Meeting Notes 2016 08 16

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DELETE EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE WHEN YOU POST THE MEETING MINUTES KTHX!!!

These are the notes from the The 422nd Meeting of Noisebridge. Date: Aug 16, 2016 Note-taker: Lizzard; Moderators: Steve.

• One or two bullet points of high-level meeting summary.

Meeting Summary

FIXME FILL OUT AT END OF MEETING AND SEND TO MAILING LIST TLDR what happened at the meeting:

• Announcements:
• Finances:
• New members:
• New philanthropists:
• Consensus Items:
• Discussion Items:

Introductions

• Invite a knowledgeable volunteer to explain what Noisebridge is about:

Noisebridge is a 501c3 nonprofit that provides a space for creation, collaboration, and learning about technology and creative projects. Noisebridge provides space, power tools, and infrastructure to help the public learn new skills and create cool things. Noisebridge continues to exist through and depends entirely on membership fees and donations. Our code of conduct is 'Be excellent to each other'."

• Introduce any experimental or unusual moderation techniques that may be using during the meeting like: direct responses, limited speaking time, orderless stack, &c.
• Round of introductions (remember, announcements come later):
  • What's your name
  • What do you do
  • What do you maintain at Noisebridge?
  • if you are new: how did you hear about Noisebridge?

• Jarvis does the intro explanation of what NB is. Come and work on project, learn something, network, DIY stuff.
• Steve, Member, data scientist, physicist, Software developer, Making computer art also lives in austin sometimes
• Michael, SW engineer
• Jarvis, programming, 3d art and graphics
• Jason, electrician, handyman, wannabe programmer, tinkerer!
• Trent - (?) web dev, teaches the python class on monday nights
• Joe, sw dev, coming for 3 years
• A?? 6 months
• Josie, sw dev
• Sarah, not in tech industry, musician, curious about stuff space has to offer!
• Fernandez, activist, computer security, sw dev
• Mark, programmer, activist, been here a couple of weeks and thinks hackerspaces are the way to fix our social system
• yasmin, 2nd time here
• Mark, also a mark. does stuff with games and hacking
• ?? is a philosopher and got into tech when he moved to America
• Danny hasn't been here for a while used to be around a lot. day job is an activist. learning Elm which is a functional web prog lang
• Liz went off to start another whole hackerspace but is still around and still supporting fabulous NB
• Blake- austin and here, programmer, interested in privacy and security and leftist politics and wants to abolish all private property. I am tempted to reach over and take his computer but that would be un excellent
• Colin - Other guy who is really into the laser cutter and a physicist.
• Greg - And another guy who talks softly!
• Rebecca - Another woman who it is her second time here

Announcements

• There is a LARP and it's over by the door. It's not really like pokemon go. (Mark?)
• Fernandez says there is a defcon group that wants to meet here.
• a haskell programmer offers to help out with elm and he also wants to work on the dumb phone!
• aubert is teaching category theory every saturday at 3 and it was amazing
• More excitement about haskell and haskell books. Python classes are starting a new cycle next Monday! 7pm, intermediate python
• Alex announces Hack the Future, happening in san jose this weekend, teach 3d printing, arduino, MUDs, programming and stuff. 12-15 year olds. It's at the san jose tech museum and Alex can help with transport and car pooling. Hackthefuture.org

Safe Space

Note: This section is experimental. We discussed it at Meeting_Notes_2016_06_28. We're going to try it for the next meeting, and see how it goes, and then discuss in the discussion section how it went, and how we'd like to tweak it.

Noisebridge is a safe space. Invite a volunteer to describe what that means. (We don't exclude people based on who they are. The diversity of noisebridge makes it better)

Some specific points you might prompt the group to touch on, if it doesn't happen naturally:

• What to do if you feel uncomfortable.
• Noisebridge strives to be radically inclusive. What does that mean?
• Noisebridge has an antiharassment policy. What does that mean? (Sets explicit boundaries on what "being excellent" means)

We have a safe space working group. If there is anyone being overbearing, getting on nerves extremely, sexually harassing you, please report to Steve, Torrie, Scotty, or () Come to them and they will keep your report anonymous.

Someone was recently asked to take a break from the space a couple of weeks ago as part of this process.

If you want to look over the anti-harassment policy you can have a look by the door, where it is posted, or on the wiki.

Membership Binder

• Invite a knowledgeable volunteer to describe membership, and the application process.

Being a member of Noisebridge is not like being a member of a gym or your local chess club. Anyone can come to Noisebridge to hack and learn: you don't need to be a member for that. At Noisebridge, membership is something different: it means taking responsibility and committing to help to maintain, improve, and govern Noisebridge. As a member of Noisebridge, you don't just come here to hack and learn, you actively work to improve what you see around you, help to deal with problems, and make this community and space better than it is today.

• Read off any names from the binder for the past month. Mark down a check or other indicator on every open application to keep track of how many weeks they've been read out.
• Anyone eligible to join this week should
  • introduce themselves,
  • answer any questions members may have for them, then
  • leave the area in search of gifts (traditionally beer and a lime, or cookies) for the rest of the group.
• The rest of the meeting should reach consensus on whether they may join.
• Remember to applaud new members when they return.

There are several levels of membership or participation. You can participate and don't have to be a member/philanthropist.

• The note taker is a little deaf. But Jason is describing how you can make things, tinker, and fix stuff, as part of participating! Like a workshop!
• You can do anything you want in the space that a member or philanthropist can do except block a consensus proposal or be here 24/7.
• You can still support the place with money, cleaning up, organizing things!
• come on in , treat the space and people right.
• "Philanthropist" level gives you 24/7 access to NB, but you can't block consensus. Being here late hours means, take responsibility to let people in and give them a tour, keep an eye on them, be responsible for their behavior
• How do you get an RFID badge, so you can let people in?

• Being a member (and therefore being able to block) takes a while longer to get and involves a fair amount of trust that everyone can work together
• Only members can get you a RFID badge that will get you in for 30 days from 11am - 10pm.

Philanthropists

• Invite a knowledgeable member to describe Philantropy, and the application process.
• Read off any names from the binder for the past month. Any applicants must have their sponsor present to vouch for them.
• If there are no objections, they're a philanthropist! Their pledge should be handed over to the Secretary posthaste, after which their token will be updated to give them the 24/7 access they've earned(?)

Applicants:

• Joe Nelson applying and has a sponsor. Yay no one objects. Applause, he's a philanthropist
• Colin O. also applying. another guy is sponsoring him. Yay he's a philanthropist! Applause.
• Jason (already a philanthropist) is interested and will talk with Steve after the meeting

Membership description

• membership is an important role and you help make decisions about the space

• to become a member your name is put in the binder for 4 weeks. you need to be sponsored by 2 people. After the 4th week if there are no objections, you become a member.
• Steve recommends you just be excellent for a while and let people nominate you once you've been around for a while.

Financial Report

• Funds in bank:  ??? treasurer not here. But, enough for rent for a few months anyway. Plus around 10K noisetor money. Wow , 40 K? 15 K was from google and we spent some for the giant laser cutter. Talk with john s. if you have ideas. there is a page on the wiki for submitting ideas on using the equipment money.

• Noisetor (See the bulletpoints at the bottom of http://noisetor.net/finances/#summary):
• Any other details by those participating in handling our financials

Consensus and Discussion

• invite a knowledgeable volunteer to give a brief primer on consensus process
• It is important that everyone in attendance understands at least:
  • Blocking with verbalized principled objections.
  • Why we use consensus over other approaches to decision making.
  • How consensus isn't a legislative process
  • Why consensus isn't applicable to some things like conflict resolution, resolution of time sinks, and the like.

Proposals from last week

(Add any items which are consensed upon or someone has raised a principle objection for to the Consensus Items History page.)

Proposals for next week

(Add any new items for consensus to the Current Consensus Items page.)

• what are the plans for the bathroom. jason is interested in fixing it. he knows how to do electrical work. and sheetrock and stuff. who should he talk with? is there a rule for the process of what to do?
  • someone else has a plan to put up some sort of plastic panels first
• we do have a do-ocracy so maybe go ahead and do it!
• Amazing, jason is going to fix a bathroom!

• The nb library is in good shape and there is a flask app you can use to search the library! Howard and ?? are workign on the library and if you want to help, talk with them! Howard is doing a project to put a label on every book

• Is the game dev thing going on tonight? Yes! Alex is running it in Turing tonight.

No new consensus items.

Discussion Items

If any important discussion happens, it should be happening after forward progress is made during consensus.

Scotty: I have a proposed change to the meeting format. Rearrange the order of philanthropists and members. Philanthropy is a better starting point for people getting started in the space. Steve: That's a great idea

Scotty: Also, discussing access. Slack access, key access, and general discussion on what it means to participate in Noisebridge. Alex: Yes. This is always a part of how we define membership/discussion/philanthropy Jason: Do we have a script/way to discuss these processes? Scotty: I guess this is what we're trying to do. Roger: This is great. We have unwritten things that we say every meeting.

End of Meeting

1. Return the membership binder to its rightful location.
2. Discuss any items for which there was not time during the meeting.
3. Enjoy the company of your fellow hacker, robot, or robothacker.

Note taker posts the notes

1. Clean and tidy the meeting notes including removing all these really verbose instructions.
2. Fill out the short summary at the top listing just announcements, consensus items, discussion topics, and names of new members and philanthropists.
3. Copy paste the notes to the next meeting page. (They will become Last meeting at midnight.)
4. Email the meeting summary to Discuss and Announce lists.
5. CC on the email treasurer@noisebridge.net and secretary@noisebridge.net if there are new members and philanthropists.
6. Edit the Current Consensus Items if anything is proposed for consensus next week.
7. Edit the Consensus Items History if anything was reached consensus or failed to reach consensus this week.

Fun things to do after

• Reprise of the Hackernationale. [This is anarchy - we do what the wiki says!]
• PGP Key Signing could happen now (if it doesn't happen before any given Meeting). Ask others around the space or check the list to see who wants in on the action.