Regular Member Meeting 2008 12 09

Time & Location

December 9, 2008
Members Present: Nick, Nate, Member 28, Eoin, Martin, Katie, Elliot, Tim C., Anonymous Member
Others Present: Sean (prospective new member)
Quorum: Yes
19:40ish to 20:20
HacDC, 1525 Newton St NW, Washington, DC. (Space)
Presiding: Elliot

Draft minutes of the last meeting

Regular Member Meeting Minutes 2008 12 02 were reviewed and unanimously ratified.

The Consent Agenda

(no items)

Minister Reports

Coordinator in Chief: Nothing to report.

Minister of Finance: "We have money."

Minister of Information: Nothing to report.

Keeper of the MIBS: Not Present.

Member Reports

Nate reported that it's awesome to be back in town. Anonymous Member reported on the status of Project Red Phone, which is coming along; a class or seminar on Asterisk will be held at some point in the next few months.

Old Business

Workshop Configuration

Nate reports there's no power or light right now, but it's getting cleaned up; we will be adding outlets and shelving. Member 28 suggests a small area near the door be a donations pile / input buffer; general consensus that people bringing stuff and it not being dealt with is a continuing problem for us, and we want to avoid this.

We have two dust extractors that should go in the workshop. Noise dampening may be something we want to look into—the welding blanket and stuff stored on the shelves may dampen somewhat; general consensus that safety equipment will be a high priority. Member 28 suggests that in addition to painting we should wrap using 10 mil sheeting.

Water is entering the space, and we'll want to figure out exactly how and control that.

An air conditioner would help control the humidity and make it comfortable in the summer.

We can expect to be looking at shelving by this weekend.

Main Space Reconfiguration

Nick says we'll turn the loft into a workbench with shelving that goes up to the ceiling; Nate will take the lead on this.

Member 28 has an alternate proposal: we've been making horizontal piles and failing to use the vertical space in each level of the loft, so we should build high-density shelving with the tables nesting; upper levels will have less-used stuff, maintaining a catwalk but with sorter bins on the sides.

Nick and Nate agree on the goal of making the loft/shelving shallower by a foot or two; Member 28 doesn't think it would be worthwhile.

Elliot says a problem is our inability to use the existing horizontal space as workspace; there's "deep" space that's too deep to be usable/reachable.

Nate suggests more shallow against-the-wall shelving like what's currently behind the door.

There is general agreement that first we'll work on Workshop Configuration and think about the Main Space Reconfiguration later—other ideas about how we want to use it may come up once we unload some of the bulky items that can be stored in the basement workshop area.

Tim C. suggests this is a detailed / brainstorming discussion that may deserve a separate discussion.

New Business

Andrew has been appointed Shadow Minister of Special Projects; he will continue to work on the Physical Access Control Project (which involves the door for HacDC's particular space and is not to be confused with the Door Entry Project for the whole church).

A proposal to extend Nate's dues waiver to January 31, 2010 was approved.

Prospective member Sean was approved as a new member. This brings the count of current members to 32.