Minutes:08 FEB 2023 Members Meeting Agenda

Meeting begins: 1915

Meeting ends: 2105

Participants: Nate Y., Jeremy H., Brian J., David G., Donovan P., James K., Joe D., Andrew C.

Agenda

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

Minutes

• Announcements/new business:

• Operations:
  • Tool checkout spreadsheet to keep track of who is allowed to use our training-required tools - Joe D. (actually happening this month) - DONE!
  • Sink Update - Lyn will fix it "this week", knows about the code issues - Joe D. - As of today, now postponed to "this week"!
  • Cricut Working! - needs a permanent computer - working on getting a dedicated mac mini - David G. (will have it done after this weekend)
  • Laser Cutter upgrade updates - Andrew C./Joe D./Nate Y.
  • Classroom lighting - ideas for improving our lights? - Nate Y., Andrew C.
    • James says lights need more diffusion, because they are designed to be hung higher than we can accomplish in the classroom.
    • Jeremy thinks studio lights might be better-suited for our use
    • General consensus is that we can work with what we have to make it better for our use
  • Classroom junk purge:
    • Electronics from near the 3D printers
    • Removal of hazardous/toxic liquids in the classroom
    • Monitor assessment updates - Andrew C.
      • P.S. Monitors in the classroom are up for grabs!
    • Make a donation plan for all items, meet up on a specified day with a vehicle and take things to those planned places!
    • James willing to spearhead the effort for the next Space Improvement Day, but will need help transporting to drop-off places.
    • James will work with Donovan in the next few days to sort cables and such.
  • Signage/SEO updates?
    • No change on SEO yet
    • Jeremy says he is finalizing the design of the pillar right outside the entrance since this seems to be the priority. Signage outside is lower-priority since we already have it.
      • The plan is to put a mural on the non-mailbox side of the pillar. The mailbox side is left as a community project, akin perhaps to the "paint rocks" found around town, near schools/campuses.
    • James: in terms of signage, an imperfect, iterated solution is good enough based on how our organization runs. We should try to get something up even if it's not what we would consider final.

• Financial:
  • Financial health outlook: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MTjgdvGJI9-FI7OFxkDdw-hJbirdUaxwBpERWVGVSQs/edit#gid=0
  • Current Profit and Loss https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zyFGgMt1vwGwDnciNzjhT5_X7A4ackqJ/view?usp=sharing
  • Joe: Quickbooks is set up just fine for 990N, and could also easily allow us to do the 990EZ if we ever pull in that much money routinely.
  • Joe floats the idea of categorizing expenses by whether they are mission- or non-mission-fulfilling (overhead) items, e.g. cleaning supplies are not necessarily mission-fulfilling, vs. costs related to rent, which in our case are mission-fulfilling.
    • Andrew: also capital expenses (in this case, tools and other upgrades) vs. operational expenses (rent, etc.)?
      • Joe: Capital expenses would be more appropriate for bigger-ticket purchases that depreciate
    • Will follow-up on this idea in a subsequent Finance Committee meeting/Matrix thread
  • In March, invoices for member dues will become easy to automate. James: let's make sure we look over these carefully for the first batch!
  • Q4 2022 financial reports? Joe will produce these ASAP. - Joe D.
  • James and Nate met about County/MEDC grants
    • Need to write some basic proposals. James: we need to have another meeting soon to put this together. We can frame the our existing tool classes as a form of technical training. E.g. to run these classes, we require X amount of $, and we run Y classes per year. This can get us on the radar for funding to run them, for materials (more make-and-takes), for being able to pay instructors, etc.. Ultimately will help us diversify our class offerings.
    • Will plan meeting on chat
    • Nate Y. started an attendance-tracking doc for all events. Idea is to have hard data on how many folks we've helped. This will be something we can point out in all grant applications!

• Membership:
  • Possibly a net gain of two people!

• Outreach:
  • 2022 Fundraiser wrap-up
    • Nate was able to get access to the non-profit features of GFM, now we have access to donor data; but the terms of its use seems to suggest we won't be able to use it for sending out thank-yous. Given this is the case, what's our plan to get this done?
      • Ideas: don't use the GFM non-profit data, do send a link to a google form where folks can fill in their email address if they want a prize and aren't on the mailing list already, the rest can be emailed through the list.
    • Joe will do the GFM/social media updates
    • Wiki article to do fundraising - Everybody
  • Gentle volunteering nag - author an email - James K. and Joe D.
  • Acknowledge that Members' Meeting counts towards volunteering hours
  • 2023 Ann Arbor Art Fair - Double booth -- do we want to do this? - Nate Y. - DONE (requested a 10'x10')
    • Do we think we'll need a bigger tent for this?
      • Can get an NFPA701-rated 10'x10' for around $250, which might be worth a purchase in any case.
  • Bringing more people into AHA - James K.
  • Cahoots happy hours! Seem to be monthly? We should attend these more often.
    • Very easy opportunity to network!
    • James: Cahoots also hosts other groups that might have events where we could attending, e.g. TechInclusive

• Education:
  • Get some more non-training-related classes on the schedule! Brainstorming - Nate Y.
    • Verilog - Brian
    • Chiptunes! (end of March, and April or May) - James