Minutes:13 JAN 2021 Members Meeting Agenda

Meeting begins: 1910

Meeting ends: 2118

Participants: Nate Y., Joe D., David G., James K.

Agenda

• Announcements/new business - 10m
• Membership update - 5m - Joe
  • Process Improvement meeting results/discussion - 10m - Nate
• Financial update - 5m - Joe
• Outreach updates:
  • Holiday fundraiser results! - 5m - Nate
  • NEXT FUNDRAISER IDEA: "All Bands Active" - 5m - Nate
• Events - 10m - Nate
• Old business updates

Notes

• Announcements/new business:

• Membership update:
  • Joe: we got a net of one reduced-rate membership
  • Nate posted meeting minutes from the Process Improvement meeting in #operations in Matrix chat. Takeaways: Nate will identify a few options for popular CRM-style software that hackerspaces like to use so that we can get started quickly; Joe will research Paypal integration with Freshbooks, and document the current membership process. We need to document the current process so we can compare with what we want in the future, and begin implementing changes to make this easier for everyone.
    • • https://github.com/Admidio/admidio , https://github.com/tendenci/tendenci , https://github.com/elplatt/seltzer
      • Need to define existing membership process -- Nate will set up a meeting to do this ~next week.
    • Old business, but related stuff pulled in here:
    • James wants us to officially move over to doing a volunteering requirement as a condition of membership, as opposed to using the voucher system -- put to a vote, make plan to update membership documentation? Other requirements to implement this?
      • How long should a new member volunteer?
      • James - will come up with a motion to define this change
    • 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.
    • James: get feedback from new members on how the process currently works, and see how we can use that information to get the above things done.

• Financial update:
  • https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MTjgdvGJI9-FI7OFxkDdw-hJbirdUaxwBpERWVGVSQs/edit#gid=0
  • Losing about $700/mo., or burning about 9/10th a month of runway each month.
  • Thank you notes/gestures needed because all these donations really helped out! Joe will write a letter to get started, by next week.

• Outreach:
  • Holiday fundraiser results!
    • Mike ultimately set up a new GoFundMe campaign, because the old one was disabled due to some changes made on GFM's end. We set the goal for $5k, with matching for the first $2k donated before 1/1/2021. We met our matching goal! The matching contributions have been collected and deposited, yielding an immediate total of ~$4k (excluding processing fees).
    • Still have $1k left as a "stretch goal", but no plan exists on how to market it so we can reach it. Come up with a plan to either keep the momentum going, or end the campaign?
    • More importantly, we need to come up with a plan to thank people for hustling on this and getting us to our goal.
  • Corporate donations/solicitations - David
    • Probably won't get started until end of the month or so, check in again.
  • James will reach out to his contacts to see if we can get more guidance on how to raise funds.
• Events:
  • Seasonal Solder-kit build-along: this was a good proof-of-concept. Overall it went well, without too much of a hitch, but only a few AHA members attended (but big thanks to those who did!). Nate would like to try again with another seasonally-themed solder kit, but unsure when he will have time to design one. How do we increase visibility? Facebook ads? Better cross-promotion? -- would need to happen way in advance, and consistently.
    • James thinks there should be more time allotted to publicize these events (Nate agrees!)
    • Pick a kit for St. Patty's? Might be too close for Valentine's, but Nate will try to find something by this weekend.
  • January - David wants to run a show-and-tell event for AHA.
  • Joe is adding places to promote events to a page on our wiki: Promoting
  • ...And also adding a cross-promotion section
  • David's friend would like to donate some ATMegaZero boards, and David would like run a class with them.
  • Alex G. and David think companion bots would be a fun class to do. February timeline?

• Old Business:
  • Volunteering:
    • 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.
      • Improve the process to find and recruit volunteers
      • Joe recommends following suite of another space that has "job descriptions" for new volunteers, so that they can start up doing something well-defined instead of some nebulous "volunteering time": https://www.acemakerspace.org/monster-corps/ https://www.acemakerspace.org/member-contribution-portal/
      • Volunteer hour tracking
      • Lonely Space Hardware cleanup/organization effort -- James still would like to schedule tentatively for January
  • Events:
    • Joe connected with two people from Nation of Makers who are possibly interested in cross-promoting classes with similarly-sized hackerspaces.
    • Another hackerspace would be interested in having us check out their bi-weekly show-and-tell events -- microcontroller/electronic. https://www.meetup.com/Robot-Garden/events/gvcgvrybcqbqb/
    • Build-a-3d-printer class offered by another hackerspace. $400ish for the class? Nate suggests cross-promoting classes like these.
    • Are we allowed to post upcoming classes in the NoM group?
  • 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?