Regular Member Meeting 2011 04 12

Note: This page serves as the 2011-04-12 Member Meeting's agenda (before the meeting) and minutes (after the meeting).

Time and Location

April 12, 2011

Meeting called to order at _7:45_ by Elliot_.

Members Present: Elliot, Jamie, TC, William, Tommy, Martin, Ruben, Toast, Chris, Brad, Ben the Pyrate, Phil, Timball, John

Others Present: Shahar, Elizabeth

Quorum met? Yes

Approval of Previous Meeting's Minutes

Regular Member Meeting 2011 03 08

Director Reports

President's Report

Absent.

Vice President's Report

Spaceblimp4, GGHC, Open House, AVR Class, The Elements of Computing Systems, Bike Shop, Red Bull

Money.

Last month: Put up the 4th Spaceblimp

• Included a video camera this time *shows video that makes people dizzy*

Great Global Hackerspace Challenge:

• Need more people
• Doing a clicker-thing with a knob

Will had an Open House (on Spaceblimp day)

Elliot finished his AVR class

Ben is running TECS class

Toast ran a great Bike Maintenance class

Red Bull Challenge was lots of fun

We've been double-booked and that's good!

Money is a real serious long discussion.

Treasurer's Report

Membership:

  41 members payed via PalPal

Income:

  Paypal 41 members: $1977.75
  Paypal 2 Friends:         $25.36
  Paypal Donation:           $9.41                         
 ===========================
  Total         $2012.52

One time $900 donation earmarked for a specific project and therefore not counted as income.

Note: $250 in one-time donations collected in March have been deposited and will post to the April accounting cycle



Expenses:

DATE   Description            AMOUNT($)
03/17  Rent / Check #1006     2,526.00
03/02  LINODE.COM hosting        37.45
03/16  State Farm                68.58
03/29  Quickbooks                10.55
========================================
                              $2642.58


Surplus / Loss:
 
  Loss of $630 for March

Financial status:

  As of April 8th (end of rent cycle), HacDC had approximately $3800 in cash reserves.

  Given our current burn rate, we have 1-2 months before we do not have cash reserves required to move to a cheaper lease assuming $500 monthly deficit:
       -- Cash on-hand required to move: expenses of $3000 [1 month overlap of rent: $2000, moving expenses: $500, exiting monthly loss: $500)

We have 41 paying members. Had a few one-time donations including $900 for GGHC.

Secretary's Report

TECS, Byzantium

Director-at-Large Reports

Will G

Open House

Held an Open House for the robotics club at GW. Open to the general public. Four students and three others showed up. Showed off the Makerbot (3D printing). Discussion of what Hackerspaces are.

First place: home Second place: work Third place: community place/creative space

Notes on wall.

Important for community and social communication. We server an important need for a lot of people.

Brad B

Yuri's Night GGHC

Yuri's Night: It's the 50th Anniversary of human space flight. Party!!!

GGHC: Making classroom clickers. Making webapps to interface with clickers. Need help with hardware, software, and documentation.

Yo-Yoing is great! People are addicted now.

Martin

Robotfest is at the end of the month. Lots of people are going to go and show off for HacDC.

Toast

He finished up Bike class last week. Going to make the wiki better and re-offer the class again.

Chris

Put soundmodem on two of the OLPCs and put instructions on the Wiki for it.

• ... quibbling about what constitutes "space"...*

Phil

Has been doing cool stuff, but nothing to show off yet.

Tommy

Spent last four months playing with lasers. Started recording on ZapIt paper. Upcoming Physic Cookout. (Three cookouts since last injury.) Open to members and friends of members. No observers, only participants.

New Business

• Possible Benefit at Haydee's
  • Dates: April 26th, 27th, or 28th (Tues, Wed, Thurs)
  • 25%-30% of sales depending on how many people we bring
  • Located on Mt. Pleasant St., (close to Metro, local business, etc.)
  • Delicious (and reasonably priced) food and beer!
  • http://haydees.us/

Tues, Wed, Thrus April 26, 27, 28

We need to pick a date and get the word out! If we show up in large number (make a good impression), we can do it again. Possibly combine this with Lightning Talks. Possibly bring in our own music/DJ.

Nice family restaurant, serves alcohol.

Vote on date: Thrusday, April 28 Wins by overwhelming majority.

New Members

Shahar - First time here. Systems Administrator. Sick of computers. Builds destructive things (flamethrowers, thermite, biodisel). Nominated: Ben the P. Second: Brad Vote carries.

Elizabeth - Multimedia Developer. Background in fine arts. Studied sound and interactive stuff. Wants to meet people and work on collaborative projects. Nominated: Brad Second: Toast Vote carries.

Space Discussion

What are we going to do?

We are in a financial bind.

Talk down the church

We do a lot of services for them. Negotiate a lower rent. Elliot will talk to Brian soon.

Beg the members for more money

Everyone on the board has doubled-down. Asking members to donate more money. Signup as a member twice or donate via Friends of HacDC. Our rent is expensive, we need to keep the lights on. We are the cheapest non-free Hackerspace in the country. We survive entirely on donations. Does your work offer matching donations? We are 501c3 officially now. Our deficit is about $15/person per month. Personal outreach to members and past members. Keep the space open from 5-10 every night so that non-members can come visit.

Moving/New Space

Need to find a new cheaper space. Moving is expensive. Deadline is approaching. If you're interested in helping, send findings to Toast.

Phyllis & Fab Lab

Won't get their space cleaned out in time to be useful for us. 1000 sqft., not much bigger than we have now. They might want to share it with us. Doesn't have a permit, can't be rented yet. Needs to be inspected first. Has a ton of cool tools already. Wants to make a not-for-profit (but fairly expensive) Fab Lab for DC. Stays on the radar, but not in our immediate future.

Mothball the space

Move everything into storage until we can find a new space.

Peter out and die

Nobody wants to do this.

Adjournment

Adjourned at _9:02_