Regular Member Meeting 2023 03 14

Time and Location

Date

Called to order at Michelle pm by 7:36

Members present: Phil, Obi, Don, Matt, Kevin, John, Michelle, Gabe, Matthew M., Jared, Brian, Ken

Members remote:

Others present:

Quorum

Quorum met? Y

Recognition

• Gabe and Daniel for researching alternative Internet hosting
• Karen for past donations

New Members

• Jared and Matthew M.
• Jared's got a background in mechanical engineering. Along with Matthew M. wants to investigate the CNC mill. (Mach 3 is apparenty the standard software controller for CNC mills.) Lives close.
• Matthew M. is a Nix OS Linux fan (and the Nix package manager in general), hosting sesssions on its use at the space. Also does home automation, etc. Lives close.

Old Business

• The phone: Again a vote for an old-school hardwired landline.
  • Brian suggests connecting to smart phones to create a phone tree
  • Don says we used to have a phone for $10.00 / year with a dial tone, but no one paid the bill and it appears to have gone away
  • Gabe says people use Discord to request entry, if they know about it.
  • Don will reach out this week to Jamie who will probably know about the phone.
  • Michelle likes Discord for a bit of security over a buzzer: It's more likely people won't be strangers. But alternatives / backups worth consideration.

• Web changes:
  • Remove "get a server account"
  • Onboarding documents for new members.
  • Michelle is hoping to find time to work on this during the coming week.

• Electronic lock
  • Preventative mainenance
  • 1.5v AA batteries replaceable with a screwdriver.

• Git repositories
  • Admin access to GitHub now available.
  • Codeberg getting a fair amount of use as well.
  • (There's also an ancient, completely abandoned and mostly empty GitLab account.)

• Rockville Science Day
  • Make it a field trip instead of a tabling event.
  • Sunday, April 23, 12:00 - 5:00
  • Announcements will be sent to various destinations seeing if we want to make a coordinated group trek to the event.

New Business

• Board elections
  • Bylaws: Board of Directors
  • Michelle stepping down but will support incoming board members
  • Matt S. is hitting the term limits
  • Vice-president is a two-year position (at least): In training for president
  • President: Obi
  • Vice-president: Gabe
  • Treasurer: ??? (Tristan put his name in the hat but may not be able to do it.)
    • Matt will assist incoming treasurer, and says it's not too bad
    • Dues, donations, expenses, bank account, slides, (occasional hiccups like bank mergers, church interactions, etc.)
    • Logon monthly to check bank, CoinBase, and PayPal accounts, physical trips to the bank to deposit checks
    • Taxes: Fill out Form 990 - which is simple
    • Watch business license and donations license: DON'T let them expire! It becomes an expensive problem if they expire.
  • Secretary: ???
  • At-large 1: Split between Don and Brian (Good to have a amateur radio liasons.)
  • At-large 2: Michelle
  • Slate: Obi, Gabe, Don/Brian, Michelle APPROVED
• Campaign to recruit members for the unfilled positions.

• Internet
  • There was a hiccup that affected the church admin's Internet
  • Regardless of the source, there was a meeting with Reverend Ronnie, and the decision was to become independent from the rest of the building and have our own server closet
  • Mobile Citizen - rather affordable at $120/year
  • Concerns about ham radio access from outside the space
  • Plan to keep connected to the church's system while stress-testing the new system
  • In-house experts seem to have solutions to potential glitches. Getting cooperation from a service provider can be tricky, when it comes to hosting servers that are accessible externally.
  • Static IP difficult / impossible. Possibly use something like DuckDNS
  • An alternate hotspot provider but mobile citizen looks better Calyx Institute.
  • Gabriel says: CISPES is the other group at the church that pays for their own connection.
  • Tentative testing: APPROVED

Director Reports (Governance related stuff)

Treasurer's Report

• Finances are healthy though they could use work:
  • Bitcoin which was lost was found thanks to Tayeb
  • COVID helped us on the rent and is still giving us a great deal
  • The church accidentally paid our insurance for the year and needs to be reimbursed
  • Not a lot of slack for unexpected minor catastrophes, let alone major ones.
  • Need seven or eight more members in order to become more solidly stable and possibly grow the coffers.

Adjournment

Adjourned by at Michelle by 20:57