Minutes:08 NOV 2023 Members Meeting Agenda

Meeting begins: 1906

Meeting ends: 2113

Participants: Nate Y., Sarah B., Andrew C., Brian J., James K., Ben N., Joe D., Victor M.

Agenda

• Announcements/new business - 10m
• Operations
• Financial
• Membership
• Outreach
• Education

Minutes

• Announcements/new business:

• Operations:
  • PC upgrades: buy new vs. upgrade (i.e. more RAM/switch to SSD)? - James K./Nate Y.
    • Upgrading might prove to be more expensive than buying since older parts (DDR3) have actually gone up in price
    • Donated machine instead of buying?
    • Use existing Mac Mini for the public PC
    • https://www.ebay.com/itm/285309742776 as an example of new PCs
  • Access control: pivot to off-the-shelf Unifi solution? - James K./Nate Y.
    • We should test out some of the higher-end Unifi cameras for the main entrance, to control the number of alerts.
    • Access control -- we will order some Unifi gear at the beginning of 2024, could roll into the fundraiser.
  • Can we define a group of people "responsible" for each machine who would document/maintain/organize the main trainings?
• Financial:
  • Financial Position: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nn4OxS-0l0mwA1Fsy550Xy8HV_6iZHvk/view?usp=sharing
  • Financial Activity: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RmAh9c6b-OJDsFHtfV3O_bssShu8y62Q/view?usp=sharing
  • Monthly financial report https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fCZ2j8G5ZXTxQlR_fnR_BoUldrVSsgBDnbztHpAYgGw/edit?usp=sharing
  • Accountant/tax advice/Payroll solutions - Joe D.
    • Accountant + Quickbooks would be too expensive
    • Joe will come up with 2-3 more options in January.
• Membership:
  • Volunteering SOP/color-coded task list?
    • Joe: we should ensure we're getting more volunteer metrics/tracking before we engage with this too much
      • Nate: More folks have been logging their hours (Benevity has helped a lot with this since there is real money attached!). Seems to be largely a discipline issue that can be improved with a bit of PR effort.
    • CiviCRM can potentially track hours also to nudge folks, if needed.
    • Joe: can we take any existing documentation on volunteering stuff, update/distill it, and post in the space for easy reference.
    • Joe will do some color-coding of tasks
  • Election updates - James K.
    • Election period currently running, have received 12 ballots (~28% of membership). Polls closing on 11/10 @ 10pm.
  • Membership tracking
    • We have something terrible, but functional! Long term is to get this into something more suitable (CiviCRM?)
• Outreach:
  • Future grants?
    • Michigan Arts and Culture Council (MACC)
      • $5 million total available, up to $250,000 per grant
      • Due Wednesday, December 13, 2023, before 5:00 pm ET
      • Haven't looked too closely at this one to see if we are eligible
        • Sarah will look into eligibility. Nate will send Sarah whatever EIDL application we had (has already sent the CW grant info).
    • Free-form MEDC grant
    • SA²T (Sustaining Ann Arbor Together) - Sarah B.
      • Will start January 1st
    • SPARK cooperation, can we give them more bang for their buck? - David G.
  • Upcoming events:
    • End of the year fundraiser:
      • CiviCRM fundraising management - Sarah B.
      • Events: Winter Workshop, Gift-repairsday, 14th Anniversary party
        • Regulations for buying/selling Winter Workshop kits - Sarah B.
          • Materials for the kits may be sales tax exempt. If we want to do this, need to check deeper on regulations & fill out MI Form 3372 to give to retailers
          • The kits count as "tangible personal property," but because we won't do over $10,000 in sales or $25,000 in aggregate sales, MI regs say we don't have to charge sales tax
          • What we're proposing will not end up under Unrelated Business Income Tax because this is a short term sale related to a fundraiser
        • Social media planning for events - Sarah B.
          • Need to get meetups made, kits ordered, FB/Insta posts up.
  • Future goals & pitch deck - Sarah B.
    • Come up with 3-5 year goals for the pitch deck
• Education:
  • 2024 education goals/classes
    • How to transfer some responsibilities for classes to more people?