Meeting Notes 2023 11 07

These are the notes from the The 747th Meeting of Noisebridge.

Date: 2023_11_07 as below

Previous Meeting

Next Meeting

Note-takers: Mark, Loren

Moderators: Mark

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

Meeting Summary

FILL OUT AT END OF MEETING AND SEND TO MAILING LIST/SLACK/DISCORD Include: TLDR what happened at the meeting:

• Fundraising Update:
• Announcements:
• Finances:
• New members:
• New associates:
• Consensus Items:
• Discussion Items:

Introductions

• Ask people to share their name, access needs, and preferred gender pronouns what they do at noisebridge

• Mark - moderator, noisebridge's janitor (along with others)
• Khristo - been to noisebridge few times, first weekly mtg. doing stuff in metal shop
• Damon - came for first time on Sunday, in town for a month, looked for places to do woodworking, learnt about NB
• Loren - infrastructure meetup on mondays, also a janitor!
• Pyconaut - host events and help take care of NB
• Brennan - first meeting, doing microcontroller, planning on doing wood/metal/etc
• Sergio - associate member, doing prototypes to improve musical instruments market
• Sam - do Unreal engine on thurs nights, sometimes other hardware/software, doing fundraising stuff for NB!
• vlad - on a scouting mission here, been to nb before, but years ago. generally software person, do 3d prints for fun!
• Sean - Joined late, been here since feb, here to promote the space and user the lasercutter

(others ~ 6 or more have joined later)

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)

TOOOL lockpicking event December 17th!

Women in Data Science meetup happening Nov 16th or 17th possibly

Talk to Pychonaut about access to old accounts, e.g. social media.

Ken: Tomorrow and Thursday, I'm going to be occupying the woodshop a lot from ~ 11am until like 2pm or something. Just a heads up.

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.)

Brennan: make sure veryone feels welcome! And bring them treats!

Loren: And take out the trash on monday and thursday!

Pyco: Make sure the community feels safe and everyone feels like it is accessible to them. Make sure you aren't here ONLY to do stuff on your own. It is excellent to help other people with their stuff and to help the community!

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

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 More approachable & specific guidelines, https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Community_Standards https://safespace.noisebridge.net/ is one way to quickly raise issues which will be seen by people in Slack.

Brief Kudos

Recent examples of excellent behavior, say 3, unless the passion moves you.

Ben helped organize the music room with Ra and Wyatt, and others. Its a great community effort.

Khristo - Kudos to Nomi and Jade for fixing the lathe in the metal shop!

Ben also shoutouts Javier who does stuff for the music room too!

Guilds

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

Pyconaut- Helps maintain a interest groups stuff, and any knowledge that that group has for future users

1) Reminder that Do Not Hack tags should have: - The words "Do Not Hack" - Date - Name and/or Contact InformationIf it is not properly labeled, it may be placed in limbo land, and eventually removed from the space. Please label your ongoing projects. Pyconaut: If new stuff is brought it, it is unexcellent to just write "please hack" on it, escpecially if you don't know who brought it in.

2) We encourage EVERYONE to use and follow the Discord group "totally-secret-cabal-of-space-maintainers". When we are cleaning/organizing, we may move things around, and we often will make a post in this group about what was done. By using and following this group, you can help keep the community informed about space maintenance and help ensure that we don't accidentally dispose of something important to someone. We are trying to follow established NB principles when it comes to disposal of items.

3) A lot of work has already been done by a lot of people to tidy NB up, but there is still a lot more to do. We are actively seeking people to be help maintain and organize a space within NB. If you are willing to volunteer, make a post and we will find you something to help with.

4) Currently, a major area of focus has been cleaning up limbo-land and clearing off nearby project shelves so that we have a staging area to put things that we are clearing out. We are looking for volunteers to run a car-load of e-waste or liquid waste to the transfer station this week (it's free, easy and only a 15 min drive). If you are willing to do a run, please make a post and we will help you arrange it and provide instructions.

Pyconaut- not write "please hack on stuff just donated or brought in, we might not know what it is.

Mark -We still need more help with cleaning. And especially dump runs.

Ben: Seeking to formalize the music guild more. We'd like to have a locker in the music room, for peoples' more personal equipment/ nice expensive stuff!

Mark: Please use the newly created wiki page "Wishlist" to put down what you want! https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Wishlist

Fundraising efforts have been going on in the finance-wg channel in Slack

New Members/Associate Members

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

Anyone who walks in The door is a part of The community, but we do have two "formal" Membership levels

Mark-Associate member and big M member

Mark- Associate member is the main

John p- is up for Associate member. Sam is his sponsor. Ben Mark and Sam attest to his excellence. Does anyone object or block?

No objections? 3 , 2, 1 ... John P is an Associate! Clap clap clap

Khristo is applying for associate member! Khristo is a software engineer, but came to NB mostly bc it has a metal shop and has been working with others on that!

Mark: Why would you like to be an associate member?

I feel I am here often enough that it just makes sense.

Pyconaut notices their sponsor is not a big M Member. We are pausing the application until next week so that we can find Khristo a big M sponsor!

• Zhenia (Grave) is applying for associate membership! Sam is her sponsor. She does design work! She is great at giving brutal feedback!

Pyconaut - how would you like to see Noisebridge improve? if you could do anything to improve it, what would you like to do?

I like to do entrepreneur stuff - I would like to encourage more entrepreneur culture here. Would like to encourage a more designer-oriented space.

Loren: why do you want to become an associate member? what would being an associate member mean for you?

Z: Want to

Loren: do you care about 24 hour access?

Z: I like to work early mornings. Like 7/8 am.

Loren: Are you comfortable denying people access?

Does anyone object to Zhenia's membership

Nope! They are now an associate.

• Brennan is applying, Brennan needs a big M sponsor!

Loren sponsored Brennan!

Same questions for Brennan

how would you like to see Noisebridge improve? I would love to make cool signage and stuff like what i saw on a cool youtube channel, and use it to help the local community! maybe do fundraisers and whatnot! I want to help Whizburger for instance!

Are you looking for odd-hours access?

B: I'd like to come in early sometimes as well when there is less competition for the machines and I won't bother ppl hopefully?

Any objections? Nope! Brennan is associate!

Ben is also applying. Mark is his sponsor. Aforementioned excellent things!

Any objections? Nope! Ben is an associate!

Pyconaut- anyone looking for sponsors hang out after meetings usually a few members Stay after meetings to discuss stuff.

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

4661 deficit for October

7939 in donations 12600 in expenses

• Action item: Loren follow up with Liz on bitcoin

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.

please use the Wishlist wiki page for spending needs!

Fundraising Update

How's it all going

grants were applied for

• grant applications were acknowledge as received.

CA security grant

Pyconaut trying to talk to companies to get things for NB

Suggests reaching out to other startup nonprofits to see if they need fiscal sponsorship - could bring in a little bit of $ for NB

Grants to help make the area attractive to various companies' employees

Mark: Holiday Party?

Loren: Saturday breakfats

Big C Consensus Items

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

None

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.

Discussion Items

From/Raised by: Seeking decision/outcome/advice: On topic:

Discussion Item 1

From/Raised by: Mark Seeking decision/outcome/advice: Options On topic: Next Door Proposal

Loren: I'm not sure of our current organizational effectiveness, to the point of wanting to manage TWICE the space. I don't know how we could coordinate it.

Mark: I agree strongly Loren. Ken: Me too.

Loren: What are some good intermediate goals?

Mark: More Members, being supremely excellent. We need to be cash-flow positive and existing harmoniously while doing so.

Pyco: We dont need more Members to be cash+, we need more events/fundraising. Better effectiveness in that area.

Brennan: what is the effort like on social media? We need to get word out about things better? I wanna have a way of connecting the big companies in the bay are with the high school students in the area, for instance. Really enagage the surrounding community.

Pyco: CHM on a nice week used to bring in like $200-$400. We had nice little kits anyone could get an make something cool with. (IDK how it is right now) Hack Comedy was also a nice event that brought in a lot of donations.

(Some side conversation about lockers and potentially charging for them)

Mark: bringing it back to the current proposal. Do we all agree its not really feasible right now to try for the next door space?

Pyco: I'm still thinking there is a chance the new space could solve a few of our big issues.

We could do like a holiday drive as a test to see the will behind the idea?

Brennan: When it comes to current "tight space": I can't use the space a lot of times because I'll end up disturbing some people when the space is in heavy use. So yes, having the separate spaces is definitely appealing as a prospect. Dirty stuff over here, clean, quieter, etc event space next door.

Ken: I was also thinking, if there was enough interest, I could prepare a workshop for the woodshop on a certain type of project or have ppl bring their projects.

Mark: Whats going on w/ woodshop wednesdays rn?

Ken: Disagreements w/ Max, kind of tapered off, etc

Ryan: we should reach out to other meetups and offer space for them to host their things here

Mark: We should be organizing and consolidating our efforts on various meetups/groups so we can more harmoniously and efficiently use our individual spaces. In order to effectively cater to the needs of the ppl who show up and better incentivize them to return and contribute more.

partiful.com is mentioned for events

Someone mentions "if you build it, they will come" wrt the next door space and the publicity it might generate

may be easier to open internal doors with rfid (don't know how we got here in the conversation, but yea, sure)

Discussion Item 2

From/Raised by: Seeking decision/outcome/advice: discussion On topic: Meetings/ Membership participation

Loren suggested some kind of abstraction of the meetingt/ a new special group to encourage more involvement

Can we do something more to verify that new Associate Members actually come to meeting and are being shown the ropes by Their sponsor after meeting

Can we have associate members get trained before meeting

Should we have a retroactive period for associate members.

How can we encourage members to apply before meeting

Food and drinks at meetings!!!

Move membership meeting to Saturday morning.

Mark has misgivings about not blocking lots of associate members tonight.

"Hi I want to be a member and I want to help contribute! Okay, youre in!. K Thx Bai!"

An extra separate meeting was suggested, maybe first saturday of the month? It could be the breakfast saturday w/ other fun activities to encourage folks to show up and actively contribute to the space?

Loren: The meeting is the place where you either make it to it, or you make a clear excuse. Everything else is a toss up and thats fine. The meeting is the general community coordination point. It SHOULD be attended.

Mark: I'm about to start blocking membership applications from people who have never run a Tuesday meeting.

What are meetings for?

Mark: See point above made by Loren.

Loren: A bunch of people who i really like to coordinate/hangout with just "left", because they felt unable to effectively coordinate with the community, they left their roles in the community.

A lot a of people are not helping with stuff as much as they should be. There are lots of little things that are hard to see, that require communication to deal with.

To that end, we should stop equivocating about what "involvement" means, and just find ways to contribute, and contribute. Then tell people about it. Just do it.

Ken: That's why we are talking about a "Work meeting" type of thing. Cause it gets ppl doing stuff.

Pyconaut: Make sure new Members know what they are signing up for. I for one, am always willing to be around for a long time on the nights I am here to help out newer members become more member-like and more excellent.

I suggest a once-a-month membership meeting. Other orgs do this.

Ken: I would commit myself to demonstrate certin things, like cleaning the bathroom, to newer members on such a saturday work-meeting.

Mark: I am happy to designate a saturday each month as a special one. Encourage as many Members as possible to attend. And anyone else who wants to attend can use it as an opportunity to meet lots of Members. Good opportunity for lots of Members to lead by example.

• Let's configure RFID internally as well.