LMN Meeting minutes 3/1916

Called to order 1:15pm

Present:

• Brian Adams
• Carl Raymond
• Mike Flaga
• Jody Applegate
• Rosangela Canino-Koning (interim Secretary)
• Member - Carl Lance

Discussion of secretary duties and who is going to do it.

• Should be someone on the board.
• Could be rotating.
• Job
  • Custodian of records
  • Meeting minutes
• Rose is going to do it for 6 weeks, then Mike will take it on.

Carl - addt to agenda - Dues structure

Treasurer’s report

• Carl has printed report. See link to electronic version – where should we keep
• Big chunk of cash in January
  • Annual memberships
• Amortized expenses outstrip income by about $200
• Insurance went up in the new space. ($268 in new space)
  • Due to correction of square footage. ($116 in old space)
• Brian wants a comparative report of how we were at the temple vs here.
• Average membership price is $53/month
• Discussion of how to normalize the pricing structure
  • General consensus is to leave it as is.
• Senior membership is very generous (%50/off)
• Any dues price changes would need to go to the membership for a vote
• Carl - Dues Structure
  • Dues are on a calendar month basis.
  • This could be robbing us of a week of membership dues.
  • Brian likes moving to a rolling structure rather than prorating.
    • Gives us more visibility on the membership levels
    • Doesn’t like prorates.
  • Signup people are waiving some of the prorating. :/
  • Brian proposes doing it day-of. Signed up on the 16th, membership starts on the 16th.
    • Grace period 5-7 days to renew
    • This would give a member more control of how they use their membership.
  • Jody suggest opt-in auto-renew.
  • Thinking about how to market to grow our membership before worrying too much about the $191 loss number
    • Let it be recorded that Mike does A TON of outreach
    • But this is different, not targeted demographics
    • 496 billboard
  • Jody - the 50/80 cost structure - think about 60 flat fee
    • Frame it as a utility increase?
      • Maybe rather have the members make the decisions.
    • Bring it up in the member meeting
  • People like to dicker/deal
    • Punch-card or some other option to feel like they’re making choices
  • Consensus: Bring it up with the members
  • Brian has been reading a book about non-profit governance
    • Takeaway, always ask more people their opinions.

• Temple club repairs quote
  • Jody has call out to Will
    • Waiting for quote
    • This is holding us up.
    • Jody will ask Al for help in getting Will's quote.
  • Potentially suggest to Al that we get a quote from Mike’s acquaintance.

Board proposal - Board voting on IRS extensions

• 990 has been filed. woohoo
• Carl mailed in the form to the IRS years ago, but GuideStar doesn’t have it.
  • This could be a problem
  • Carl will call and find out if we didn’t do the right thing, or if they didn’t get it.
    • Carl will wait until we receive the notice that we are behind.
• Historically, we’ve just been filing for extensions, rather than properly filling in the long form.
• No extensions are being submitted at this time.
• This is just so we have to vote on it if we were to file for an extension.
• Objections?
  • Jody Q - Are these time sensitive? Meeting once a month…
    • Email votes may not be valid in Michigan.
    • We should probably amend our bylaws to accept email votes.
    • We can just have emergency meetings.
    • Make sure we schedule every February a meeting about taxes
  • No Objections - Proposal passes.

Strengths and weaknesses of LMN

• We need to grow.
  • Rent increase $350 in 6-9 months
  • 4 new members for $191 deficit overcoming
  • 6 new members for rent increase
  • We need to get >40 this year.
• What do we need to do better so that we can grow, so we can support the larger numbers to support grow.
  • + We talk a lot about a lot of stuff
  • + We do checkout classes
    • Suggestion - Open it to the public - $10
  • - Organizing and scheduling checkout classes
  • + We have a lot of interest in soldering classes, etc.
    • Suggestion - schedule these things 6mo in advice.
      • Make a brochure with our class schedule
  • - Classes we aren’t making a lot of money…?
    • Suggestion - raise the price?
      • No, we already made the investment.
    • New classes have capital costs
    • Classes that are already built out don’t cost much to maintain.
    • Neet have to have business plan for new classes
      • Capital costs
      • How many seats
  • - Furnace is too loud
  • + Services - Maker Space
  • + Services - Classes
  • - We don’t have enough SOPs for everything.
    • We make it hard to learn the tools.
    • Some machines don’t need checkout class
    • We need to categorize this.
    • Suggestion: we could do bulk-tool checkout classes
    • Suggestion: we can book the classes ahead of time, and you have to RSVP/Register, or no-one will offer it.
    • Suggestion: online scheduling, or better scheduling of machines.
  • - We don’t have equipment scheduling
    • Suggestion: use google calendar? Scheduling software?
    • Suggestion and look at how other spaces use it.
      • You have a 5-10m grace period for no-shows.
  • + People feel like this is a community space
    • Don’t over-formalize or we could lose that feel.
  • - We’ve created a culture, but we’ve never said what our values actually are.
    • For example:
      • Respect
    • Suggestion: formalize our statement of values.
      • Bring it up with the Membership?
        • Ask them like we did for “What is a Maker?”
  • ++ We aren’t snobby! We are inclusive! We take a very broad view of what a maker is.
    • Artists
    • Writers
  • + A culture of willingness for helping/asking/teaching about how to do stuff.
  • - The cultural participation is hard for new people. Having to ask people for help requires a level of extroversion
    • Suggestion: Make classes for checkout!
  • + We have a space to hold classes
    • Offer more specialist classes - woodworking
  • + We are inclusive of people’s use of their space.
    • Casual non-community is ok.
  • + We are good at showing passion about how we give tours and things
  • - We aren’t good at conversion.
    • Suggestion: give lots of contact, lots of exposures
  • - We don’t give great presentation about the space
    • Disorganized
    • Suggestion: Clutter graveyard to neaten-up.
    • Suggestion: add “presentation of the environment” to our statement of values. Specifics of what our intention is. What level we want to hit.
      • Extremes: Adhoc, more freeform appearance (I3), and clean business (techshop)
      • We’d like something in between.
    • Suggestion: Scheduled space beautification day - projects!
      • Pizza!
      • 3rd Saturday of the month.
      • Decided by committee of area coordinators
  • - We aren’t well organized in terms of the hierarchy of authority.
    • Warden vs Working Groups
    • - We are bad at empowering people to do things.
      • We need constraints so people aren’t OVER EMPOWERED
      • How do we strike a balance?
        • Make a plan and distribute it, then request help for the action.
        • Brian as ED, gives the blessing.
      • Moving away from Do-ocracyo
    • - Brian has too much gatekeeper authority.
      • Defaulted to zone-wardens at Templeclub.
      • Maybe we should have this again.
        • Warden is a terrible word
          • Zone Coordinator
    • We need an org-chart
  • - We don’t have a newsletter
  • - We don’t have a budget
  • - We don’t have an inventory
  • - We don’t have a mission
    • We will discuss this next board meeting

Creating of Coordinator Positions (Marketing, Membership, Facilities)

• Marketing coordinator - Jody is taking the lead
  • Do or cause to be done
• Facilities coordinator - Rose is not it. :P
• Membership coordinator
  • On-boarding
  • Shannon may be taking it on, but in the mean-time Brian will be doing it.
• Fleshed out descriptions of the roles will be shared with the board in the coming weeks. Org-chart! Yay!

Live Sign Suggestion

• TV with a cycling list of info, that could pull from the wiki
• Combine with kiosk, so if you wanted to pop out and access the wiki, you can do it from there.
  • Carl Lance picked up a Pi 3 and would be willing to loan it for a kiosk.

East Lansing Classes

• Mike needs to have a class to schedule/syllabus for EL Robotics
  • 50% EL people
  • 50% open to the community.
• 6 months ahead of time
• 3 weeks long class?
  • Schedule it differently? 3 Days?
• Brian and Mike + whoever else is interested, will meet.

LMN going to Penguicon - April 29-May 1

• Artemis - own hotel room
  • Needs to get back to running by April 29.
• Megas
• We need list of volunteers
  • 4-6?
  • Opening up to membership for some of the free-spots.
• They are super organized. How do you do it? What’s your method.
• Makerspace summit panel? Constitutional convention?
  • YES
  • Ask i3 and some of the others.
• Info about LMN for their program

Jackson - August 19 - Artemis

• Setup is 9-noon
• Program is getting printed, make sure they don’t say STARTREK

Meeting Adjuourned 3:42pm