Minutes:16 SEP 2020 Members Meeting Agenda

Agenda

• Announcements/new business - 5m
• Report on new members - Joe - 5m
• Financial report - Joe - 5m
• Utilities charge from Annex - James - 5m
• Reopening plan updates - Joe - 10m
• Tech Trek - James - 5m
• Election Plans - ??? - 5m (did not discuss, but Nate will take it to chat)

Notes

• Members: 5 new members since April
• Finances: 11 months of runway in the bank
• Utilities: We might owe ~$100 for utilities for July and August, but our overall balance with Oxford is pretty small due to the abatement, which comes to an end this month.
• Metering for all of our three (formerly four) suites has been combined into one meter under suite 225. We are working to ensure the Annex portion is removed from our account.
• Reopening plans: Things seem to be working alright, for the most part. We need to update reservation form to make it clear you can bring guests. Also need to remind everyone that even a small visit should require using the reservation form (sign on the door with link/QR code to form?).
• Fundraising: David reached out to the Givitas forum for advice on fundraising. Got one suggestion so far, about doing a big blast to many companies asking for contributions (vs. reaching out to a more curated list).
  • Still having some confusion about the GoFundMe and Paypal. For the most part, the GFM is used for fundraising campaign with goals, whereas Paypal is a more general-purpose for donations.
  • We haven't done a big blast yet, but that is totally doable. We discussed a "cold-call" template a few meetings ago, can re-focus on that to increase our reach. Nate and David to discuss?
  • Reached out to Adam of Hackster, is considering how to help
  • Alex G. of Hackster would like to teach a class for us!
  • Working with other hackerspaces?
  • Joe suggested working with Nation of Makers. Nate knows/has contact info for a couple particularly active folks in that group who have visited AHA.
  • Tech Trek promo video that Nate did should provide some convincing reasons to participate/sponsor AHA, can be used for other AHA promos outside of Tech Trek. Will update once we have the final cut of it.
  • This section has gotten a lot of motion, so we should spin off another meeting to focus on it and keep the effort going! Nate will propose a time.

• Tech Trek: next Friday 9/25@1-5PM. James will partner up with Joe to field questions about AHA (virtually). Nate can also join in if needed.

Decisions

• Revisit quarantine plans in light of current/projected risks.

Action Items

• Put up a sign reminding people to sign in on the door - Joe
• Add guide to wiki on "how to get started teaching a class" - James, by August
• Evaluate voting options on election process improvement thread - Nate, two months before the next election
• Create template for cold call emails to businesses

• Wacky class ideas! Mike will start a thread on memberlist. - DONE
• Volunteer time tracking
• Semi-social meetups outside, where we do space improvement stuff on our laptops with a cell hotspot!

Running List of Projects

Active Projects

• Online classes
  • infrastructure for running / promoting classes unclear
    • Joe can run fusion 360 class
    • David idea for arduino class
    • Nate home automation class
  • Critical to do these since we have no other income at the moment, besides dues.

• Volunteering
  • Need to get things running again, see if anyone would like to teach a class during the downtime
  • Start contacting volunteer/reduced rate folks by mid-next-week.
  • list of volunteering ideas started
  • How/if to track how much people are actually volunteering?

• Finish Website
  • Joe added a few pages and closed some issues.
    • page to pay for classes
    • added payment option to membership page
    • added reservation form for access to the space
    • remove links to the gfm and add our own donation page
  • Someone could label issues as critical or not

• Accounting
  • Stay with freshbooks or switch?
  • Use accounting software to track individual member payments? Joe's research says that Homeowners associations and German Club use this method. Both are billed yearly, however
  • Interim solutions: better spreadsheets with documentation

Inactive Projects

• Marketing
  • social
  • newsletter
  • local publications etc

• election system

• Ongoing Wiki Maintenance

• determine how new members can join during COVID-19

• determine how people can qualify on new tools during COVID-19
  • Online/video class followed by brief in person qualification?

• Find Sponsors
  • Have a clear idea of what we bring to the community

Future Projects

• Social Events

• Partner with scouts

• How to increase diversity