O/D Meeting 10/15/2019

Meeting minutes October 15, 2019 Present: Charles, Danielle, Andy, Jim, Virgil, Tiffany (as Amy), Joe, Jose and Paul Jr

Time started – 9:04 pm

Membership is 88, increased by one, had one drop and two join Passing out papers, until 9:07

Jim begins with profit and loss – we made money, again. Loss – FAP’d for 2k, only spent 1k HUGE bargain with all the people who did the work and Ned spearheading and touching base with the electrician and asking questions and taking care of all the business of the electrical upgrades.

Were back up, 1480 profit this month because we couldn’t spend any money because of the fap.

Have some money in the bank, have 3 3k CDs so we’ll make about $167 per year in interest. Jim will et with Kevin on tax implications of that income. If we were making 10k in investment income, that would be a problem, but less than 200 wont

Accrues in the emergency fund.

Checking reflects ALL money, sequestered dollars, grant, makership, not just our spending money.

Income and expenses, we have money in. the Republic and Paypal are dues. Republic reflects – amazon is broken out, didn’t get any this month.

Lvl1 is set up with smile, we do get smile when we buy from amazon.

Have two cash memberhsips this month, paypal is membership. Spent recurring money in Sept with no amazon purchases and no reimbursements.

Recurring expenses, utilities in Nov is 447, because no shop, so way low bill. Really good 😊 Will have one more month where we’re still under – could be 1500 in the hole for the year, depending how good we do. Utils budget line was inadequate.

Insurance will remain the same. We came in under budget by 300.

Rent stays the same thanks to amazing persuasive powers of Raj.

Pike 13 for processing paypal and stuff, we get 48.60 insterad of 50. Same thing with CC CC processing varies depending on how much processing happens. Sometimes cc processing is not reflected in the correct month, so some flip-flopping of dollars happens, though the actual stuff happens in the correct month. Discussion about how effective MeetUp really is. We should get Neds input cuz of tours. Ned mentioned at the roundtable at maker faire that reddit is more common than meetup. Reddit has pages and pages of writeups on hackerspaces.

We’re paying a fee for Meetup but the only real event we have listed is the Tuesday meeting. Charles mentioned hearing about fee structure of meetup is changing. Seems to remember that people will be charged for signing up for an event, even if the event is free.

Vcarve – there is a $99 license. We have 5 seats to be used in the space on spaces equipment and computers, NOT for personal. If you need a copy, you get the trial version. Brian Wagner got this for us and he built a relationship with vcarve for lvl1. We went through something similar with the rabbit laser. Andy saw someone trying to get vcarve to do something different than our makerspace agreement with vcarve.

Cody joined the meeting.

Back to the billing, Vcarve will get added to the printout. Jim asks again if there are any other subscriptions that are not on the budget. Make Mag went down, but I think they’ll rename and come back. Currently no magazine subscriptions.

If you’re going to do something, let a board member know what you’re going to do so that it can be dealt with in an official capacity and the treasurer is aware of it.

Expenditures need to be approved by board or treasury, so we’ll tell people no if they want to buy something dn be reimbursed for it.

Raj entered the meeting.

Jim has been told he’s putting too much information on the P&L, etc, but he doesn’t believe so.

Proposed budget, we’ll do that at the end, so everyone is half asleep.

Workshops and events

Cody left

Brian talked to Jim about sumobot workshop. We had pizza a couple times, which were donated by Jose (round of applause).

Raj asked about the fap for the bunker, where we spent half the fab, and discussed that the electrician’s bill went to the landlord and we’re not sure if or when well have to reimburse them for that bill. Could the electrician bill be over 1k? Perhaps, but it would be surprising, considering how much work the electrician actually had to do.

The FAP expires TBD and once that happens, the rest of the money for the fap will – two months, October 30th, the rest of the fap money will return to the account. If the bill comes in November, we’d still have to pay the bill. Well deal with that if and when it comes up.

We could add the electrician as a budget line so that if the bill comes in, we’ll have that allocated for.

Should have high-900s to go back into the lvl1 general fund.

Workshops and events. November hackathon, 15th 16th The Hat is doing that.

Cody is back and Michael Hammons joined.

Same weekend as Resin Fest.

Thanksgiving dinner, Paul is organizing via donations. Off book. Half potluck style.

December, another white elephant hackathon, which will be same time as holiday party, assuming we have one.

Andy will do the holiday party. We do not have a date for the holiday party.

Saturday the 14th or Saturday the 21st. Holiday partaaayyyy is on the 21st and white elephant hackathon will begin on Friday at 8 with movie night. Or perhaps it should begin on Saturday morning. 12-hour hackathon or 24 hours? Undetermined until later time.

Space and equipment Purge November 6. Tags will go out next week. Main part of purge is back area. Let’s get rid of stuff that’s been hacked through. If people want to keep stuff, they’re welcome to put it in their cars and take it home. We’ll keep useable stuff, but purge through useless crap. Metal area, wood area will be well attacked. We’ll get people and pizza and purge for 3 or 6 hours. Boneyard will be focus. Not member shelves.

Leave ecycle alone until next week. We’ll discuss it next week.

Membership survey, nothing new on that.

Window covering, came up last month. Jim talked to a Tazman brother about windows during the electrician meeting. Asked about furnaces since they’re heat pumps. There are two open thingies if we ever want to run gas heat, which would be waaaay cheaper than current electric.

Also, windows are an ongoing issue, so we have idea about blocking off window, which Tazman said would be fine as long as they look good from the outside. Jim bought curtain material so we could make some black curtains visible from outside, then insulate the windows from the inside. Jim has sheets of pink insulation board that we could friction fit into the windows so we don’t make holes in the concrete. We could install them such that they’re removable for summer. But perhaps it might be better to keep them insulated year-round. Jim and Tiffany and Ned will work on this project together. We’ll frame it, like 2x4s friction fit into the window openings. Silicone sealant could be used, as it’s removable.

Insulating the ceiling might be a next order of business so we can quit heating the tenants above us.

Fire code is discussed relative to insulating the windows.

Cody left the meeting.

Still to do section of the agenda. Grants. We were informed that the grant we received was a clerical error and we are to return the check to the issuer. Perhaps we should apply for a grant to them, lol, how can we get this 5k back legitimately?

Cars blocking the entrance. Lines need to be repainted so people stop blocking our entrance. I want to paint our logo in the lines. When the construction is done, city will repave this road.

2020 budget, another meeting that needs to start happening.

Michael Hammons left the room

Passed out a new sheet, Jim’s budget sheet. Left side is Jim’s suggestions for the new budget. Jim went through a lot of records and didn’t really know how to categorize some things. Ubiquitous, who gets charged for stuff, etc.?

First column is proposed 2020 budget, second column is number of memberships, third column is 2019 budget and fourth column is 2019 actual.

Confusing budget discussion ensued. Allocations are sketchy because of knowing what was allocated where and what categories are. Required recurring expenses are waaaay higher than budgeted.

The two iPad up front are shot. We need another iPad, Andy donated an iPad. How do we budget for purchasing the second one? As a one-time purchase, it’s a fap.

Discussing adding a budget line item for things that need replaced, like projectors and iPad, things that the space uses during the course of operation. Let’s add them to facilities repair and bump that line up to 2k. Andy will price it and Jim and he will discuss it. A failed fap for either of those items would be horrible.

Back to the budget discussion, Jim wants to add to the jewelry line item for resin. Bunker should be combined for both shops. So, discussion needs to be had about adding line items.

If we pass the budget that spends money for a number of members, say 73, when we drop below that then the budget is void and we do faps for everything. The number of memberships on the budget is a hard number. There are people who consider the budget a failed experiment, and that we should not have a budget. Has to be presented to the membership by nov 30. Need to schedule a first meeting for the budget. Jim taking time off in Nov for surgery so we should have budget meetings before that. First budget discussion meeting will be this Friday the 18th after Raj arrives around 9ish. Hour or hour and half tie limit. Need to discuss structure, pots of money, overlap like drill bits, and all the things that get mixed around, think about what section is paying for stuff, need to reorganize fees & expenses, need ideas for realistic stuff, how much for things, how to build in blind-side expenses.

Coming up with elections, this is the only time we pass bylaw changes. Need to thing about bylaw changes. Two things that happened this year that we’ve mentioned and then got forgotten. One was when Tim passed away, our bylaws don’t’ state what happens, need a bylaw that addresses what happens when a board member cannot perform their duties. WE have a bylaw for resignation, but not for death or emergency. Raj reads the Officer Oversight bylaw. Well come up with some wording and vote on it at elections. Second thing circles back to the budget, budget is there because of problems we had before we had a budget. May consider adding a mechanism other than membership vote by which we can determine that a budget is no longer working. Perhaps we can clarify some spending issues in the bylaws. Budget is a subject that needs to be discussed, and Jan election is the only opportunity we have to make a change to this. IT makes the treasurer’s job harder; have to earmark a lot of funds and takes a lot more time, etc. Two, budget encourages spending money. It’s a pending plan, not a budget. Andy thinks we should change the voting bylaw. It’ creates ten hours of work for counting votes to make sure a fap is passable.

The budget was a way to flush money out of the bank and a way to get around faps. A budget eases urges on faps, but it also is a spending plan. It’s a disincentive to save. Might be a solution to amend bylaws to change what the budget is and does. Maybe there is middle ground or an additional law we can put in, twixt a budget and not a budget.

As to bylaw changes, Jim mentioned having help from Kevin has been helpful, as to membership and taking care of issues toward badges and other things associated with maintain membership. Surprisingly, it’s not covered in bylaws. Danielle things this should be the VP’s job. Everyone supports that. Membership should be counted once a month, and not counted before every fap or vote, etc. Would have to make a change of bylaws that says “membership count is done at X” and not every time we do a vote or a fap. Way more points are discussed. Too long of discussion, tabling it to discuss at a later time.

Moving on to Round table Jose – dust collection system, does it ever get used? Not completely set up yet is part of the problem. Also, people are not using the mobile shop vac to clean up after themselves. The silver shop vac cannot be located. We’ll look for it after the meeting.

Wood shop door needs to be discussed. No window so it can be opened into someone. Paul Jr, it’s not meant to be used as a door. It’s only a swinging sound prevention device. The door can catch on fire. Mounting in the opposite direction, there’s metal frame on the inside of the door. Paul doesn’t think it’s a permanent fixture. HUGE discussion ensues, relative to safety, no window, fire safety. Its main purposes will be planer and CNC machine. Could we put a note on the door that it’s for the planer and CNC only? Could it be made sliding? Problem with that was size and it would be more of a hassle. The vinyl rack is hanging on the wall. Can’t be on the inside because of the conduit that now runs trough the sliding rack. A sliding door would be too small and wouldn’t deaden sound as much. If we properly mark it, label it and do the floor marking to make it safer to use, then it’s a good thing. That door was born from code night and shop use happening at the same time, and coders were practically yelling at each other to share information over the volume of the wood shop tools. It’s a good temporary solution.

Any other issues? Nope, we’re done. Meeting adjourned at 10:47 pm