Meetings/2017-06-01
Held 8pm, 1 June 2017 at 35 Hospital Fields Road.
Contents
Agenda
- Reorganisation
- We need to elect a new chairman.
- - Unfortunately our chairman, Luke, is stepping down (hopefully temporarily). Who would like to take this on?
- We need an interim second signatory/treasurer.
- - One of the two signatories on the Hackspace bank account (Dan) is going to be away from York for three months. Would anybody like to be the second signatory and treasurer during this time?
- Democratically elected board
- Insurance
- We are having trouble contacting our insurers
- Internet in the space
- Gav is going to remove his WiFi dongle soon
- A&A has now started to take action to get us free internet. Is there anything that we need to do on this?
- Finances
- Formalise a process for spending, etc.
- Future
- New members
- New equipment
- Advertising
- Sponsorship
- Collaboration
Minutes
In attendance:
- Dan Bailey
- Carwyn Edwards
- Nat Lasseter
- Nick Moriarty
- Bob Stone
- John Cooper
- Luke McCullagh
- Gavin Atkinson
- David Court
Reorganisation
The following committee positions need to be considered. Note that this is quite separate from the company documents.
Chairman
Luke needs to take a step away from the space (hopefully temporarily)!
Gavin and Nat volunteered for the position. 9 voted for Nat, with 0 against and 0 abstaining. Nat will be giving up the treasurer position.
Treasurers
A new treasurer will be needed on an interim basis at least until Dan comes back - and in any case to fulfil treasurer tasks.
Dave volunteered for the position. 9 voted for Dave, with 0 against and 0 abstaining. Dave will need to be added to the account.
Committee Members
It was discussed that it may be wise for committee members not to hold multiple positions, from a point of view of keeping the workload spread out.
Democratically Elected Board
The UK Hackspace foundation definition for a hackspace requires democratic election of the Hackspace board (note: not in a company sense). This is something we should ensure we have sorted (with all members able to cast a vote) in time for the AGM. We should check out Hackspace foundation re what positions / how many people on the board.
Attending Meetings
Closed sessions are limited to the committee, as previously discussed. There was a discussion of whether non-members can attend meetings, and who can vote.
The proposal is that anyone can attend meetings (i.e. non-members too), but only members are permitted to vote. All voted in favour.
New Members
We probably need to keep a signed record for new members to make sure they’ve done all their training.
Insurance
Luke had issues contacting our insurers, but Dan recently managed to get in touch with them. We need to check cover - there may be something about woodworking tools that needs checking specifically. Dan will check what our PL covers in terms of attending events, etc. Gavin specifically suggested we find out whether we need any form of employee cover if we’re volunteering at events.
We should try to get a quote for business contents insurance and hold a vote on whether it’d be worth purchasing.
Internet
A telephone line will be installed on Wednesday, after which A&A will put through the order for broadband and maybe stuffed cuddly dragons. This should hopefully mean we have internet connectivity by around the 14th June. Nat can check what limits may apply. At the moment we chew through about 6G per month. Gavin will be removing his dongle in the near future.
We need to put an A&A sticker on the website; we’re not being charged for anything.
Finances
We currently have a policy about spending money. It currently says that purchases up to £20 need approving by at least two people, and purchases over that need approval by all members.
It has been proposed that the tuck shop should be approved as a standard spend, based on it being appropriately managed between the stockists. All present voted in favour.
It has been proposed that spends above £20 but below £100 should be approved without all members having to be involved. It was proposed that spend in this bracket should be advertised on the public mailing list, and should be open for at least 48 hours for objections from members. Arbitration can be taken as a vote by members.
Spend of £100 or over should be discussed specifically - and should be publicised on the mailing list.
All present voted in favour of the above proposals.
Space Development
Nat thinks we should colonise Mars. John asked whether this comes in above the £100 limit.
We have lost two members this month, leaving us in the position that if we lose any more members we will have more outgoings than income. We need to make sure we can afford to keep the space going. We need to do more PR - and we need some people to take a lead on this.
Nick is happy to keep doing flyer design work, etc. John C has offered to get flyers out to cafes in town, etc. Gavin has been in contact with YUSU. While we didn’t get in the newsletter in time for the weekly publish, we’ve been offered an ad on their website. Nick’s made up an ad for this.
Gavin has a contact at a printers who can make up A5 flyers. The price is about 5000 for £45. We could try getting “sponsored” in flyers from a local printer. Nat will ask a colleague about this.
Carwyn is willing to take a lead on PR as well. There were musings around festival of ideas, and whether we could advertise ourselves there at all.
John mentioned that Friends of St Nicholas Fields are doing another Fix It event. We should go along, if not only to make some friends there. There are other maker groups we should look into.
We definitely need more members.
John will set up an Instagram account - it’s a lot easier than blogging and may just help to make what we do more visible.
Bytemark may want to sponsor us. We may need to help find an appropriate reason for them - something that relates to their business.
Alex from York Explore (who knows Dave) is running maker-type things for u18s at York Explore. They’re interested in collaborating with us - sharing resources, knowing about the other place to point people at. Someone should get in touch.
Luke has some more stuff to bring that should be useful to the space - drawer units, board development kit etc. As we have a lot of old electronics, we need to rotate this stuff out. A three-week system works at London hackspace.
Dave noticed an ad for a service where people pay for 3D prints. This is essentially a matchmaking service. This might be useful for publicity too.
AOB
Gavin wanted to raise a point about under 18s. We know someone who is 14 and wants to come along, for example - they’ll be accompanied, but we should agree how that works.
After a lot of discussions, we couldn’t arrive at a sensible decision at this point. We need to find out how (and why) other people are solving this problem.
Company stuff (real important):
- We incorporated on 22nd September 2016 - we should hold an AGM in September
- Confirmation statement needed by 5th October 2017 (this costs £13)
- First accounts made up to 30 September 2017 due by 22 June 2018
Actions
The following actions have been added to Trello:
- Give Dave the required access and information to take over as treasurer
- Subsequently, update the treasurer@ forwarding list
- Check the Hackspace Foundation guidelines on boards/committees
- Publish our policy on meeting attendance and voting
- Draft suitable membership/training forms
- Query insurance re woodworking
- Get a quote for contents insurance
- Put the A&A logo on our website
- Update our purchasing policy
- Update, purchase and distribute flyers
- Get a suitable ad to YUSU
- Talk to other maker people in York
