EMSBoDMeetingMinutes040419

Eugene Maker Space Board of Directors meeting April 4, 2019

Call to order

6:08PM Attending: Aidan, Karen, Ben, Piotr, Amanda Also present: Jeffrey

Approve this agenda

Motion: Aidan moved that the Eugene Makerspace Board of Directors approve the agenda.

The motion was seconded by Karen.

Motion passes, the vote was Unanimous.

Approve previous minutes

Motion: Aidan moved that the Eugene Makerspace Board of Directors approve the minutes from the April BoD meeting.

The motion was seconded by Karen.

Motion passes, the vote was unanimous.

Reports

President's report

Patreon is set up! It is current configured so that when people sign up, the money comes out on the first of the month but not immediately. He suggests that when we send out the formal pitch to everyone to move over, we switch it over so it's instant charge and then the first each subsequent month. Karen asks if we can change someone's billing date. "Can my renewal come out on the 13th?" Aidan: "It will always come out on the first." Aidan will include a State of the Shop Finances in his mail letting folks know to move over to Patreon. The problem of people not having any way to get pro-rated membership could cause problems if people sign up near the end of the month then get charges twice in short-succession. The conversation moved back towards leaving the "first-of-the-month only" configuration and having people do PayPal for April AND set up Patreon. Piotr noted that Patreon has a Refund button and we could just refund someone who gets caught in a net. Piotr suggested we have a formal cutoff of the 15th and automatically do the refund on anyone who signs up after that for their first month. Conclusion: We will turn off the right-away charge and use the refund process to massage any post-midmonth concerns.

Aidan: When do we turn off keys for people who aren't in Patreon? Piotr: 30 days? Karen: June? Aidan proposed June 1st as the cut-off for people who have not moved to Patreon before their keys are deactivated.

ACTION: Aidan will activate instant-payment on Patreon and put together a quarterly report with instructions to our members on what to do.

Secretary's report

Nothing.

Treasurer's report

$494.92 in bank. $139.27 in PayPal. $35 in Patreon = $669.19 total We are overdue $1,300 for rent that was due on the 1st. $630.81 needed to make rent. By the end of the month, we need to pay $3,111.06 by the end of this month (double rent, bills, insurance). We are short $2,441.87. There is a difference of $150-160 between last month and this month because we were able to pay EWEB already.

Public Relations report

Lasers at the Library

Jeffrey reached out to the King Pong folks and asked if we could bring an arcade and literature out and they were very interested. Karen volunteered to build cabinets and then spent the week milling three arcade cabinets. By the day of the event, two were completed and one is ready for assembly once a final set of controls arrives. One of the two had some image problems and stayed behind but the finalized painted one was ready. Jeffrey installed it by the cafe which got good traffic. People began playing it immediately, it was very popular.

Jeffrey flew his R/C shark which escaped and flew to the roof of the library. He attempted to lure it back down with other balloons but they too escaped and now all of those balloons and the shark live there.

Mini-Maker Faire

Jeffrey reported that he's heard the Science Factory folks are willing to allow us to take and run the Mini-Maker Faire if we want. The $2,000 licensing requirement makes this seem a little unlikely at this time and Piotr suggested that we pursue events that bring people to the shop instead of a second location.

Karen

May the 4th is coming, if we are going to do a Star Wars Day event, we should be figuring that out yesterday. She also shared her thoughts about doing a group-build event out of the remaining cabinet. Piotr had an idea to integrate some LED panels into the marquee to make some visually striking upgrades.

Aidan will help coordinate a Saturday, May 4th event. We will do a single day event. To avoid any confusion about what's for sale, we will clearly mark which area contains things for sale. Piotr will see if he can get some sponsorship from BRING (most likely in the form of vouchers or coupons) and contact Oshpark for permission re: some free PCB coupons he has.

Meetup.com

Aidan asked if someone could make him an admin on our Meetup site so he can reach out to some of the 900 people who are currently following us there.

Brochures

Aidan suggests we up our brochure-game for having literature in our go-box for taking to events.

ACTION: Piotr will make Aidan an admin on Meetup and this will be the first step in a larger, spicier, ongoing Social Media campaign. ACTION: Ben will make Aidan and Karen admins on the EMS Facebook page.

Shop Status report

Front door

The new front door knob (replaced when the old knob became impossible to reliably lock) has 4 keys. Ben has one, she has three more. Aidan, Amanda, and Piotr received keys. The new doorknob is a temporary solution that has been improvised in-place but we need a new door. We should have the landlord replace the door and knob.

Refrigerator

Someone needs to 'call the guy' to come collect the refrigerator.

Old Business/Action Item Review

Work out an emergency request for money in the slack

This will be covered by Aidan's mail to the membership (which will also be copied on the Slack).

Piotr will find out what our cut-off is for bankruptcy

He is still looking into this, we don't know what our cut-offs are. He reported on this during the Treasurer's Report

(Continuing) Piotr will set up the one-way bank account for depositing

No longer necessary with the move to Patreon.

(Continuing) Karen will continue to monitor the Pay Pal giving fund qualifications for the EMS

She continues to feel we should be listed as an available target for Humble Bundle giving targets.

ACTION: Karen will continue to monitor the Pay Pal giving fund qualifications for the EMS, she will contact Piotr for access to our PayPal deets are for getting this

(Continuing) Ben will work with Piotr to add the payment options to the new-member mail sent out by Key Master.

ACTION: (Continuing) Ben will work with Piotr to add the payment options to the new-member mail sent out by Key Master.

Aidan to email about donations needed

He will cover this in the quarterly update. He also requested any pictures from the last quarter to include in the email.

Piotr will remove us from Nation of Makers mailing list

Done.

Ben will get the registrar login info to Michael

Done.

Karen: Put together presentation for board re digitizing forms

We have determined this is no longer necessary so this effort is now just archival data and the applications will be stored in a folder.

New Business

Report on Patreon integration status

Ben gave report on how the Patreon integration works including a rundown of the back

ACTION: Include an item for a SQUARE scanner or something for accepting donations via credit card

Tier of membership discussion

Aidan reports that we currently have a single tier 'Member' of $35. He feels we should ad $5, $10, $20, $50, $75, and $100 and wishes to collect ideas on what to do with the different tiers. He suggests that we put a live-display to recognize members who have contributed (both members who go above and beyond and those who contribute). Anything over $35, they get a key.

Karen suggests that it would be cool if we made embroidered patches with the EMS logo and possibly offer those as a physical incentive.

Piotr suggested; $10, $35, $50, $100

ACTION: Karen will assemble a live-display and configure it to support this. ACTION: Aidan will finalize the new Patreon levels at $10, $35, $50, $100

Motion: Ben moved that the Eugene Makerspace Board of Directors The board reluctantly accept Bruce's resignation from the board..

The motion was seconded by Karen.

Motion passes, the vote was Unanimous. The board also thanks Bruce for all of his hard work and wish him the best.

Re-assign Bruce's responsibilities

Karen recognized Harley's hard work to help clean the shop. She does not see any immediate high-priority Shop Steward work that needs to be done so the position can be filled at leisure.

Adjournment

Motion: Piotr moved that the Eugene Makerspace Board of Directors adjourn the April meeting.

The motion was seconded by Aidan.

Motion passes, the vote was unanimous.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:00PM.