Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

Link to this comparison view

meetings:201603_minutes [2016/03/20 20:18]
wreality Removed some ZOMG and OMGs and other small changes
meetings:201603_minutes [2017/04/05 00:38]
Line 1: Line 1:
-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 will take 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