Minutes:11 June 2014 Board Meeting Agenda

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  • Meeting attendees: Josh W., Ken L., Larry W., Zach W., Dana N., Nate Y., Nick R.
  • Meeting starts at: 1920
  • Meeting ends at: 2123

Meeting attendees: Meeting starts at: Meeting ends at:


(15 min) Open For All!

  • Zach and Nick are part of local company AMF Nano. Zach wants to set AMF Nano up with a commercial membership at AHA for $150/mo.. AMF wants us to shut up and take their money -- no other requirements beyond. They need access to the 3D printer, minor space requirements for small electronics projects. Arrangement is currently just for the two of them -- if they add more engineers we will renegotiate the rate. Board unanimously agrees to this arrangement! (4 members present). Dana volunteers to be the liason for AMF Nano.
  • Zach suggests the possibility of changing our document management to another castle.

Standing Committee Chairs

  • Financial - Zach S./Emilio T.?
  • Governance - Nate Y.
  • Fundraising - Larry W.
  • Operation - Nate Y.
  • Events Coordinator - Larry W./Josh W.
  • AMF-Nano & AHA - zwick and Nick Ristow
  • Hosting documents somewhere else in addition to Google Docs - zwick

Standing Committee Reports (Outlined in p. 3 of Standing Rules)

Reports to be reviewed at the Board Meeting can be found here: [1]

(15 min) Financial - Josh Williams

  • Review AHA Financial Status (shared in advance)
    • Josh shows the projected finances document. We are losing around $433/mo. currently. This does not include things like AMF Nano, BYB interns, other new members; so maybe we're not too bad off.
  • Update Board with June member status (shared in advance)
    • Memberships are slowly increasing!
    • Larry will look into concession pricing at GFS.

(15 min) Governance - Nate Yost

  • Review AHA Financial Status (shared in advance)
  • Facilities Status Update - Josh (reports to Governance Chair)
    • Back door finished.
    • HVAC leak needs to be addressed still.
    • Poo smell needs to be addressed still.
  • Status of Transitioned Activities from Josh (Accounts- Nate, Staff-Dana, Events-Larry)

(15 min) Fundraising - Larry

Summarize Fund-raising report (shared in advance)

    • Larry found out that we can in fact take 501c3 donations retroactive to the date we submitted the application.
    • Larry requests $50 to cover the costs of a 3'x5' banner for the A2 Skate Park event, other events. Board approves request.

(45 min) New Goals - Create the next 6 Months Goals - Board

How can we create a sustainable financial model to meet the vision of AHA of being Ann Arbor's Friendliest Hackerspace?

How can we grow the membership?

    • Family membership option? Up-sell to existing memberships ($50) for a nominal amount extra? People here seem to think $15 is a good compromise; but we need to get membership input!
    • We will definitely need to spell out policies for children (and what ages this encompasses). Set up a meeting time for this since it will take a lot of discussion to get right. Where is the cut-off age for autonomy? GSD topic!
    • How would we deal with the monthly volunteer hour requirements for these members? Do we offer any other incentives for full members to make this deal sweeter than just the starving hacker level?

How can we put the fun back into AHA?

How can we restart the educational revenue stream?

    • Investigate other venues to teach with established groups?
    • Use out-of-the-box curriculum to facilitate teachers teaching -- e.g. line following robots, Bright Futures (more or less out-of-the-box). Do we have things that are more unique to AHA? We would like to avoid duplicating Brain Monkeys, Gamestart, etc..
    • Demo nights for new tech? Informal, run by individuals who are passionate about the particular tech.
    • Probably not interested as much -- given current membership -- in long-term educational adventures, e.g. summer camp-style.

(15 min) Event Status - Larry

Review results of recent past events AHA participated in.

Review Upcoming events AHA is participating in.

  • Skate park! - We have a booth, and banner on the stage. We can sell newbie kits, Penguicon badges. Take donation box, Square reader. Other ideas include gift certificates for classes; buttons, t-shirts. BYB will be selling roach scopes/Spiker Boxes, EMG demo? Power will be provided, we should set up a 3D printer to print out something while the event is going. We should have our class list posted. Larry wants to buy a vinyl cutter, but even if we don't have that by the time of the event, we can offer the opportunity to make vinyl cutouts later.
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