Regular Member Meeting 2018 06 12

Time and Location

Date

Called to order at 2030 pm by Tom

Members present: Nic David Kevin Tom I. Enrique and Ken

Members remote: Tayeb and Julia

Others present: Samudra Eva Tom D. Jeff

Quorum

Quorum met? yes, we think.

Approval of Previous Meeting's Minutes

by acclamation

Recognition

The Capitol Hill Maker Faire was a success, thanks for all who helped out.

Juri had a couple of basement clean up days. Nice start but more work needs to be done.

New Business

Group equipment purchase proposal from District Makers' Collective

LIZ Dombrowski, Board President of the District Makers Collective writes:

So we heard from JBG Smith that they're selling Techshop's equipment. Here's the message they sent one of our members:

"Given the sheer amount of equipment in the space and the challenge of administering a piecemeal disposition to various buyers, we are only accepting bids from firms who can purchase and remove the equipment."

We're not in the position to buy that much equipment financially, so we're setting up a coalition of local makerspaces to see if we could pool our resources. We're also planning to work with our members to do an aggressive fundraising blitz. We know we need to move quickly.

Would you be interested in joining with District Makers Collective? It would be awesome to see Techshop's equipment split among the DMV's local makerspaces.

Project Awesome Reports

Project Electron Microscope (SEM) - Julia

ben got most of our roms up on github. unless we find him, and recover the last ones with broken pins, the console is a loss. assuming it is a loss, and learning to drive the column without it.

Project Optical Table Robot (OTR) - Julia

we had a great basement work day. next step: unburying the OTR!

Project CRISPR -Enrique

Ten words: "This kit includes everything you need to genetically modify frogs." Also, no. Spoke to Sarah from BUGSS and they might be interested in building DIY bio equipment at/with HacDC. For example, the gel electrophresis imager to compare DNA strand lengths, maybe a PCR machine to multiply/amplify DNA. Not sure who at HacDC is really interested though - let me know. No other progress to report. The existing CRISPR fridge is not cold enough to store reagents, although it can store fresh petri dishes and some reagents.

Project SpaceBlimp -Enrique

Our Global Space Balloon Challenge entry did not win the prize but it's pretty nice. Here's the document: Media:Spaceblimp7_HackersSLS_GSBC-Report.pdf Several key team members are busy until later in July so no launch plans for SB 8 (might be 7B, long story). Please let us know if you'd like to join the group at [email protected]

Member Reports

Enrique. Note that our CFC application was denied due to some discrepancy in the number of board or voting members on the form. We have until Thursday to appeal. I'll help or work on this but will need to get in touch with Tayeb or Karen to get it submitted.

julia

TAZ is down at the moment. power supply issues.

a friend donated an engine hoist, and a small press.

basement work day was awesome! planning another one soon...

Director Reports (Governance related stuff)

Treasurer's Report

More getting in contact with people about retroactive dues, more payments.

Our current standing is that we are losing money ($554 this month), however we have enough members that we can expect to stay afloat if everyone continues to pay their dues and everyone for whom it is relevant continues to pay retroactive-dues. We currently have 25 members in good standing and two more who will likely be in good standing soon (so presumably 27 in the near future, but for quorum purposes 25). Our bank + Paypal + Dwolla total is large enough (~$10,000) we can certainly take the $500 hit for many months to come but obviously that would be unsustainable in the long term. Part of the reason for this is that several members do not pay monthly and instead pay quarterly or thrice-yearly so many months will have negative balances while a select few will have larger positive net balances.

The upshot is that we could use new members since we are essentially right at breakeven, but we are also at breakeven and so averaged over the next several months I expect no net change.

Adjournment

Adjourned by at xxx by xxx