Meeting Notes 2023 08 01

These are the notes from the The 734th Meeting of Noisebridge.

Date: 2023_08_01

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Note-takers: Lizzard

Moderators: Loren

• One or two bullet points of high-level meeting summary.

Meeting Summary - 734th Meeting of Noisebridge

Date: 2023-08-01

Moderators: Loren

TLDR what happened at the meeting:

• Fundraising Update: Some donations from fundraising efforts.
• Announcements:
  • Noisebridge elections are ongoing, with TJ announcing the nominees.
  • Lizzard is reaching out to invite other creative collectives for tours and joint events.
  • MakerFaire presence planning and Bay Area makerspace collaboration discussed.
  • A new makerspace opening in Hayward, supported by long-time bridger Carl.
  • Sean hosted Sunday Streets last week.
• Guild Updates:
  • Wood Guild now has a compressor but urged to use it sparingly to avoid excessive dust.
  • AI Meetup discussed a proposal to get a robot for tours in the space.
  • Knitting machine injuries addressed with safety measures.
  • Sewing Guild emphasized the importance of training before using the machines.
• New Membership Applications: Ken applying for full membership.
• Consensus Items:
  • Discussion and decision on asking two individuals to leave the space due to previous issues. Claus and Mohammed asked to leave for 6 months; after that, only come back after coming to a meeting to discuss.
  • Board election and selection of officers discussed.
• Other Discussion Items:
  • Issues with FlaschenTaschen and the need for it to be fixed.
  • Clarification on membership process and communication methods.

Note-takers: Lizzard

The full meeting notes can be found at Meeting Notes 2023-08-01.

Introductions

• Ask people to share their name, access needs, and preferred gender pronouns what they do at noisebridge
• Loren - he/him Rack things, knitting machine, infrastructure
• Sean - laser cutter user,
• Conner - software eng, 3rd time here! embedded.
• Jules - he/him, i like *maps* a lot
• Will - designer, 3rd time here, using laser cutter, happy to use it! woodworking and soldering interests
• Asan - first time here, taking it all in! really cool!
• Sunny - first time here, exciting!
• Peter - interested in using laser cutter!
• Vadeka - first time
• Carrie - first time, sewing! laser cutter
• Max - woodworking, host a monthly wood working safety training
• Ken - many projects, very nosy!
• Rob - mostly do software but what isn't fun in here! 2nd week here
• Christopher - software eng hs physics teacher
• john - wood shop, painter, carpentry
• Lizzard - deep infra, bureaucratic interface bullshit stuff, zines!
• Mark - videogames stuff, first time, jk
• JD - power tools, laser safety training, go to meetup and sign up for sunday 2-4pm classes for laser
• Steve - theoretical phgysisict, machine learning
• Colin - using laser cutter to make
• Peter (they/them) - random things!
• BK - here to make messes! um, things! laser cutter
• David - also new here! software
• TJ - robotics and ai stuff at noisebridge
• Glen - PG&E (former) now robotics!
• Emeline (sewing maintainer, bureaucrat, knitting machine!)

Short announcements and events

• 60-second description per item in bulletpoint.
• Copy-paste any pre-announcements for the upcoming meeting from Announcements.
• After announcements, copy them to the past Announcements list. Retire any from the Next Meeting list that aren't marked ONGOING.
• (See https://www.noisebridge.net/ and https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Category:Events for events, and welcoming people)
• TJ -- we are holding Noisebridge elections! we can vote and tally offline but TJ will announce the full bunch of nominees

• Lizzard - reaching out to invite other creative collectives to tour, do joint events. Red Brick Ceramic. DisLabs from Berkeley. + Bike Kitchen, and others.

• Loren - for Pyconaut . he is organizing NB presence at MakerFaire in a few months!

• Loren - new makerspace opening in Hayward, on Sat Aug 12 (12-4), supported by long time bridger Carl !!!!

• Sean - hosted sunday streets last week!!!! thank you!

Excellence

Our One Rule is to Be Excellent to Each Other. (On first Tuesdays, seek a few definitions. Other Tuesday, give a 1-3 sentence summary.)

What does that mean? Please see our page on excellence https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Excellence!

Ken adds, he has been thinking about this, sharing a common space, means, we need more detail. Be excellent to the space!!! We must battle entropy, no matter if you are messy at home, put more effort into cleaning up here, to be beneficial to the whole community!

Liz adds, being truthful, going to people directly, trying to address conflict. Feeling fed up with people addressing things underhandedly.

Max - Do it as a team, build consensus, do-ocracy.

Anti-Harassment Policy & Community Standards of Excellence

Noisebridge has an Anti-Harassment Policy https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Anti-Harassment_Policy Everyone is expected to follow the Anti-Harassment Policy, please familiarize yourself with it.) TWO MINUTES MAX

Guilds

• What are guilds - briefly describe (much like the previous section on "Excellence")

• Wood guild - has a compressor now. Not particularly strong. Use it sparingly, kicks up dust everywhere. Clean woodshop. Be conscientious about dust, noies, messes, for people in and outside the woodshop, sand outside.

• AI Meetup - meeting tomorrow. Each sub-project meeting in depth. Propose getting a robot for the space. Basically roomba sized and it would give people tours!

• Knitting machine - We had an injury yesterday, not too bad but we were lucky. We have now chalked off a spectator standoff area. Knitting is working. Patterns might soon too.
  • Keep an eye out for the meetups.

• Sewing guild - trainings listed on meetup, the machines are fragile and people often break them so please get a little tour/training first!

• 3d printer "guild"?

New Members/Associate Members

What are they? Is anyone trying to become a Member or Associate Member? If not move on. No long discussions.

Mark passes out some membership applications

• Ken - is an associate member - Applying for full membership. Ken would like to do that process and may need a second signature.

Discussion of our membership process itself, well put by the guy with the beard, that someone needs to review the process, the consensus items, the form, and consolidate.

Financial Report (first Tuesday of month only)

Anarchist societies under a capitalist state need money to survive and thrive, yo.

• Monthly revenue, expenses. Big projects. Big fundraising events. Reserves in bank.
• Any other details by those participating in handling our financials
• The latest financial reports from the treasurer are available at https://noisebridge.net/wiki/Finances

• Revenue for July: 8,088.2
• Expenses for July: 13,738.66

This was a big month because of the knitting machine shipping (thank you to the donor who brought the machine itself!) (Comes out of a donation earmarked to sewing capital projects)

Need to: open better savings account

Spending Needs

Gotta spend money on XYZ (i.e. Gate, wiring etc.). WHO CAN SIGN THE CHECK OR LEND THE CREDIT CARD!?!?! It doesn't matter if we agree to do something and it can’t be paid for.

• Lizzard, Emeline, TJ, Loren have bank access/ credit/debit cards.
• Replacement part for small CNC (Ben/Bingle Tingle) - 300-500
• For large expenses, bring to this meeting, for small ones, ask for reimbursement / check in with the people listed above, put receipts in finance-wg slack or email them to treasurer@noisebridge.net
• TJ wants to get a turtlebot for us open source robotics platform. half cost is covered, $500 needed from NB,
• Loren adds that often people raise half the cost of a project like this and then get reimbursed after buying the thing and working on the project
• Lizzard wants to stock us up on noisebridge tshirts again for us to sell at the front.

Fundraising Update

How's it all going

• screenprinting? get shirts under $100 (could also use the cricut, now repaired!)
• dorkbot did get us a lot of donations
• We need to bring in more members, more donations! Events are welcome, that bring people in, please remind them to donate if they can!

Big C Consensus Items

Nobody likes 3 hour meetings, only explain if people ask. https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Current_Consensus_Items

Consensus Items

Only for talking about Big C consensus items, small c consensus items should be discussed with people at the space at the time of the change/new item.

Mark proposes : Amending the consensus item for the membership thing we did last year in Feb. Change the language to clarify that the new process is intended to replace the formerly consensed oh shit period (8 weeks on the form and the consensus item)

Farley mentions we need some of this to be online and wonders if we can get rid of paper.

Loren mentions the form has a lot of stuff embedded in it that is useful (ie it's mostly self explanatory

Discussion

Discussion Item 1

Ban for some of the people next door suggested by Lizzard kinda on behalf of a lot of people who have been discussing it.

Actions by people next door recently. Or letting people in who do other things. No one person is responsbile for all of it. But it keeps happening. Theft, swasticas, drilling out of sewing room locks, filling with epoxy. Targeting of sewing room. Theft of items. Tearing down queer pride flags, queer pirate flag (new one bought outside).

• BK - someone was lurking waiting for people to leave and then after Elan left late in the night, they tried to get in, and could not.
• TJ - we have solid circumstantial evidence that people did a bunch of fairly terrible things are a
• Lizzard - i don't care which, 86 or ask to leave for 6 months to a year.
• Mark - do any of these people have grounds for claiming they have been asked to leave but now can come back. Status as we left it, with Mohammed and Claus. Claus said he was never coming back, but Mohammed didn't say that. Claus now wants to come back and considers that he sholud be allowed to. And that is legit.
• Lizzard - But now let's ask him to leave again please.
• TJ - this can be seen as a continuation of harassment that's the reason that we ask people to leave.
• Steve - 86ing them without more evidence could blow back a bit.
• Farley - we know they have been in the building , we don't know especially the worst things, which individual did it or was it the group.
• Ken - know approximately who all this is but agree that we aren't sure. we aren't totally clear. Please be specific on names and faces.
• Peter - we don't know these particular people who did the theft, the epoxy, the swastika. Attack problem on 2 fronts. We have a long history against cameras in the space
• Lizzard - we put a motion sensor camera in the sewing room . temporary and only 3 people have access to see it
• TJ - someone let ronald into the sewing room. Who is banned.

• • one was asked to leave for saying at the space late too often, one was asked to leave for harassment. Ask to Leave is meant to be thought of as a kind of "probation", where there is some expectation of reflecting on one's actions while gone, and coming back in a good faith attempt to not repeat one's mistakes that reulted in the ask in the first place.
• Loren -
• Ken - same item, not same situation. 2 points. Leeway period. Confine to mediation booth. Did Ken just suggest that we re-invent the stocks??? Hockey.
  • Propose nocturnal bridge group. Propose a channel.
• Farley - no expectation that they can get back in. Hopefully we . Locks are changed. 2 explicitly bad things. Letting Ronald in. Stealing stuff.
• loren - ai quilt group, LED signs, dana's project, [computer parts -- monitor from laser cutter computer, keyboard, hard drive. And 3dp parts?]
• Liz -
  • action - ask to leave, 6mo, and come to meeting.
• JD -
  • Mohammed - according to some reports, he hasn't learned his lesson about why he was asked to take a break
  • Claus - he hasn't engaged with the community, though has been seen passing through the space and letting Ronald (who is 86ed) in
• Christopher - in criminal justice system we differentiate between standards of evidence for injunctions versus convictions etc so ask to stay away is reasonable
• Liz - this is the moderate de-escalation option by the way. as opposed to making police reports
• TJ - claus has had a key. How else can we supervise, someone else staying late.
• Loren -
  • action
• Peter - talk on slack.
• Rob -
  • Q:
  • Q:
• Steve - locks changed.
  • TJ. monhammed, asked to leave for staying late. left.
  • Claus was listening in on meeting. Came in yelled at meeting.
• Ken - noctunal bridge. posting "I'm in shop"
• Colin - was here Thuesday until 3am. I should have asked them to leave, Mohammed and Jay.
  • 276. It's rented by a master tenant.
  • Anything else we've asked mohammed not to do.
• Farley - for many incidents we didn't know it was them.
• emeline -

On

• claus -
• mohammed -

• Ken - ask Jay to give some interest.

• Ask to leave for 6 months for Claus and Mohammed is agreed to be in effect.

Loren asks that we coherently summarize why they are asked to leave So that we can document it for uh. posterity.

Discussion Item 2

Board election - electing board. mostly a ceremonial position. Whoever is up for managing bureaucratic tasks & paperwork.

We have a quorum. Not all nominees are here. Nominated:

• nicole / gaardn
• loren
• lizzard
• elan (EHR)
• farley,
• michelle
• bk
• emeline
• lauren
• Mark

also to have officers. Board appoints officers. Board and officers are covered under Directors and operators insurance. Pinned in slack.

Process: collected votes, anonymous option, Of current nominations, 6 new, 2 left from previous board.

Discussion Item 3

FlaschenTaschen it came back, it's not working!!! please keep it working. @pyconaut.

Discussion Item 4

Membership clarity.

Liz has updated: date, and mention of new member / mention in discord & slack.

Discussion Item 1 - cont / specifics

()

Do-ocratic Task Board

Participation also means doing stuff to contribute to the space. Propose new tasks or pick some tasks from Github, from what needs to be done around you, or whatever, and see if someone will sign up to work on that task. Anyone can sign up and it's a great way to show you are contributing!

End of Meeting

Note taker posts the notes

• Clean and tidy the meeting notes including removing all these really verbose instructions.
• Fill out the short summary at the top listing just announcements, consensus items, discussion topics, and names of new members and philanthropists.
• Copy paste the notes to the next meeting page. (They will become Last meeting at midnight.) https://www.noisebridge.net/index.php?title=Last_meeting&redirect=no
• Email the meeting summary to Noisebridge Discuss and Noisebridge Announce lists.
• CC on the email treasurer@noisebridge.net and secretary@noisebridge.net if there are new members and philanthropists.
• Edit the Current Consensus Items if anything is proposed for consensus next week.
• Edit the Consensus Items History if anything was reached consensus or failed to reach consensus this week.

Fun things to do after

• Do a 10 minute cleanup, bring dishes up stairs and wash them, clean the bathroom
• Have some beers on the patio
• Prepare the next weeks' meeting notes
• Lick the walls. Or just draw on them
• sing the Hackernationale (this almost never happens)