EMSBo DMeeting Minutes060117

EMS
Board of Directors
Meeting Minutes
Meeting date: 06/01/2017

Call to order:

A Regular meeting of the Board of directors of EMS, was held at 687 McKinley street, Suite #1, Eugene OR on June 1st, 2017. The meeting convened at 6:11PM, Clif Cox presiding and Ben Hallert secretary.

Board Members in attendance: Clif, Ben, Dean, Jher, Tanda
Board Members not in attendance:

Quorum present? Yes / Provisional

Also Present Were: Jeffrey, Tom, Bruce, Dale

Approve agenda, and previous minutes.

Agenda:

1. Approve the agenda
2. Review previous meeting minutes
3. Officer’s Reports
   1. President
   2. Treasurer
   3. Secretary
   4. PR Director (Vacant)
   5. Facilities Manager (Vacant)
4. Old Business:
   1. Action Items from previous meetings:
      1. Cross-post Jeffrie's Save The Bees blogpost to the Wordpress.
         1. Tanda: To contact NAO and sign EMS up.
         2. Mini Maker Faire - June 10th
5. New Business:
   1. Paris's Proposal
   2. Update on Laser Master Notes - Dale or Tom
   3. Equipment Donation
   4. STEAM camp volunteers
   5. Adjourn

Approval of Agenda: Motion was made by Tanda and seconded by Clif to approve this meeting's proposed agenda

The Motion carried with unanimous approval.

Approval of minutes: Motion was made by Dean and seconded by Jher to approve the minutes of the May 4th, 2017 meeting.

The Motion carried with unanimous approval.

Officer's reports:

President's report: Clif spent 14 hours on May 31st to collect the first installment of equipment that has been donated to the Eugene Maker Space. There's a lot of equipment and 'much overflow' went to the Art Barn. CLif noted that we don't have the room or storage for the extraordinary material stocks. The donation came with a dust collector which is now at the space. He made some calls on-the-spot regarding some equipment including a larger bandsaw. There's some equipment that's at the Art Barn including a hydraulic tube bender and a threading tool. He brought a box of Harbor Freight hand tools (sander, dremels, etc) that he's tested. The largest item they picked up was the plasma cutter they brought, but Clif made a point of mentioning that 'the board' had felt it was too large despite the crux of the disagreement being support infrastructure such as ventilation and water tables. He noted that they also had a large (12") floor mounted disk sander that he wasn't sure would fit in here, but wanted to mention it for consideration.

Clif has also tested the bitcoin donation button on the site and it works.

ACTION ITEM: Clif will provide an itemized list/document of any equipment that is located offsite. Tanda has requested that this be complete before September 1st.

Treasurer's report: Dean reported that our rent for June is paid and our EWEB and Comcast are current. $1,885.43 is our bank account balance. He was to find out why BMW was charging more, the reason is that we were paying EWEB via BMC. We have 26 members that are verified as paid up and 8 members who used the door that he cannot correlate against paid membership. Dean and Ben will go over the list of members without verified payment after the meeting.

Secretary's report: Since we moved in February, we have signed up 13 new members to may then another 5 since for a total of 18 new post-move members.

PR and Facilities Manager are vacant

Old business:

Cross-post Jeffrie's Save The Bees blogpost to the Wordpress.

The article is still in-work, this action will move forward to the next meeting.

Tanda: To contact NAO and sign EMS up.

She contacted them, had difficulty getting signed up, then was finally succesful. The NAO apologized for the difficulty in getting signed up and granted us a free year's membership. We are online! She's contact the membership committee for guidance on organization and is waiting to hear back from them. Their board development describes the importance of a healthy leadership in a non-profit and has experience consultants available to help recruit and retain effective board members. She will keep the board abreast of developments with this.

Mini Maker Faire - June 10th

Clif reports that we have a tent and three or four tables in it. A few of our members have reported that they will be there. Jeffrey and Kevin will be bringing a rover of some sort and spending time manning the table. Clif suggests we create a checklist of items needed (such as the banner, signup form, etc). Dale has a piece of artwork for display he would like to hand off to someone who can commit to being there earlier in the day. He describes it as a piece of glasswork approximately 18"^2 and will likely be making a stand too.

Tanda showed an example of something they handed out to each visitor. It was a metal slug/plate/token with a CNC etched personalized message/name. We agreed we'd not likely have time to do that this year but it could be something really exciting to provide at future events.

Ben will bring his face chopping-off hexacopter because it looks kinda cool.

New business:

Paris's Proposal

Clif feels it has merit and agrees we should come up with a list of volunteer positions (including a volunteer coordinator) and fill them. Clif suggests we encourage people to fill the positions and notes that we've had some volunteers like Mary, Jim, Jackson, and Tom who have volunteered to take on some volunteer positions who would be great seeds for implementing Paris's proposal.

Dale shared some concerns about how the conversation unfolded and was unhappy with some civility issues.

Tanda expressed frustration with some of Paris's statements that we aren't discussing these items as he was not in attendance and the discussions are happening. She also pointed out that we have volunteers stepping up, in direct contradiction to his statements.

Bruce asked for a description of things he's proposed in the past and Clif gave a quick high-level summary. Bruce suggested that from what he's heard, Paris may have expectations for the group that would work best if it was much larger. Bruce inquired about the board's work in forming mission statements and performing long term planning. Clif described the move (which has been in-work for years), the Innovation Center progress, and some other efforts the board has taken to move the growth of the group further. Bruce followed up with an open question about whether or not Paris would be satisfied with how we might implement his ideas and nobody was able to answer that as Paris was not in attendance.

Tanda shared some more examples of proposals he's made in the past. Tom mentioned that he had offered to host Paris' development environment for the space management software he has in mind but Paris had responded unfavorably because of a past perceived slight.

Bruce saw two possible approaches moving forward: dealing with Paris directly to try and find what brings value and work with him to implement them, or make our own decisions moving forward. Tom expanded on this, suggesting that we take his proposals as general guidance and then provide our own implementations.

Clif expressed some skepticism that 12 volunteers would spontaneously appear to fill the positions being proposed.

Tanda agreed and provided as examples some volunteer positions that have been advertised and remained vacant for several months running. Dale asked if the board had reached out directly to the membership as he didn't remember seeing these, and Tanda indicated that she believed we had.

Jher felt that the Facilities Manager position felt like something that would be close to the membership and could help manage shop volunteers. He asked if anyone in the shop might be well suited to this kind of outreach/equipment and several members in attendance suggested Tucker would be well suited for that. Tucker happened to be working on something elsewhere in the shop and was asked to consider whether he'd be interested in working in some capacity along those lines.

Dale asked if there was a written description of the positions and Tanda brought those out for review from the procedures guide.

NOTE: At 6:58, Dean left.

Tanda read the filed description of the position of Facilities Manager to Jher from the bylaws.

Motion: Clif moved that we formally create a Volunteer Coordinator position and check with Jim Callaway to see if he would like to fill it. Tanda seconded,
Passed: motion passed unanimously at 7:01PM.

ACTION: Jim to report on the Volunteer Coordinator position

ACTION: Ben will send a mail to Jim describing the position.

Update on Laser Master Notes - Dale or Tom

Dale has been working with getting a computer running. The software requires a hardware dongle, Dale suggested we not allow it out of the shop. 

Clif asked Tom about some discussions in the past related to alternate controllers and Tom suggested we pursue getting the original hardware configured. Dale expressed some concern about making modifications without knowing for sure if the EMS owns the machine. Clif thought it was donated but will check with Marcel to verify its status. If it is not a donation, he will attempt to secure permission to modify it. Dale provided some background on the machine.

Dale expressed frustation that promised computers for this haven't appeared. Tanda has contributed three but each has experienced unique failure modes.

Tom has several computers that may be good candidates and will bring one in with XP installed.

ACTION: Dale and/or Tom will provide a mini-report on progress at next meeting.

Equipment Donation

See president's report, Clif provided his update there. 

ACTION: Ben will provide some written followup to the board in pursuit of verifying that the donater and Maker Space are protected and tax implications are considered.

STEAM camp volunteers

Clif asked if Jeffrey had expressed interest in helping, Jeffrey assured Clif that he had not. Jher and Bruce had some questions about the dates of the events to make sure there wasn't overlap with this and Mini Maker Fair. Jeffrey expressed some concerns about hosting this event because of the time use and number of children involved. Clif assured him that all logistical issues beyond the building itself and basic infrastructure would be handled by the planners of the event. Jeffrey summarized this as EMS' responsibilities being essentially to 'be a good host' and there was general agreement.

Clif also described an interest the organizers had in possibly spinning up some new items for the curriculum based on EMS volunteer ideas.

Jher followed up with Jeffrey about what 'making the space ready for kids' meant. He proposed that we formally plan to get sign-off from the event planners that the space is prepared for the kids based on age groups. Jeffrey asked that we plan to integrate some sort of 'chill zone'/couch area with the expectation that kids will probably benefit from that.

Action Items:

Clif:

• Clif will provide an itemized list/document of any equipment that is located offsite. Tanda has requested that this be complete before September 1st
• Clif will find out what the ownership of the Lasermaster is

Dean:

Tanda:

• To contact NAO and sign EMS up.

Ben:

• Cross-post Save the Bees article to the Facebook group
• Ben will send a mail to Jim describing the position.
• Ben will provide some written followup to the board in pursuit of verifying that the donater and Maker Space are protected and tax implications are considered.

Jher:

• Cross-post Jeffrie's Save The Bees blogpost to the Wordpress.

Guest Action Items:

• Jim to report on the Volunteer Coordinator position
• Dale and/or Tom will provide a mini-report on progress at next meeting.

Adjournment:

Clif moved for adjournment and was seconded by Ben.

The vote was unanimous and the meeting was adjourned at 7:32 PM.

____________________________ ___________________
Secretary Date of approval
Eugene Maker Space