Regular Member Meeting 2011 03 08

Note: This page serves as the 2011-03-08 Member Meeting's agenda (before the meeting) and minutes (after the meeting).

Time and Location

March 8, 2011

Meeting called to order at 7:45 by Redbeard.

Members Present: Will G Brian Redbeard Katie B Brad Barr Elliot W Bjorn W TC Ben S Martin R Jamie Xaq Phil S Toast

Others Present: Puja Waldo Dennis Martin

Quorum met?

Yes.

Approval of Previous Meeting's Minutes

Regular Member Meeting 2011 02 08

Read and approved.

Director Reports

President's Report

Annual meeting couple weeks ago, board elections. The new board has been working. Submitted response to inter-hackerspace challenge put out by Mitch -- challenge is to build educational equip. Since the 501c3, written a bunch of letters to donors. Got $200 from John Howard. Set up computers for Linux labs.

Vice President's Report

Lots of awesome going on. Very happy. There's been projects going on nearly every night and day, with some nights overbooked. AVR class, 3D bots, and Space Blimp were all going on last night. Other classes every other night. Yay!

Treasurer's Report

Todd, in his absence, put up the treasurer's report. Thanks Todd.

We're still losing money, but not too quickly. Everyone should look for opportunities to get funding / matching / etc from their employers given we now have 501c3. We have plans for capitalizing on the webpage. For advertising, blog blog blog.

Board met last week to discuss plans to get more income.

BBT at End of February: $5,183.83

Paypal at End of February: $665.86

Liquid Assets: $5849.69 (6699.69 with security deposit of 850.00)

Previous Month: $6,459.35

Total: -$609.66

Expenses:

02/28/2011 Debit INTUIT *QB ONLINE 02-26 800-286-6800 CA 1703 BB&T CHECK CARD RECURRING PYMT $10.55

02/23/2011 Check 1027 CHECK #1027 View $2,526.00

02/16/2011 Debit SFPP STATE FARM RO 27 XXXXXXXXXXX4321 ACH DEBIT $68.58

02/02/2011 POS LINODE.COM 02-02 609-593-7103 NJ 1703 BB&T CHECK CARD PURCHASE $37.45

Secretary's Report

Absent.

Director-at-Large Reports

Will G

Mark Adams started his science blogging again on the site. Xaq has ponied up for blogging stuff within the space. Talking to Think Geek for offering a banner ad, and redesigning the page. GW's electronics donation came through -- we have 8 new oscilloscopes, frequency counters, function generators, etc.

Brad B

Talking with Meetup about the 501c3 and getting free. Sent out the Board's to-do list. Got everyone yo-yoing.

Member Reports

• Xaq: Starting up blogging in space. Maybe a "meet the hacker" column. Been on a reprap quest to make a Prusa Mendel -- have printed parts but none of the mechanics, going to donate them and his time to put it together. If people are interested in funding the project or working on the machine, stay tuned to Blabber. Also going to start a Quantified Self project: tracking health stats and etc, and talking about it.

• Toast: Started up bike class, many people showed up. Went well, got good feedback. Putting together a wiki for documentation. After this one finishes, maybe will offer it to the community after it's built.

• Ben: Wants to see the Kit Build thing work. Offers to run the administrative side. At NIH, twice a month, they have a tech speakers talk. If anyone's interested, contact him and you'll get a tour of the Genome Research site. Any tech topic is welcome.

• Martin: Still planning on April 2 for Spaceblimp launch. We're listed on the www.ahab.org (high-alt amateurs) website. Current flight predictions put us in the Atlantic due to the gulf stream, so we may have to delay or change launch location. The goals of the next launch are basically to do the same package as last time, but have it all work this time! Also coerced Alberto for getting started on a video for a shop-buildout Kickstarter.

• Bjorn: Talking about running a Processing and Supercollider workshop, graphics and synthesis. Look forward to that in the next month or so. Goal is making art, but the classes may be more general. Not sure if he should do "intro to programming" for art people or "intro to art" for programming people.

New Business

• Martin from Freeshell wanted to know if the local group could have meetings here.

• Puja got interested with Creative Commons in Berlin, works for Opower, energy-efficiency startup in Courthouse in VA. Wants to reach out to the DC tech community, wants to know if there's anything we could do for collaboration. (Hiring Java or Ruby coder.)

• We have 501c3, we can now run raffles as fundraising. Redbeard is thinking of having a party for the raffle. Might be time for an open house.

New Members

• Lawrence nominated in his absence.

Adjournment

Adjourned at 8:39