Minutes:09 Nov 2016 Board Meeting Agenda

AHA Mission Statement
We seek to establish, build, and support a collective of individuals organized around the principles of community-driven education in the arts and sciences, and to ensure ready access to the tools needed to pursue the realization of those principles.

• Meeting attendees: Corey T., Alex W., Nate Y., Tyler W., Greg G. (remotely)
• Meeting starts at: 1924
• Meeting ends at: 2030

Board Meeting Protocol

* Standing Committee Reports - Individual Updates by Assigned Director/Officer presented in the time allotted.

* Open Time: For anyone to bring anything up to the Board. IF the Board agrees the item requires action, it will be put into New Business and addressed at the end of the meeting.

(15m) Open For All

• All Are Worthy. All Are Welcome.

No open items.

Minutes Approval

• October 2016 Board Minutes.

Education - Nick R.

Nick - KiCad and OnShape classes, these are shelved for now. Nick can follow up with us about running these in November. Will see if anyone wants to a practice.

3D printer class slides need to be updated. -- Alex W. will work to update slides for the Makerbot.

Josh - Based on last months policy we owe him $15 for hosting the Arduino class.

Previously:

• Laser Class - 5 in attendance
• Arduino - 8 in attendance
• Apple Spritekit - 18 in attendance
• Learn to Solder Theremin - 5 in attendance

Upcoming:

• CNC Class (tomorrow!)
• 3D Printing? -- Need date
• OpenSCAD -- December 8th
• Inkscape -- Christmas Ornament Themed December 15th (Can we run laser close to this?)
• Ann Arbor Academy. We've had a couple folks get in touch with us about running an Arduino class here. Alex will reach out -- Tyler and Nate both agreed to take time off if the group is committed to doing a class. Alex sent an email in october but hasn't heard anything.
• Advanced Learn-to-Solder (surface-mount) using Penguicon badges. -- Nate will revisit October.
• Amateur radio General license review class -- Now in January.

Finances/Membership - Alex W.

Alex is going to look at API for Xero to import paypal data automatically.

We've got $5000 dollars in the bank. We need to setup Autopay for DTE and get the new space working.

$1300/mo. rent currently.

ATT needs to be transferred still. Comcast needs to be cancelled still. Nate will do it, Tyler will forward relevant info.

Rent starts October, paid by check. Base rent and part across the hall starts later. We're close to covering it, but we'll need to pull in a business or keep running classes. Nate can cover for a bit the second room.

Members - 28 in October... Nov?

The electronic membership form. Alex is still working on it. Adding another membership tier for donor for $100.

Nate will look into getting an AHA referral code for Amazon purchases. Smile works! -- Haven't gotten a code yet, but did do a little reading. This is the program I was referring to: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/welcome/getstarted

We need a Stripe setup to take membership dues and other payments again. Alex will let Nate know what he needs, and Nate will purchase.

Fundraising - Greg G.

Bad News

I had a meeting with Bill Mayer of SPARK to inquire about the next steps for the MEDC. There has been a political restructuring and the grants are on hold right now, even for SPARK. Therefore, we will not pursue the architectural drawings at this time.

Good News

We are working on a recurring $500 monthly agreement with Ann Arbor SPARK in exchange for open membership for 5 people in the SPARK incubator. They have 3-4 companies that build hardware, 2 of which are drone based. They have need for 3d printers, laser cutter, and the vinyl cutter for promotions. See email from today:

On Wed, Nov 9, 2016 at 3:12 PM, Bill Mayer <Bill@annarborusa.org> wrote: Hi Greg, I have mentioned it to my CFO but we are sitting down later this week to discuss a list of issues. I am comfortable with you telling your Board that SPARK will take on an Enterprise (or whatever you would like to call it) membership and we just have a few details left to hammer out.

Work for you?

Google Community Grants is still on the table for Jan 2017 (Application here). The meeting requests were still not listed, so I sent a note:

On Wed, Nov 9, 2016 at 4:50 PM Hello A2 Google -

I help run All Hands Active, a non-profit community STEM makerspace in Downtown Ann Arbor, and would love to meet during the office hours to discuss the Google Community Grants in more detail.

I have been monitoring your Sign Up for Google Office Hours page for the past few months, but have not seen any availabilities to schedule a drop on Thursdays from 11 AM to 1 PM.

Can we arrange a time to visit to discuss our ideas for the community grant that is coming due in Jan? I wanted to get your feedback before submitting.

Regards,

Greg

Marketing/Events - Corey T.

Marketing Corey Updates

• Nation of Makers Letter due 11/10 - Do we want to commit and throw our support behind this? Who can write it, drafts/templates online.

• Maker Faire - Corey will come up with ideas for next year and float them to members. ETA is 11/14.

• Corey wants to run group focused events once a month to get pictures going and create marketing material. Rebuild the community.

• Get cheap cameras for AHA with Wifi SD cards, use them to automatically upload event images to a repository during.

• Host a monthly VR night? Corey needs a better 3D card to really make it work better.

Marketing Greg Updates

We have another >100 UROP undergraduate students scheduled to visit Tuesday, Nov 22 from 4:00-5:30pm.

We worked with a Graphic Designer and made a colorful logo to be used in campaigns and to watermark images:

We created a content calendar for November and sent out an email to all 166 Mail Chimp subscribers (22.6% Opened, 1.8% Clicked).

The Next day we sent out an extra workshop email to 164 Mail Chimp subscribers (23.3% Opened, 3.7% Clicked).

I like the professional look of these emails, but our subscribership is too low. We added a popup on the AHA Webpage to sign up to the mailing list. We've had 5 signups so far.

To Do: Make new web theme around this new logo/theme. Interconnect all the events across the web, email, and social media.

Get more names on the email list. We can put a call for sign-ups on Meetup, Facebook, Twitter. Meetup also lets you do direct mailing -- might be too aggressive? Users can adjust their communications preferences.

We need to come up with a reasonable amount to charge per day to use AHA for events we host. We should get data from similar outfits in the area.

Sign-up sheet needs to be passed around at events.

Operations/Volunteers - Tyler W.

2 Thefts - Reported to AAPD. Monitors, donation box, register cleaned out, lockers cut. Waiting on response from Oxford about what was caught on cameras outside the building.

Locks re-keyed on all doors. - We owe Oxford $100 for this.

Nest Cameras installed - Thanks Greg!

3D printer area reworked - Thanks Alex!

Website - Draft is underway, should have new design ready to go by December. Moving away from word-press to simple HTML5 design, incorporates work flows for member sign up and pulls in events from meetup. Hosted on GitHub, anyone can contribute if they want.

Plans for new electronics bench decided. Still need to figure out front room tables before ordering supplies. Figured out -- now going to order, will need to have someone at AHA when it is delivered.

Classroom is setup and usable! Contact Tyler to borrow fancy projector if low res projector won't do.

• Want to find sink and cabinets still.
• Eventually can convert to rented space.
• Nate is working to secure this

Kossel parts are here, Alex needs to make a new bracket, Nick offered to help. Replicator needs a bit more servicing.

Upcoming improvements

• Hang mailbox (it's at the space)
• Nate will work on securing new space - New card readers on order.

- They are here, but still waiting on USB cable to use them. Then will need to test.

• UPS to be mounted in rack

Signage

• Greg was going to get in touch with Vanya to fix up door logo, get other signage running. ??
• After Hours rear stairway sign - Sent to printer for production on corrugated plastic. ETA is 11/11
• Front of building - Saw two drafts of signs in late October. Student is still working on them, but they looked okay and text explains what we do. Production method is either plastic corrugated or possible to route the logo out of wood/paint and stain.
• Sandwich board - Needs new design, better explanation of space and something that says to use back stairs after hours. Maybe an Open small sign off the top?

Recycling - We've been collecting in separate box and leaving cans in bags for people to collect outside the dumpster (other tenants do that). We should still get a bucket, but haven't had time.

Member meeting - November 3rd had good turn out for the potluck.

Volunteers:

• We're short still and lost another. Tyler is covering Thursday's and Brian gets Saturday's when he's free. Tyler wants to remove Friday night hours and focus on Thursday and Saturday with classes running on other evenings.

(30m) Unfinished Business

Stephanie is here to help AHA with marketing, has a Engineering/Business background, working with marketing automation software (Buffer currently, not chained to anything in particular). She believes working with her hands is a valuable experience, enjoys informal/impromptu teaching opportunities; but is also a good planner. She brings a unique perspective given the background. She and Corey will meet afterwards to talk about marketing. -- Corey is waiting to hear back.

Alex W. - Drafting a Storage / Clean Tabletop Policy - Still working on it. Alec suggests also having a cheap "storage box" solution, you could rent a cardboard box to put your projects in for a limited time. ETA is August 20th. -- Alex has a draft storage policy, and printed out "parking permits" for existing projects. Still working on the locker policy, and amount to charge for longer-term storage.