Regular Member Meeting 2016 03 08

Time and Location

Date

Called to order at xxxx pm by xxxx

Members present:

Members remote:

Others present:

Quorum

Quorum met?

Recognition

• We received a huge unsolicited donation from Lee! Thanks Lee!

Director Reports

Director-at-Large Reports

M. "mirage335"

Last time HacDC funded a Laser Cutter, it was a $3k expense, had to fit through the door, had marginal size/performance goals, and limited life expectancy. Additionally, everyone was informed we had better prospects of building a better machine ourselves. Approximately $5k budget was allocated over the history of Project LASER, and another $1k was spent on additional tooling.

Now, we hackers have actually demonstrated our prowess, having built a massive scale laser-cutter. We believe it is entirely possible to offer safety and usability features, comparable to or better than commercial units. Further, plans are underway to build a smaller classroom unit for training purposes. Allocating funds to back our volunteers' hard work will not only ensure timely completion, but also enable us to achieve decent build quality.

Propose allocating $3.5k to EXPANSION from the general fund, and raise the spending authority for this project to $1.5k/month, for the purposes of (1) commissioning a small classroom CNC machine to include laser-cuttting, (2) improve basement CNC machine especially in areas of reliability, safety, and usability, (3) purchase an off-the-shelf laser cutter from eBay costing less than $500 only in the event of community dissatisfaction with our own classroom and basement laser-cutting machines, and (4) purchase needed equipment to fabricate resources for building or maintaing CNC machines at HacDC (eg. drill press chuck).

Financially, HacDC is healthy, can afford this, and should expect a positive return on investing in its volunteer efforts. Our revenue stream has stabilized around relatively committed members, expenses are low enough for a few contributors to back up in emergency, cash flow is positive, and we have over $12k in the bank. Moreover, policies are now in place to better protect our investments.

We are now in a great position to do this right. We should.

Project Awesome Reports

Project SUPPLIES

Nothing to report.

Project EXPANSION

Funding the classroom web-conference desktop machine fell through, due eBay sale closing while other proposals and distractions were under consideration. Still expecting to fund this, awaiting new proposals.

Old Business

• Proposal to allocate $2,000 for fully recomissioning the OpticalTableRobot. (Tabled at the last meeting)
• Proposal to allocate $500 for an off-the-shelf throw-away eBay laser cutter. - (Tabled at the last meeting)

New Business

• Propose that we allocate $100 from our general fund for card and a gift for Brian, Saint Stephen's departing administrator. We can brainstorm what the gift should be; maybe lots of sunscreen since he's moving to a sunny desert place.

Adjournment

Adjourned by at xxx by xxx