Minutes:11 NOV 2020 Members Meeting Agenda

Meeting begins: 1910

Meeting ends: 2100

Participants: Nate Y., James K., David G., Mitchell N.

Agenda

• Announcements/new business - 10m
• Election update - 5m - James
• Membership update - 5m - Nate
• Financial update - 5m - Nate
• Membership processes - 10m - James
• Volunteering - 5m - James
• Laser cutter repairs - 10m - Nate
• Outreach update, November/December classes - 5m - Nate
• Bylaws revision - 5m - James

Notes

• Announcements/new business:
  • James would like to organize an event to figure out what to do with the surplus computer hardware we have sitting around after moving out of the Annex. Will probably shoot for a weekend in December.
  • David reminds Nate about the "what cool stuff AHA does" template. Nate will get him something by next Wednesday.
  • David reminds us that AHA luminary Alex G. is still willing to teach a class on (INSERT COOL THING HERE). Nate suggests a music-related thing, and having a small huddle between himself, David, and Alex to work something more concrete out. David pointed out this link as an example: https://alexglow.medium.com/space-robot-music-742b5f0e9182
  • Mike Z. made a really cool suggestion on Matrix for an "All Bands Active" event. There is good interest in doing this sort of like our 10th Anniversary Party last November, except online. Could have lots of live-coded music, home-brew synth, DJs, live-coded visuals, maybe even full bands? Target a possible New Year timeline? Nate will reach out to Mike to see if we can get this going.

• Election update:
  • James is at the point where the voting tokens need to be sent out to individual members (an arduous process), just a bit over-committed at the moment -- going to try to get it done before the end of tomorrow.

• Membership update:
  • 33 members currently(ish?): 11 reduced, 22 standard. James says one full-time has since left.

• Financial update:
  • https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MTjgdvGJI9-FI7OFxkDdw-hJbirdUaxwBpERWVGVSQs/edit#gid=0
  • Just under 9 months remaining before going broke -- still not going the right way, but we're not completely doomed and beyond our three-month "red alarm" buffer. Need to work harder to grow the membership, run classes, get donations.

• Membership processes:
  • Create an "exit survey" that can help identify why a person is leaving, but also can try and convince them to stay by pointing out our reduced cost options available.
  • Make sure we are on-boarding new members consistently -- specifically we should try much harder to ensure that they join the mailing list (using an "opt-out" basis, even?). This needs to be a specific part of the on-boarding process that is always done, possibly during the point at which we add them to the membership roster.
  • Nate will add more columns to address: have we added this person to the member roster, added them to the mailing list, sent them an exit interview if they leave (or at least acknowledged that they left).
  • Speaking of a membership roster, we still don't really have a great system in place that allows us to track changes over time. Nate will (again) try to evaluate a couple CRMs to see if one will work at least a bit better than our current spreadsheet.

• Volunteering:
  • Lana has done a great job! We have a few more hours with her, and James is trying to figure out what to give her since we're running out of things.
    • A task that could be done is to pull the list of donors/sponsors (via GoFundMe, Duo, etc.). Also DigitalOcean for hosting our website. Also SPARK, maybe?
  • James would like to figure out how to get our name on the list (presumably through the various schools) for future volunteers. This was also a suggestion from our Nation of Makers call: reach out to schools and other volunteer hubs to attract more help.

• Laser cutter repairs:
  • Two hinges on the laser cutter lid are broken, so the laser cutter is now unusable.
  • James will take a look tomorrow to see if he can swap the hinges from the laser tube compartment to the main lid, and then do that if it looks easy. In any case, he will also get the measurements of the hinges to see if we can find replacements and get them on order.

• Outreach update, November/December classes:
  • Nation of Makers call went very well. Lots of common ground there in terms of ideas for how to get more involved and keep interest alive, as well as mutual acquaintances. We were introduced to several venues we could use to do more outreach (e.g. regular call-ins with other makers, Slack groups, contacts at other hackerspaces that could potentially guide us through some tough spots, etc.). Nate and Joe have been following up a bit, will swing back to this next month.
  • Nate will be running a holiday-themed, learn-to-solder-type class over the internet (David suggests more appropriately calling it a "build-along", to entice more advanced soldering folks, too). Participants would be expected to purchase a solder kit, and possibly soldering iron, in advance. Then Nate would demonstrate/answer questions on how to assemble the kits. So far Nate has found several blinky Christmas tree kits, and a couple blinky snow flakes kits on Amazon.
    • James suggests reaching out to AADL to see if they know how to make production of such an online class easier, i.e. maybe having a studio already set up that we could use?
    • North Coast Modular Collective might also have pointers on this, since they did a similar thing only a few months ago. David G. actually wrote up some instructions for remote soldering instruction here: https://github.com/NorthCoastModularCollective/Mt.-Brighton-Avalanche-Oscillator/wiki/Build-Instructions
    • James suggests offering to lend out soldering irons for folks who would consider joining AHA as a member -- would need to schedule the event ASAP. Nate has concerns with distributing irons, but James said he could help coordinate a bit to get it done. This would be great for dual-purposing the event as a membership drive of sorts, as well as generating income from the class itself.

• Bylaws revision:
  • Nothing really to report here since James is busy with a lot of other things; so just keeping it on the radar. We all agree that the bylaws could use a little attention after 5+ years, especially to better fit how the organization has been running (or could be run!). Follow-up again next month?