Meeting Notes 2023 12 05

These are the notes from the The 751th Meeting of Noisebridge.

Date: 2023_12_05

Previous Meeting

Next Meeting

Note-takers:

   Mark
   Sam
   Nth

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: Waiting to hear back on the security grant. Another grant opportunity was proposed to be worked on by Toro.
• Announcements: Dec 17th: TOOOL, Dec 10th: Indie Games @ The MADE in Oakland 11am-3pm, reminding folks that the QR codes around the space lead to useful things on the wiki
• Finances: We lost about $6500 this month (normal amount of net loss minus ~2500 for an annual insurance payment)
• New members: Nope
• New associates: Brandon is an Associate Member!
• Consensus Items: None
• Discussion Items: Discussed a couple potential recurring fundraising events, including an open mic night! And discussed planning the upcoming 15th anniversary celebration for mid-next year!

Introductions

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

• Sam - does CNC, Unreal Engine, Fundraising
• Brandon - applying for membership. Moved here two years ago.
• Ernest - first time here! synthsizers, drum machines
• Julius - come regularly, mostly write code now
• Brennan - microcontrollers and woodshop
• Corey - he/him - robots + teaching robots, i hear we're in distress!
• Larry - built a cpl things in woodshop, took laser safety class from JD
• Mark - is an infinite echo machine. Like to party
• Quinn - i like to play chess
• Guled - community organizer, love music + the arts, sacred shrooms, communities
• JD - teach laser class and do other stuff where it needs done
• Naomi - became member in 2009. Sometimes drop in to see how things are going. Doing lots of Markov chain stuff ("90s era AI"). Receipt printer art.
• LX - also a 2009er, creator of Gamebridge Unityversity!
• Cloud - 5MoF next Dec 21st -- open call for projects!!! come show off
• DanielA - brewing beer w/ friends next week, mostly do front door stuff.
• Loren - run an infrastructure meetup on Mondays, help with treasury.cf\d=io
• Guled- I'm here to contribute accessing spiritual technology within ourselves to reset and center ourelves in our own inner divinity.
• Mani - musician, use the music space. Like everyone here!
• Luna - musician, use the music space, like everybody!
• Demiere - plenty of soul. Play music, act.
• Moof - music space, frmr maintainer.
• Toro - professor
• Benjamin - artist name Gossip, twitter name [redacted], music guild, did a bunch of cleaning

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)

• Dec 17th: TOOOL

• sometime in January, Sam says hosting Swift language user group

• at the MADE this Sunday, 11-3pm, Mark is hosting an indie game dev playtest event / talks.

• Tomorrow @ 7pm, Conflict Resolution meetup here at Noisebridge (upstairs)

• NB's 15th anniversary is coming up! What should we do??!?

• Loren reminds folks that the QR codes around the space lead to useful things on the wiki.

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!

Being the most authentic person you can possibly be, being your own individualistic self while accommodating other people is excellent. Coming on Saturdays is considered VERY excellent. Bringing an adorable puppy to the meeting is considered the highest form of excellence.

Note also we have a complex set of heuristics for helping people through difficult communication: ask for space, ask to leave, restorative communication principles, others.

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.

https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Conflict_Resolution: Potential conflicts can be avoided with excellence or resolved using conflict resolution methods:

Brief Kudos

Recent examples of excellent behavior

• Quinn: kudos to the cleanup crew!! (Brennan disowns these kudos!)

• JD: to Paolo for laser training, he's a great partner on that.

• Mark: to Blue for the lable printer downstairs, which we needed badly!

• Mark: to Loren for the QR codes that lead to useful things in the wiki!

• Quinn: to Mark for bringing donuts, to folks for keeping the bathroom clean!

• JD: thanks to the treasurers for doing a wonderful job!

• Loren: kudos to all the grantwriters working on getting $$ for Noisebridge.

Guilds

• What are guilds - briefly describe

• JD: guilds are a group that shares common interests, have a discord channel so ppl can find them easily. The knowledget that goes into (e.g.) the CNC machines and the 3d printers is not consolidated into a single person, it's distributed so we retain institutional knowledge. THey also maintain the tools, so it's considered excellent to contact a guild before using the more complex / delicate equipment to make sure you know how to use it properly.

• Mark: if you don't think there's a guild for the thing you're doing, see if you should start one. You can check the discord for a list of guilds, there's also a wiki page that's maintained by the meta-guild.

New Members/Associate Members

tier 1: you stepped into NB, you are now a member!

tier 2: first paid tier, you get greater access and responsiblity.

tier 3: big-M Membership which includes community management and taking part in really big decisions in a more formal process that we call big-C Consensus. Apply BEFORE a meeting, get 2 big-M member signatures as sponsors.

If you want to PRACTICE being a member, donate some money to Noisebridge:

https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Donate_or_Pay_Dues Start donating $20 or $40 or whatever you can afford now to get in the habit before you become an official associate or full member!

Demiere: can i contribute the act of organizing events instead of $$?

Nthmost: we've never had a problem with ppl not being able to pay, just talk to us.

Brennan, Sam: matching donations w/ employers.

ASSOCIATE MEMBER UP FOR CONSENSUS:

   Brandon: Sam as sponsor, Brandon 
   Mark: Brendan seems excellent and he's always been nice to me.
   Sam: Kittens or puppies?
   Brandon:
   Quinn: what's your fav thing about NB? 
   Brandon: breadth of interests present here, music, sewing, all of it.

Sam goes through the chores with Brandon.

https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Hosting_an_Event

Financial Report (first Tuesday of month only)

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

Loren: #finance-wg summary for the month:

   net -$6500
   donations $7264
   expenses $13830
   checking total: $60000

Loren: we made our annual insurance last month ($2600) so that was expected, otherwise this is basically average.

Breakdown:

   $9800 rent
   $1200 utilities
   $650 electricity

The BTC was not all sold off.

Mark: treasury duties are being split among various folks so we have a few folks on the task as well as a diversity of folks spun up on it.

Sam: we've been using an LLM to write grants! we created a model called Grant GPT to write the grants!!!!

https://noisebridge.net/wiki/Finances

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.

Fundraising Update

Kudos to ppl filing grant applications!

• Sam: dec 15th we'll find out about physical & cybersecurity hardening grant, like intrusion detection & commercial access controls, exterior lighting so ppl feel safe, likely contracting members of the community to do the work. $75,337

• Quinn: can we use that for rent?

• Sam: we've already put items to dollars, i'm not going to jail for fraud. NB has a zero-tolerance policy for fraud!

How's it all going

Big C Consensus Items

Nobody likes 3 hour meetings, only explain if new people are present. 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.

Discussion Items

Discussion Item 1

From/Raised by: Group including Demiere... Seeking decision/outcome/advice: On topic: Immediate term fundraising event ideas, on-going ideas

What's the process for doing events?

https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Hosting_an_Event

Quinn: do you guys think you have the bandwidth for hosting something once a month?

Group: yes that's what we were thinking about!

Naomi: what do we do regularly that brings people in for entertainment purposes (not classes)...

• Resident Electronic Music happens on 4th Thursdays in hackitorium

• 5Mof happens on 3rd thursdays of each month

Guled: I'd like to contribute guided meditations every week. Friday at 6pm for example.

Naomi: this will be difficult to do but you can try!

JD: as long as you make sure things get put back (or better) to avoid issues.

Brennan: how about that garden on the roof

group: what happened to the comedy group?

Mark: welllll let me tell you the story. Victor was getting burned out making sure the space was usable for the event. We need a NB support system.

JD: the thing is we want to make sure ppl don't change everything before each event.

Group: assume we don't sell alcohol drinks?

Corey: here's how other groups have done this: you sell the mixed drink w/o the alcohol, the alcohol is free.

JD, Brennan: we will certainly make sure people are 21.

Featured artists, jam sessions, poetry,

Corey: maybe it's time we consolidated infrastructure efforts.

Quinn: are there leads for events?

Moof: i have the knowledge for that, i did sunday streets, some other events here.

Find a Member, get your event sponsored by that Member. Loren explains why that falls under "Members take care of the community"

For next time, let's hear from the group:

   * Door policy (wristbands?) 
   * expected donation at the door
   * Event process / schedule
   * How to handle unwanteds
   * Financial split
   * Member sponsor

https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Hosting_an_Event

Discussion Item 2

From/Raised by: Quinn, Nthmost, LX Seeking decision/outcome/advice: 15th Anniversary Celebration ideas On topic:

Quinn: I talked to Ken about being the point person.

Mark: I want to talk to him to make sure he can actually do that.

Quinn: I chose him b/c i think he's reliable for me specifically.

LX:

Toro: there's a grant for public events due Jan 21rd

Bob: i have a magician friend who does shows

Naomi: in the past we had a week of classes and workshops that raised a bunch of funds for our 2014 repairs. We've also done some cool art installation events and stuff.

Mark: Rube Goldberg Machine hackathon!

https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Hosting_an_Event https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Events