Regular Member Meeting 2011 09 13

Note: This page serves as the 2011-09-13 Member Meeting's agenda (before the meeting) and minutes (after the meeting).

Time and Location

September 13, 2011

Meeting called to order at __07:40__ by: Red Beard

Members Present: Red Beard, Alberto, Elliot, Jamie, Ben the Pyrate, Tim S, Phil, David, Chris, John, Martin, Xaq, Toast, Brad

Others Present: Danny, Steve, Sean, Richard, Adam, Bill

Quorum met? Yes

Approval of Previous Meeting's Minutes

Regular Member Meeting 2011 07 12 Approved Regular Member Meeting 2011 08 09 Approved

Director Reports

President's Report

Traveled 30,000 miles. Hounding AgentSilverfox over GGHC. Hounding Element14 about GGHC. Got us an Eagle license, but only a single-user license. (Eagle is a CAD software for circuit boards.) Handed out about 250 HacDC pamphlets

Vice President's Report

Moving to Germany (Munich) next week. :,( Resigning. :,( :,(

We have the equipment for the intercom install. Does anyone want to take over project? (Talk to Elliot after the meeting.) Church is giving us $2000 for doing the installation. Need to run wires for intercom and new door lock.

Elliot will become an Honorary (non-voting) member until he returns to the area.

Treasurer's Report (Tim Slagle)

Here is the Aug 2011 financial summary: File:HacDC Financials Aug 2011.pdf

We were about $100 behind in August despite adding some members - now at 46 paying members. We gained two (soon to be) members (Sean Rutledge and Bill Babson), lost one member (Micheal Epstein) and had one non-paying member who will be dropped next month.

I cancelled our QuickBooks Online subscription after dumping all the data to printouts. The spreadsheets I am maintaining should cover what we need for tax reporting.

We paid a $20 chargeback fee because a (now former) member decided to get his July 2011 dues payment back from the credit card company instead of contacting us and asking for a refund or replying to the emails I sent. If you need to cancel your membership or have any questions about your payments, please contact me ([email protected]) or any of the officers and let us know. Please don't contest the charges or file a dispute with PayPal without talking to us first!

Secretary's Report

Thoftware Thursdays are fun!

Director-at-Large Reports

Toast

Had another Zine event at the space. People had fun.

Brad B

Trying to do outreach. 1. Emerge Art Fair will have a piece next week with HacDC. 2. Talking to people at NIST about connecting the space with DC public schools. 3. Talking to a woman from the DC public libraries about doing an LED light show for kids. 4. Trying to keep the space open more with regular events like {S,Th}oftware Thursdays.

Member Reports

Tim Slagle

I (re)applied to Google Grants and we were accepted this time! We now have an AdWords account with a $329 daily advertising budget. I created a sample ad but we could do a lot more with this - specific ads targeting projects and classes. Does somebody want to manage this? If you have something you want to promote, think of the ad text and keywords and we can set up a Google ad for it.

We can also get other Google benefits including a YouTube channel and a Google Apps account. Applications are in progress and input is welcome, but we are looking at giving HacDC Apps accounts as a member benefit and moving mailing lists over to Google Groups (so individual members could set up their own mailing lists).

Also, Google Checkout is fee-free for us through 2011, is it worth trying to switch over from PayPal to save $100/mo in fees? They may extend the free period as they have in the past. We could set up regular subscriptions with some XML voodoo that would take me some time to sort out.

I made a YouTube channel for us: HacDCvideos ("HacDC" was already taken.) Right now there are just playlists of the videos other people have posted, but we could eventually have recordings of projects, classes, and events.

Xaq

RepRap is slowly accumulating functionality. Needs more electronics and firmware. Got in touch with Artemis (non-member who has an internet stalker problem), he'll be coming in on Monday. If you can help out please come by.

Alberto

Conference in New Castle about connected communities. Giving props to Byzantium. Somebody with a car please help collect the CNC mill from the Smithsonian. (Martin and John volunteer.)

Phil

National Digital Library wants volunteers for a Hackerspace-like-thing tie in for their activities in DC.

Brad

Biologist from UM is willing to do a hacker introduction to bio stuff.

New Business

Authorize up to $250 to take care of the extension cord using Brian's electrician. Approved

New Members

Sean Rutledge

Background in Mechanical Engineering. Got into this stuff through Burning Man. Does fire performances.

Nominate: Martin Second: Elliot Vote passed

Bill Babson

HAM. Background in network routing protocols and Unix. Likes taking stuff apart and making new stuff.

Nominate: Alberto Second: Ben the Pyrate Vote passed

Adam Green

Software Engineer (C#, VB, Java). Has a mill and needs a place to put it.

Nominate: Brad Second: Toast Vote passed

Steve Beuttel

Background in Electronics. Likes metalworking and woodworking. Excited about space blimp.

Nominate: Second: Martin Vote passed

Richard Bullington-McGuire

Software architect, tinkerer, beginning hardware hacker. Founder of Obscure.org a 501c3. Taught classes in Scratch.

Nominate: Alberto Second: Red Beard Vote passed

Danny

Robotics! Signed up to mentor US First team. Software engineer.

Nominate: Brad Second: Elliot Vote passed

Adjournment

Adjourned at: 8:35