Regular Member Meeting 2022 02 08

Time and Location

Date: Tuesday 8 February 2022

Called to order: at 7:35 pm by Tayeb

Members present: John*, Tayeb*, Michelle*, Gabe*, Kevin, Brian*, Matt*, Oby

Members remote: all

Others present: none

Quorum

Quorum met? Yes

• =board member

Recognition

Michelle - for the new website Kevin - for the wiki

Old Business

1. Board Member Elections * - on Mar 8 during regular Monthly Members Meeting; decided during Board member meeting we had on Dec 21
2. Grants Project Committee * - start an email distribution list for members interested in pursuing grant-based projects for HacDC (needs: aggregate list of potential grants, manage future projects/hardware, partner with like-minded community partners, create business plans for consideration). Can merge with this matrix list for comparison.
3. Ham Club * - status on the grant and address any questions about the Ham Club initiative; bonus: with Ethan rejoining HacDC, we now have 5 licensed hams!
   1. One of members who moved to CA uses transponders and weather balloons called attention to organization interested in funding HAM radio activities to encourage "digital modes" of HAM radios and RF-propogation; another objective of theirs is to support HAMs as hobby and want to grow it to be real presence in DC and three specific initiatives: (1) bring back emergency comms capability through A2RLs (Aries) (?) program through -most states have multiple, but one in DC was dormant can be helpful when major events in city (protests, etc) and is a great way of engaging HAM radio (repeaters, stable comms, etc) to connect to emergency operations center for DC also connect to hospitals for Aries groups; Elizabeth Goodson (?) is leading this effort (2) second effort to license HAMs to develop various aspects of the hobby to a variety of things like activations in subtopics which they want to explore: on mountaintops, parks, people who like to communicate with satellites, people who like to bounce signals off moon (3) continue with upgrade of their radio station (all the equipment has been donated by members. NEXT STEP => they welcome new members from HacDC (will help get license and pass the test) and be included in their planning meetings going forward
4. Precious Plastics - global open source but community-level plastics drop-off, collections, shredder workspace, melting & molding, extrusion, and so on services. Similar to 3D printing outcomes but slightly more scalable and vastly more sustainable. Compared to another partner we've looked at before, PAR Recycle Works: PP is bigger community, more documentation/videos on how to get started. Can HacDC get a grant to become a Precious Plastics workspace? Can HacDC become pipeline to sell the final products regionally online instead? Reach out to new member Mario who might be interested in projects involved with recycling.
   1. Mario: interested as long as isn't distraction
5. Unified Data - Website designs sent out for review, comments; Also questions: (1) what was the address of the old location in the header image on the designs sent out? (2) is there a higher quality version of our logo somewhere? (3) currently, only myself, Tayeb, and Kevin on the "Unified Data" team, any board member interested in joining should email [email protected] - first meeting will be later on this month discussing the Newsletter and the latest Website design changes.
   1. Kevin: wants us to decide on Recovery & Restoration
   2. Diagram of data services, providers, features, and pros/cons
   3. Kevin: current web host provider, Dreamhost, is seriously limited; cannot install packages and do innovative web projects
      1. Tayeb: Digital Ocean has application process to review
6. Laser Cutter - on the agenda to purchase for a while now; is a big draw for people come to space
   1. 43% of survey respondents want this; many email requests for prospective members looking to use this
   2. Funding - can be donations (via website tagged with "laser cutter") + grant funding for longer-term maintenance
7. April 24, 2022 at Montgomery College at Rockville Science - "family fun" event; outdoors and free to host a booth; HacDC will PairsMathGame.com - Phil interested in helping share his invention during the Rockville event

New Business

1. Wiki-Website Re-Design - the Unified Data Team launched new Wiki and new Website for purpose of unifying two platforms, minimizing duplicate information, focusing sites for particular audiences. In regards to the WordPress Admin, do all 31 users still need access?
2. Speaking event in New Orleans on March 25 - panelist needed for workshop on university makerspaces for faculty from minority serving institutions workshop is part of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association (ECEDHA) annual meeting which is in New Orleans; host will be Dr. Alan Cheville (cool website); where's Julia? get back to Alan? who wants to go?
3. FurnishHopeDC (furnishhopedc.org) - Bobby says, "this seems like it might be a good group for HacDC to get involved with (providing & fixing computers and possibly building furniture out of scrap wood"

Adjournment

Adjourned by at ??? by ???