Regular Member Meeting 2016 04 12

Time and Location

Date April 12th, 2016

Called to order at 8:10 pm by tom

Members present: Tom Enrique Julia Xavier Don Bobby

Members remote: mchelen, ubuntourist

Others present: Susan

Quorum

Quorum met? yes

Approval of Previous Meeting's Minutes

Approved

Director Reports

Treasurer's Report

• Income exceeded expenses by about $400, but discretionary project spending put us $350 in the red for March overall.
• Expansion funded a cellular modem to enable remote reset of our IT infrastructure.
• OTR purchased some parts like microcontrollers and extruders.
• OTR also purchased a cheap laser cutter (everything except the laser tube is now Julia's, she paid HacDC the $100 difference).
• Rent increased from 977 to 993 per month starting February.
• Most of our cash is now earmarked for projects ($6400), so we'll build up reserves($4400) again before doing another PA dividend.
• We received a letter from CFC identifying $150 of donations so far (not including the DC region), but expect the cash in April. We weren't able to take advantage of some CFC promotional opportunities last year and I hope this year will be better.
• I set up a Square Reader account so we can now take credit card payments. (thanks for the reader, Bobby!)
• The board approved a Memorandum of Understanding with HSTS to have IT training classes at HacDC during regular business hours for the next four months. We can go over the details.
• On a broader note, although we're OK financially now thanks to the cheaper rent, HacDC's membership is still about half what it was several years ago. We are over-reliant on Julia. Please help out with classes and workshops, teach what you know, or just put together meetings on topics that interest you. The schedule is pretty open. More events, more donations and more members would generally be good.

Secretary's Report

Hi, I'm back from India. I announced the outgoing pile two weeks ago and it's there for perusal tonight if anyone wants to have a look at it before we send it off.

There are some outstanding issues about our standing rules that need to be addressed; I don't see a recorded vote on Article V (Materiel); and there have been a couple of votes to redefine quorum in the standing rules, but quorum is defined in the bylaws. Article IV (regarding meetings) is also lacking recorded votes for several sections. We can vote on approval of the rules as written unless people want time to read them and come with any suggestions.

Nobody wrote me any comments on my changes to the document, so I'm not sure if everybody thought it was fine or if nobody read it or some read it and had no issues, while others did not read it.

Looking over the Wiki it often appears out of date; I'd like to bring it up to date and others are welcome to put their effort into doing that as well, especially if they're familiar with the out of date projects and can provide some historical context for the wiki.

That's all I've had the time to address this month.

Director-at-Large Reports

Matt - aka. mirage335

For the year, we have had no major incidents on account of HacDC or its members. Things are generally running smoothly. Work is getting done. Equipment is going back online. This year is actually off to a great start. Amazing!

Regarding USASEF, looks like we will have one to three people from Makersmiths participating with us. Between both spaces, there could be as many as six participants, maybe more. Propoganda needs to be prearranged.

TazMega and/or TazStiff are likely to make an appearance at USASEF. These extremely capable machines are forerunners to HacDC's next-generation CNC machines.

Have funds to personally buy and donate one array of four 6TB WD Green WD60EZRX disks. WD Green disks have unusually high wear/lifecycle ratings when 'intellipark' frequency is reduced. Each such array can provide >10TB RAID6 storage and >1TB SSD-like RAID0 storage, upgradeable to include >20TB RAID6. Planning to use this to provide exceptionally robust on-site Shell/VPS/NAS services, available at least to members as well as for purposes relevant to the space (eg. backup). A thorough explanation as to why this deployment is needed and appropriate would be rather long to include here. Please consult with senior members of the admin team for technical details, justifications, and commentary.

Project Awesome Reports

Project SUPPLIES

Bought a cellular modem shield for a RasPi, this should provide backup telecommand/reboot of core IT infrastructure.

Project EXPANSION

Also, Ethan is evaluating Julia Longtin's proposed computer platform for HacDC use.

Project HAMRADIO

For the Ham Radio club, we have started our YouTube video series on amateur radio topics. We are planning our participation in the DC MS walk this month. We have guest speakers at our club meeting. Our repeater is up and functional as well, and our remote access to our radio station is working out well.

Project Optical Table Robot (OTR)

Bought microcontrollers, bought a horrible cheap laser cutter but we have it.

New Members

Susan Meckley's voting membership was approved.

Adjournment

Adjourned by Tom at 0925