near the end.]

Announcements

Alex (@lxpk): Tao, an old school Noisebridger, is teaching a makerspaces class in PA, and is looking for ideas for curriculum content. LMK if you have ideas of what would be cool I'll also post in #educators where we can talk about it, and I'll get her on Slack

Philanthropists

Justin is a philanthropist!

Bigger Donations (Justin)

Justin: Is it ok to long-term loan equipment to Noisebridge? It's a sand blasting/abrasion blasting setup.

James: You maybe should be alright with ppl not only using it but with the wear and tear, damage, etc.

Beka: Just be aware that Noisebridge doesn't reeeaaally do loans like this?? You usually either donate or not, so some people might have some reservations about taking it back?

Alyx: Are there any safety considerations we should be aware of?

Justin: The whole point is that its enclosed, but you should still wear a mask. There's also a dust remover I've added to it that works to capture dust etc. In shops, the workers often don't even wear masks, but if you have concerns, wear a mask!

Consensus Items

Beka - Hire SK

Text of the Consensus Item: "Noisebridge will hire Scandiuzzi Krebs for fundraising w/ a cost of up to $29,000 (per their highest estimated price). The Fundraising WG will then be responsible for interfacing w/ them to organize further."

Beka: I'm going to let this run for 3 weeks instead of 2 because of Burning Man

Steve: Anyone have objections/concerns?

James: Saw a presentation, seemed really good and professional.

Alyx: How did we choose this org? Did we eval others?

Rando: From my perspective, we have a deadline, less than a year b/c of the timeline, so we need to work on this quickly. B/c of this, we definitely need experienced help. They are relatively new, but my main Q/point is, if we're looking to raise Millions, and they only cost 30K, we only need to raise 30K + $1 for it to be worth it, but the risk is really small. We also just got a 100K donation. So like despite the interested in evaling others, etc. we just need to get moving on this and not lose time. I haven't seen the professional kind of content we need to produce coming from us alone yet, so ..

Alyx: Another Q, in their pitch to us, what are their goals etc.? in terms of $ raising, etc.?

James: We have docs that do detailed breakdowns; one thing I remember was their discussion about how to think about approaching large Co's for money, kind of long-tail-like. Seemed smart and doable given our time, and was another example of things they'd know from experience

Alyx: @james that does raise one concern in my mind: if we're getting large donations, what obligations do we have???

James: Valid concern; we definitely won't take money from some people, but ..

Rando: We don't do "Brought to you by Corp X", it's a charitable no-strings-attached donation

Justin: What other clients of theirs??

Rando: there was some convos w/ others, no one said they were terrible, lots saying they were great, but it's not conclusive. Probably important tho to make sure we have clear managed expectations.

Rando: There's also timing issues, b/c of budgeting periods, which are coming up soon, in the next few months. We dont have the time and people power b/c we're all volunteers, we definitely need help here.

Alyx: I know one name for someone at Autodesk, if they're looking for names of folks to reach out to.

Alyx: Hopefully we steer clear of strings-attached donations, and/or that the strings are truly long-term acceptable to us, not just "oh my goodness, we get to get the thing!" and that makes us turn off our caution filters.

LXPK: What I saw of their report so far seems very usable and our fundraising group has been starting to put it into action so continuing with them makes sense!

Justin - Passive Income for NB

Justin: We could do some kind of thing where ppl can request services like 3d printing etc and then it gets done and they pay for it??

James: Sounds like a fine idea to me but there could be issues wrt non-profits??

Matthew: Lowell Obs. sells things to make money??

Justin: Or maybe a drop shipping sort of thing, for like electronics kits, etc?? To avoid needing "employees" who could get burned out?

Rando: Nothing is stopping you from just doing this right now. One issue w/ going through actual noisebridge is the issue of profit, etc. and also all the extra work for the treasurer.

Rebecca: one good reason to not do it is that that might involve advertising, which we don't do.