Meetings/2019-05-09

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Held 8pm, 9 May 2019 at 35 Hospital Fields Road.

Agenda

  • Election of the committee
  • Financial Statement
  • Approval of the accounts
  • Change to Directors
  • Change to cardholders / authorized signatories for the bank account
  • Members/membership
  • Leaseholder
  • Events/collaborations: makerfest York, millennium faire, makerfaires etc
  • Online presence/hosting
  • State of the space: alarm issues etc
  • Using space for workshops
  • Kraken Makerspaces

Minutes

In attendance:

  • Nick Moriarty
  • Carwyn Edwards
  • Richard Redpath
  • Gavin Atkinson
  • John Cooper
  • Dan Bailey
  • Nat Lasseter

Apologies received:

  • John Robinson

Election of the Committee

  • Nat volunteered to continue as chair; all present voted in favour.
  • Gav volunteered to continue as treasurer. All present except Gav voted in favour. (No votes against).
  • Nick and Rich volunteered to continue as joint secretary. All present voted in favour.

Finances

The accounts as of 30th September 2018 have been approved by all present. Nat will countersign the accounts.

1st October 2017 - 30th September 2018 we increased our total net assets by £488. We started with 12 members and ended with 13. Average member payment over that period was £35.83. If everyone had paid the current £30 membership payment, we would have been £892 worse off, which would have put us at a loss.

Over the the current partial financial year we are currently close to break-even, though several large expenses (shelving project, laser tube and 3D printer filament) fall into the current financial year. We are not in a great position since the tuck shop income is currently partly supporting the space.

A motion has been tabled to require The Hackspace to ring-fence sufficient funds to cover its contractual financial obligations, and to hold an Extraordinary General Meeting to discuss a way forward if our funds fall below this amount. All present voted in favour; this will be communicated to the membership in due course for comments.

Gav is investigating making the Hackspace dormant as a tax entity. This would prevent us making a profit; we need a better understanding of what exactly this would prevent us from doing (e.g. in terms of providing services or selling off assets).

We need to document our method of depreciation; we decided by unanimous vote (present) that we would use a linear depreciation to zero over five years.

Occasionally transactions on the SumUp fail and we estimate a loss of £10.75 on un-retried transactions that haven’t been noticed at the time.

Administrivia

There are only two active members of the hackspace who are directors (Dan notwithstanding as he is leaving soon). It is likely most cost-effective to make this change all at once, if it costs at all. The following directors have expressed a wish to design:

  • Bob
  • Dan

Dave and Luke have expressed no preference to leave or remain. Gav has expressed that he would prefer to have more than two directors in total, after changes have been made.

The motion is to remove Bob, Dan, Luke and Dave as directors. All voted in favour.

The motion is to seek volunteers from members “in good standing” (subscriptions up to date, and who have been members and not missed a subs payment in at least 6 months) who wish to become directors. All voted in favour.

It has been suggested that non-members ought not to be directors. We couldn’t agree on what the implications and requirements around membership and directorship should be.

Dan is leaving and he’s a cardholder/signatory on the bank account, and is also linked to the bank account (as a user on Lloyds). Dave is in the same position except he is not a cardholder. It is proposed that all permissions are remove from Dan and Dave, leaving Nat as the sole signatories / cardholders. All voted in favour. Action: Gav

Membership

We currently have 13 members. We are averaging between 13 and 14 for the past 6 months. We have several keysets outstanding to return.

We have had several instances of members who have not set up their standing orders properly or who have failed to pay. This is something that is difficult to deal with but we need people to do right.

We need to overhaul our onboarding process as we’ve also had issues with members not understanding properly how to use the alarm system, in addition to the issues above. We also have several different sources of information about members.

It has been suggested that the process for onboarding members should be owned by an individual. Action: Carwyn

It has been suggested that we could use a standing order mandate to enable payments to be set up properly. Action: Nat

It has been suggested that we should have a membership database. Action: Nick

Lease

Gavin has inquired about the cost of changing the lease to make York Hackspace the tenant. We need to understand the cost, but all present were in favour of this.

We also wish to consider whether we wish to consider any of the alternative available spaces which are currently available to let before spending any money on the lease.

Events

It’s been raised that we’ve often expressed some interest as a group to attend an event but people haven’t been available at the time of the event. Perhaps we should try more to agree as individuals to attend events rather than agreeing as “the group” and sorting out attendance later.

Rich raised that the word “we” is used a lot to attribute “work to be done” to The Hackspace and those things are not taken ownership of - for example, it might be better to use phrasing like “we should do X, I will do Y to contribute”. Additionally, our phrasing when talking to inductees / visitors so that they understand that they will be part of the community and will be expected to contribute.

Online Presence

Bytemark changed hands. As far as we’re aware, nothing should change for us (as a customer) but we should probably find alternative options for hosting; there is a perception that we ought to have something ready to go as soon as possible.

State of the Space

There have been ongoing issues with the alarm system, which have been more frequent lately (sometimes it can be due to a power outage). G&K are aware of a problem on the system (they have a large number of jobs logged for the site). They have had problems getting access to all of the building and getting master codes from the council. They are also missing information about where one of the remote units (in the building) for the alarm is. It seems that the council are not cooperating properly with G&K.

Use of the Space for Workshops

Carwyn has been working with York Repair Cafe, and would like to work with the folk there to set up an occasional event at the hackspace to use the gear to repair things; this would give priority access to use the space during that event. Expected scope would be a maximum of once a month. It’s noted that the membership should be notified with two weeks’ advance notice of the event so they can decide whether to come along and join in, or arrange their hacking around this. All were in favour of this proposal.

We noted it would be really nice to be able to make announcements to the member email list (see membership database).

Kraken Makerspaces

We have become aware of another makerspace (“Kraken Makerspaces”) who own the domain name yorkhackspace.co.uk. We should make contact with them to find out what they’re doing and whether we would be able to meet up and collaborate. Later, if necessary, we might wish to bring up them using a domain name that contains the company name.

Any Other Business

Sometimes people have to think “on their feet” when an incident (e.g. the alarm incidents) needs to be handled, and it needs to be accepted that there is no set of rules or procedures for a lot of situations, and sometimes individuals have been made to feel scolded which is very off putting. It is noted that this might discourage members. It would be useful to have a code of conduct agreed and in the membership pack. Action: Nat, Carwyn

There have been issues with our internet; Nat is going to chase A&A support to check what might be going on. Action: Nat

Actions

The following actions were added to Trello:

  • Document officially (if necessary):
    • YHS is required to ring-fence wind-up funds
    • Depreciation is linear to 0 over 5 years
  • Remove Bob, Dan, Luke, Dave as directors
  • Remove Dan and Dave from the bank account
  • Take ownership of Onboarding Process
  • Investigate use of standing order mandate
  • Implement a membership database
  • Investigate alternative hosting possibilities
  • Contact Kraken Makerspaces
  • Draw up a Code of Conduct and include in the membership pack
  • Ask A&A about internet issues