Regular Member Meeting 2023 02 14

Time and Location

Date

Called to order at 19:39 pm by Michelle

Members present: Kevin, Gabe, Max, Chris, Calli, Ken, Obi, Michelle

Members remote:

Others present:

Quorum

Quorum met? Yes

Recognition

• Gabe, Ulisses for organizing the basement clean out (and Ray for hauling off the stuff Benning Road wouldn't take).
• Michelle for sticking with the presidency even after moving, getting a new job, etc., etc.

New Members

• No new members

Old Business

• Basement clean-out
  • Lessons learned: When Benning Road says "Electronics and toxic materials" that's the only thing they take.
  • Matt Pfeiffer has a new 3D floor plan of the basement with the OTR rotated
• This is Michelle's last meeting as president
• Reaching a wider audience.
  • Join Nation of Makers for the resources (networks, safety guidelines, etc.) We think we have enough money for membership
• Chris Knight and Daniel Aaron interested in cyber-security. Chris installed GNS-3 network emulator GUI on the server. Drag'n'drop servers, etc, to create the network topology. Eventually, a competition.
• Michelle proposing the creation of an automated Meeting Minutes template
  • A "Looking forward" section for future events (or for removing events)
• Possible one-off courses.
  • Calli offering to run a small series on web scraping/indexing, or perhaps user experience design.
  • Tristan talking about Capture the Flag and/or FreeCAD class.
  • Combine Web Scraping and Machine Learning classes
• Use Discord more. Still.
  • 125 people at the moment are "subscribed" to the Discord server.
• Events
  • Last Open Project Night was seven people
  • Visitor's Night is more variable
  • For every event, one person has to be officially responsible.
• Kevin proposes a restaurant or movie night quarterly?
  • Michelle recommends "General Magic" documentary

New Business

• Phone system? See last month's minutes
  • Set up an Asterisk server?
  • Access: Until the phone works, take the phone number notice off the space.
  • Go back to a hardwired landline
• Web changes
  • Remove message about access to "the server" from the web page as well
  • Onboarding for new members? (How to get a key, how to get a wiki account, etc.)
  • Michelle: We should give members who are not board members more control
  • Max and Calli would to help with web / wiki editing
  • Michelle: Be careful about "SEO credits" and changing wiki page names.
  • Add an "editors onboarding / best practices" page.
• GitHub
  • Admin access now available
• Codeberg too
• Rockville Science Day
  • Michelle didn't feel it was worth the effort as a tabler, but a good place to visit as a member of the public.
  • The relationship with Ulisses is the only win to come out of that.
• New board:
  • Vice-president is "president-in-waiting" / apprentice president training to take over from the outgoing president. (Basically a two-year minimum commitment. One as vice, one as president.)
  • President liaisons with church and treasurer. Not a lot of power but it's a good role for guidance person / project manager.
  • Obi interested / willing to become president.
  • Gabe putting in for vice president
  • Tristan possibly running for treasurer
    • Set "auto-pay" notices to be sent to the entire BOD
  • Keep one at-large position for a ham radio person. Probably John or Brian.
  • Michelle will reach out to Phil for the other at-large (or other BOD position).
  • Duties of the Secretary
  • Bylaws, standing laws, proposed standing laws, etc. Instead, we generally operate by consensus.

Adjournment

Adjourned by at Michelle by 21:12