Regular Member Meeting 2016 07 12

Time and Location

Date

Called to order at 7:46 pm by Enrique

Members present: Evan W., Evan M., Tom, Nancy, Ken, Bobby, Enrique, Julia

Members remote: Kevin, Don

Others present: Ajax

Quorum

Quorum met?

yes

New Business

Vote to approve standing rules as written. (Vote to approve Article V[1] passed. Vote to approve Article IV[2] was postponed.)

Vote to remove redundant, superseded language about quorum in standing rules. (Vote to invalidate all standing rules contradicted by our bylaws passed)

Vote to retroactively approve of any past actions taken in line with these new standing rules. (Vote passed)

Vote to approve any and all votes which may have been taken under an improperly defined quorum. (Vote Passed)

Director Reports

Vice President's Report

Have web conferencing working but we are in serious need of a decent room mic solution. I need to test compatibility with a suggested solution before I seek funds for purchase. Have all the parts for the remote reboot project and need to put it all together with Hack-a-day project and other documentation. IT systems have been running smoothly with no firewall crashing issues so no need to replace hardware currently.

Treasurer's Report

I've been out of town, so this may be a short report. Also because I left town, we paid July rent early, and I forgot to bill a handful of members for June, so the June balance looks lower than usual but it's temporary. Sorry to anyone who gets billed twice in July to make up for it.

Secretary's Report

I have mentioned in previous meetings that I reviewed the standing rules.

To see my rationale, you may view the history of this page here:

http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php?title=Standing_Rules&action=history

particularly this first edit,

"09:11, 4 March 2016‎ Tom (Talk | contribs)‎ . . (32 bytes) (+32)‎ . . (Tom moved page Standing Rules to Old Standing Rules: These are ancient)"

These are the old standing rules:

http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/Old_Standing_Rules

Basically useless.

The current page was kept under "Proposed standing rules". In my review, I realized that most of these standing rules had been approved. So I just moved it from "Proposed standing rules" to "Standing Rules", provided annotations and links to relevant meeting minutes, and moved the old standing rules as above.

I trust this doesn't require much explanation.

I also noticed some sensible seeming rules that did not seem to have been voted on, but I think are good rules that we should have.

Article IV, http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/Standing_Rules#Article_IV:_Meetings

Sections 4-6 did not seem to have been voted on.

Article V, http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/Standing_Rules#Article_V:_Materiel

Looks like the whole section hasn't been voted on.

I think we should vote to approve these two sections and also vote to declare them as retroactively applicable, i.e., that we understand them to be good policy and we regard any actions taken in the past, that were in line with these rules, as legitimate.

This section on quorum is redundant, and should be removed:

http://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/Standing_Rules#Quorum

Quorum is defined in our bylaws.

We should vote to remove it, but I also believe we should vote to retroactively consider any votes taken under a quorum met under this rule as legitimate.

Or we could decide that's not a good idea, but I will be unable and largely unwilling to go back and try to figure out which votes we should nullify, because that's stupid.

These are the specifics of my recommendations.

In general, it seems like the standing rules are poorly understood by our membership. Maybe some people knew what they were, but as the documentation was confusing and inconsistent, I think it's only due to the institutional memory of active members of the club and oral tradition. This is problematic for many reasons, some of which should be quite obvious. I invited the membership to read the standing rules and highlight anything they thought looked drastically incorrect or inconsistent that I may have missed. I realize that people may have ideas for improvements they might like to see voted on; members are always welcome to work with each other and bring changes to our standing rules through the e-mail list, or any other venue, to be voted on in our monthly meetings.

Director-at-Large Reports

Matt

• Starlight server needs a magnetic fan bracket.
• Design work towards the OTR is going well.

Project Awesome Reports

Project SUPPLIES

Nothing to report.

Project EXPANSION

Nothing to report.

Project HAMRADIO

ham radio report when you need it is.... HacDC Amateur Radio Club makes 22 contacts from Presidents Park in front of the White House June 18th. We will return again August 25th for the National Park Service Centinniel. Arrl Field Day was a complete success. Lots of new faces. Harc has given 70+ amateur radio exams in the first 7 months of this year. Wed July 13 speaker meeting is DC Gov CERT. Visit our website for details. Look for us September 25 at the Silver Spring Maker Faire. We are saving our project awsome money and seeking donations for a new hf antenna system and 1.5 kw amplifier. We need $7000.00.

Project Electron Microscope (SEM)

Need to verify last distribution can afford vacuum sensor.

Project CRISPR

Nancy and I attended the BUGSS Microbiology Bootcamp and learned some hands-on techniques for DNA extraction, introduction, etc. The exercise was to extract plasmid DNA from bacteria, add the enzymes to cut a segment of it off and introducing that DNA into a different strain of bacteria. Have not received the CRISPR DIY kit yet, which should be arriving soon. Still taking donations for anyone who would like to help out.

Adjournment

Adjourned at 9:09pm by Julia