Minutes:14 APR 2021 Members Meeting Agenda

Meeting begins: 1920

Meeting ends: 2015

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

Agenda

• Announcements/new business - 10m
• Membership update - 5m - Joe
• Financial update - 5m - Joe
• Old business updates

Notes

• Announcements/new business:
  • DOG SHOW

• Membership update:
  • Lost full-time member, but it turned into a "bronze-level" sponsorship! +1 reduced rate membership, 2 are unknown status.

• Financial update:
  • 13 months of expenses
  • https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MTjgdvGJI9-FI7OFxkDdw-hJbirdUaxwBpERWVGVSQs/edit#gid=0

• Outreach:
  • Corporate donations/solicitations - David
    • Been saturated with other stuff, so no progress yet
    • James suggests rolling this into the Show & Tell since there are a lot of company reps attending already
    • Nate will help write a brief blurb about AHA and how we could use support to be presented really quick during the meeting, since it can get glossed over a bit.
  • Huron High School expo event - David
    • Important dates: April 21st interviews @ 11am, May 19th expo
    • David, James, and Joe will attend the interview
  • Artisan's Market - Joe will contact those organizers in-person

• Events:
  • FYI: A2 Observer events need to go in by the 10th of the month (technically! But James says it can be a little later sometimes)
  • Show & tell
    • On the schedule for April 29th
  • ATMegaZero class with Eddie - David
    • David got some positive feedback on the event
    • Would like to do another similar event sometime in the next months/quarter or so. Arduino machine learning perhaps?
  • Posting Member's Meeting to Meetup - James will do this ASAP

• Operations
  • Reopening plans meeting summary
    • Minutes reproduced here:

1. Remove space reservation system:

- When restaurants or gyms lift restrictions on sign-ins/tracking/temperature checks

- Run past membership to see if everyone is feeling OK with that

- James will head this up

2. Resume open hours:

- First step is to find who will run these?

- Reach out to prior volunteers to see if/when they are interested in doing a shift?

- Try to get more "non-volunteer" members to spend some time there once a week

- What day(s) would be best to spend these hours at AHA? Weekdays during the day seems to be the least desirable -- weeknights or weekends?

- Events out in the public sphere: artisan's market, etc. to generate interest/visibility

- Nate will contact previous volunteers

3. Resume in-person classes:

- Do we officially open this up starting now? Limit to maybe 4 individuals (plus a guest from their household?) Use teacher's discretion.

- Start discussion on the mailing list about some ideas related to this

- Joe will head this up

• • Website updates
    • James and Nate will discuss after meeting
    • Schedule another work night? - Joe
  • James will reach out to DO about extending credits for hosting.
    • We are kind of "weirdos" in the scheme of how they categorize organizations for donated server time, so James is waiting to hear back.
  • New network hardware donated, will be able to upgrade virtually our entire network - James and Nate
    • Nate will set up a time after meeting

• Old business:

• • Summer camp
    • Some existing camps: https://annarborfamily.com/feature/2020-summer-camp-guide/
    • Set up meeting to flesh out ideas - James
    • Research legal/insurance hurdles.
      • Joe will look into legal definitions of what makes a place a "day care".
      • Nate will reach out to insurance folks to determine how this might impact our coverage.

• • Volunteering:
    • 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

• • Events:
    • Companion bots with Alex G. - In a holding pattern! - David
    • 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/
    • Are we allowed to post upcoming classes in the NoM group?
    • James will reach out to his contacts to see if we can get more guidance on how to raise funds. James mentions that we could come up with some initial questions before meeting to get better feedback, e.g. come up with some ideas for fundraising that we can compile together to ask them about.

• • Operations:
    • Add .well-known to website for easier Matrix logging-in - James and Nate
    • Idea to start off the next meeting as a sort of lightning round of space/related updates for all members, so folks can check in real quick even if they don't want to stay for the whole meeting. Joe will lead using this format at the next meeting.
    • Joe is adding places to promote events to a page on our wiki: Promoting ...And also adding a cross-promotion section
    • Tool lending thoughts from Joe: feels things have been out for a while, feels that we might be losing track of things, and in addition could possibly make use of software to help us out in the future. On another note, he has come across some construction tools that could be lent to AHA.

• • Membership:
    • Motion to replace new-member vouching system with n-hours of volunteering/vote on it? - James
      • This has been posted to the email list. Not a lot of feedback received, so we might just go ahead with it as a member vote during the April election.
    • James: no real feedback received about the current membership process. Suggests we should move on with defining a better process based on what we know. Probably on hold while we get the CRM/membership item squared away.

• • Outreach:
    • James will reach out to his contacts to see if we can get more guidance on how to raise funds. James mentions that we could come up with some initial questions before meeting to get better feedback, e.g. come up with some ideas for fundraising that we can compile together to ask them about.

• • 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.