Community Meeting 20190815

Attendees: SG, MG, PH, Al, JRP, CH, JP, ZZ, CT

Review of/actions from last meeting

SG to make media mailouts a quarterly thing (Carried over - 1 month) - ONGOING

SG to create a list of publications we could send things to - (Carried over - 1 month) - ONGOING

CT to look into whether any of the books are worth anything - (Carried Over - 1 month) -

CT to create signage about clear tables in the workshop - (Carried over - 1 month) - Signage has been created in vinyl, and stuck to the workshop tables. It looks great.

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 - (Carried over - 1 month) - ONGOING

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 - (Carried over - 1 month) - Github issue has been created. ACTION - Collate ideas after a couple of weeks, then create the poster.

SG to create Mailchimp list for 'peripheral' DoES community - Can't just create a mailing list due to GDPR, but we'll update our list of counsillors and the like.

ZZ to look into whiteboard gaffer tape for 3d printers - ACTION - ZZ will buy some and we'll give it a go.

£7.62 for 4.5 metres, on Amazon – shall we give it a go?

Recent Events

Futuregazing - ZZ explained how the evening had worked as best he could, telling us how it was a chance for attendees to discuss how they felt DoES should work, what we should be doing more or less of, and what people think should be our aims. Extensive notes were taken, and are iferjbnfjksfgjklesrnsdjkcad

Helen Campbell and ZZ discussed the 'Theory of Change' as it relates to DoES, and are planning on scheduling an event which will allow the community to partake in this.

Plastic Playgroup - Will now be held every second Sunday. Organised by Plastic Tactics, it involves crushing and remoulding plastics, and was pretty popular. Our ABS will now be used for this rather than being disposed of.

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) - Looks like it may not go ahead.

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

Buy your tickets now
Publicity (Naomi and Jen are dealing with newspapers and radio) - help needed with contacting local groups and influencers
Sponsors (e.g. lunch sponsorship or otherwise) - JP to apply to Awesome Liverpool
Sunday event: repair café (worth asking for help from Manchester group?) / clothes repair cafë / Plastic Playgroup - ACTION - If we're doing a repair cafe style event, it's worth letting the press know ACTION - JP to ask Cathy about Fashion Hub involvement ACTION - JP to speak to Arthur about how Plastic Playgroup could be involved
Recording and livestreaming
Volunteers

Theory of Change workshop with Helen and Zarino – potentially 6pm Friday 27th Sept? (That’s the evening before Festival of Maintenance, is that a problem?). This will potentially move to the 13th to avoid clashing with the Festival and any planned pre-Festival schmoozing.

Finances

Things are going well right now, we're making a good profit and trending upwards.

Promotion

Last month there was a discussion around adding copy to the mugs to say what we do, but this was not assigned to anyone - ACTION - SG to come up with options

AOB

Potential stall at London Road market (mentioned by Richard Jennions at Futuregazing event) - The discussion was around whether or not it is a good fit for us - certainly at Christmas would be good, but year round wouldn't. One thing to look at might be if we could have a kind of demonstration - if we could convince 5 or 6 people to do an hour, we could take a stall for a day and see if there was any interest. We could cross promote a Repair Cafe, potentially monthly, or even try and run on a Maker Day and forward people round to DoES. ACTION - SG to find out whether anyone would be interested in trying to sell at the market.
Xmas Decorations Workshop - There has been discussion around designing new decorations, but it might not be necessary. ZZ pointed out that we need to be stricter on what people are doing, as there was a backlog last year of people waiting for the laser cutter and heat press.
Epic Awards -
Mailboxes - SG explained the current mailbox situation, how Royal Mail now leave everything downstairs and don't actually deliver them to our office. ZZ said that the current mailboxes are difficult to navigate, as the names on them aren't easy to see and aren't in alphabetical order. MG suggested that we have a list of names on a clipboard downstairs so that anyone can check, although we're unsure as to whether people would be happy with their names being visible. CH pointed out that it shouldn't be an issue, as their names are visible inside DoES anytime, including when DoES is open to the public, however it's worth checking with them first.

ZZ asked about the hours that the fobs work, and CH said that he will have a look at the yaml. file to see whether he can make the changes to create access controls for different fobs.

Placement of geometric lights / design of lampshade for hall - the lights have been fixed and moved from the alcove. They're now in Room 29. One plan was to hang them in the hall, but it might not be the best place for them, so discussions are still ongoing. ZZ had raised the issue of having a nice lampshade on the bulb outside DoES. ACTION - SG to email Jason and find out whether there are plans for the light
Al has offered to arrange an FPGA, and will look to do that possibly in October.