Community Meeting 20190718

Attendees: SG, DR, AM, JP, ZZ, JM

Review of/actions from last meeting

SG to make media mailouts a quarterly thing - ONGOING

SG to create a list of publications we could send things to - ONGOING

SG to upload Maeve's report somewhere so that it's more available - uploaded to https://github.com/DoESLiverpool/somebody-should

CT to look into whether any of the books are worth anything - CT is not here

ZZ to sort out Fabulous Fascinators receipts for Rich Jennions to reimburse - DONE

CT to create signage about clear tables in the workshop - CT absent

MG and SG to go through boxes on the storage shelves to get rid of any old ones and make sure everyone who has a membership has a box - ONGOING, not forgotten about.

SG to work with laser team to create rules for the laser room regarding ongoing tidiness and very small scale maintenance that anyone can do - hasn't been done yet, Github issue to be created today.

Recent Events

Makefest (inc. After Party and Brunch) - AM thanked JP for her work in organising DoES' Makefest presence. JP suggested that in future we should have better organisation around the after party, particularly food as people had been standing around all day and were hungry. However, as AM pointed out, we were not obligated to provide food, and discussed whether it might be worth thinking of some kind of ticketing structure for next year as it could otherwise get very expensive for DoES or individuals.

Brunch was well attended and seem like a good thing to do. It was a bit much to organise as there weren't enough people planning in advance, which is something we need to look at in future.

Birthday Party - AM thanked SG for his work in organising the birthday party. JP pointed out that using the oven was a really good new innovation for the party, and something we should do again in the future. AM mentioned how quite a few people dialled in on the Wheelipad, which was very fun and interesting. The party didn't seem as well attended as usual, but that may be down to the fact that we have more space to fill now. ACTION - Create Mailchimp list for 'peripheral' DoES community to ensure that they're updated about things like this.

Upcoming Events

Repair Day - Deian, George from Transition Towns and MG are discussing hosting a Repair Day in advance of the scheduled one the day after the Festival of Maintenance (which is on the 28th of September) - Deian has said that he's quite busy at the moment, so probably won't be able to lead on this as much.

Futuregazing - AM has sent an email to the Google Group about this, outlining how it will work and what the hope is for what it will achieve.

Festival of Maintenance is in September - tickets are available now.

Plastic Playgroup is this Sunday (21/7), and is based around teaching people how they can recycle their plastics.

Finances

Financials

Continuing to generate a reasonable, small, profit. We had high service charge that month partially due to costs surrounding a recent break-in although we're also getting a credit note relating to this as there was some confusion about how this was charged.

Promotion

SG mentioned the poster he had designed and that a friend of Alex Lennon's had taken a pass at it. The second effort seems to have focused more on the desk side rather than just the maker side, which is good as we're less good at pushing that.

The mugs are still something we want to get out into the world, but it's pointed out that they don't actually tell people what we do. We will need to add some copy to the design and then get someone who can make a load of them to distribute.

AOB

Alter meeting cycle from current day-day-evening - cycle will switch to alternating day and evening meetings to give more people chance to attend more regularly.

How to manage sheet materials/things that don't fit in a box, and pricing - the idea was always that we would charge for storage beyond the standard. Although we would need to give people notice, we should look to instigate this soon. Most hackspaces have 'Do Not Hack' stickers, although this would be a serious culture shift from how we currently operate.

SG discussed trying to organise a Community night out, which would run with a Hack the Space day. This would allow us to have a whole day of organisation, with a reward at the end.

ZZ talked about how we should have a way for people to leave their details next to the 3d printers, as there have been a few times that he's noticed failed prints been unable to do anything about it. AM suggested whiteboard gaffer tape, so ZZ will look to action this.