Regular Member Meeting 2020 02 11

Time and Location

Date: February 11, 2020

Called to order at xxxx pm by xxxx

Members present:

Members remote:

Others present:

Quorum

Quorum met?

Approval of Previous Meeting's Minutes

(such as they were.)

Recognition

• Dorothy from Nation of Makers, for being a good egg, standing up at the DC Department of Employment Services (DOES), and pitching HacDC to the assembled masses.
• Chris and Bobby for serious progress on the Cheap Chinese Lasercutter.
• Tom and Tristin for capturing hearts and minds, if not wallets, with their Capture the Flag sessions

Old Business

• Spring cleaning (but not gear cleaning) has begun. Clean those springs!

New Business

• Once again, we've had an offer of space at the USA Science and Engineering Festival April 25-26, 2020 at the Convention Center. We need to determine what to do, and gather the troops / troupe to do it.
• A possible visit to Nonstop Art (web site currently "out of order") in their new digs at THEARC (Town Hall Education Arts Recreation Campus) is in the works.
• A rerun of the Deep Learning: Machine Learning & AI course (study group) is in the offing.

Project Awesome Reports

Project Electron Microscope (SEM)

• Half of the SEM is now, gutted, "vertically oriented" and precariously balanced -- off-center on a dolly loaned by Don.
• The other half, Tristin has laid claim to.

Project CRISPR -Enrique

- Report and updates

Project SpaceBlimp -Enrique

- Report and updates

Director Reports (Governance related stuff)

Director-at-Large Reports

Kevin

• The vestibule light has been replaced.
• The BOD set of basement keys has been returned to the BOD locker.
• Ken hobbed and I knobbed (or vice-versa) at the Quarterly Stakeholders Meeting of the DC Department of Employment Services (DOES). My sense is that the most promising outcome will be via the DC Infrastructure Academy (DCIA). However, I also made one contact there who says he MAY be able to find us bigger, better space at another church for "cheap". I wrote to him asking for a follow-up on the specifics before he attempts to lobby on our behalf. I have not heard back yet.
• I hobbed and Ken knobbed (or vice-versa) at a meeting of the DC Public Schools Librarians meeting, this month featuring "makerspaces". Although there was repeated misunderstanding of who and what we are, I hope we finally got through to them that this is not a full-time business with paid staff. Some promised to stop by and find out more about us. I think everyone, other than Ken and I, were elementary school or middle school librarians wanting to bring boatloads of kids on field trips to the space.
• The wiki and the main site have both been upgraded to the latest and greatest. Alas, changes in the way Meetup does business has forced the removal of the calendar from the main site. However, I believe I have a work-around. In the meantime, both Meetup itself, and the wiki main page "10-event look ahead" are still working. (I plan to rejigger the code I wrote for the wiki event list and apply it to WordPress, but it will take some study.)
• After some pestering, and public shaming on Twitter, our SSL secure connection certificate has been renewed again.

Adjournment

Adjourned by at xxx by xxx