Meeting Notes 2026 02 10

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These are the notes from the The 852nd Meeting of Noisebridge.

Date	2026 2 10
Note-takers	Nthmost	Elan
Moderators	Jet

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Meeting Summary

Key Highlights:

• Consensus Items Discussed: Five major items including membership naming legal implications, Fashion Pop-Up approval (March 28), GrillBridge fundraiser, ATL clarification for WEZ (resolved positively), and Board Elections planning
• New Events: Spacebridge launch February 21st; upstairs stereo project completed (3 synced stereos)
• Spending Needs: Shelving completion ($1200-2000), 3D-printed organization systems (filament), potential bridge.net domain acquisition ($35k)
• Cultural Discussion: Deep dive on high-trust Discord channels, conflict routing, and the need for clearer community structures (Space Guardians transition)
• Governance: Board elections planning underway; need to establish voting process and timeline

Attendance: Strong turnout including Angelo, Elan, Daniel, Julius, Loren, Caitlyn, Zacchie, Naomi/Nthmost, Anh, Mark, Jet, Blitzkreig/Chris, WEZ, Jawa, Joseph

Introductions

Ask people to share their name, access needs, and preferred gender pronouns, and what they do at Noisebridge

• Angelo (he/him): I like / love the new CNC machine
• Elan (he/they/whatever): that I can find cool collaborators for cool projects
• Daniel (he/him): three.... deee...
• Julius (he/him): I like that it's free - not for me but if you need it to be
• Loren (): Infra
• Daniel (he/him): I like the electronics room.
• Caitlyn (): I made the food/wine.
• Zacchie (): I like the culture.
• Naomi/Nthmost (): I like hacking on weird culture/art/tech interfaces.
• Anh (She/her): I like working on graphic design stuff
• Mark (He/They): I like the potential
• Jet (They/Them): I like the people.
• Blitzkreig/Chris: Mostly associated with the wood shop. Helping Ken put up the shelves and teaching a bit on wood shop Wednesday.

Short announcements and events

• Spacebridge launch on the 21st!
• Upstairs stereo project completed! 3 stereos in-sync. If anyone wants to help set it up as a Spotify or Airplay speaker, contact the installer. Need training on how to turn it on/off since it shuts down when the space closes at night.

Excellence

Our One Rule is to Be Excellent to Each Other.

• Jet: Excellence is like the golden-rule. Treating others how you'd like to be treated as well as how they would like to be treated!

What does that mean? Please see our page on excellence https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Excellence!

Anti-Harassment Policy & Community Standards of Excellence

Noisebridge has an Anti-Harassment Policy https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Anti-Harassment_Policy

Everyone is expected to follow the Anti-Harassment Policy, please familiarize yourself with it.

More approachable & specific guidelines: https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Community_Standards

https://safespace.noisebridge.net/ is one way to quickly raise issues which will be seen by people in Slack.

Brief Kudos

• Julius: Thank you everyone for helping rearrange the place! Thank you Jet for repairing.
• Naomi: Elan for making himself available for a very difficult emotional conversation
• Jof/Naomi/SuperQ: for being intermediaries for getting us infra keys.

Guilds & WGs

• Rubber-Ducky Guild: We have a new duck -that needs a name- on top of the amplifier next to beyla, the music server. A little green guy w/ sunglasses. (Maybe MC Escher ?! -Perry's suggestion)

New Members/Associate Members

No new members or associate members this meeting.

Finances

• Monthly revenue, expenses. Big projects. Big fundraising events. Reserves in bank.
• Any other details by those participating in handling our financials
• The latest financial reports from the treasurer are available at https://noisebridge.net/wiki/Finances

Spending Needs

• Naomi: Shelving completion will likely cost between $1200-2000
• Angelo: We should do more 3D-printed organization systems. This would need filament support.
• Elan: For the 'low-low-low' price of $35k we could acquire bridge.net allowing us to run *.noise.bridge.net

Consensus Items

See also: https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Current_Consensus_Items

1: Membership Re-Re-Naming - Legal Implications?

From/Raised by: Daniel + Loren

Seeking: Advice/Discussion

Background:

• Noisebridge exists as 501c3 in the eyes of federal/CA govt.
• These entities expect us to have "membership" and a "board".
• These officers/board are legally responsible.
• By labeling everyone who comes through the door a "member", by one interpretation of our bylaws means anyone can vote on board.
• This ambiguity could be legally dicey.

Discussion Points:

• Naomi: The way this actually works in the wild is that you're asked to furnish a list on demand -- and the board can furnish exactly the list that is relevant to the ask.
• Loren: Well if you're worried about entrenched power structures...
• Elan: This was one of the reasons for the tongue-in-cheek suggestion of "member-in-the-eyes". We could amend the bylaws to say something more explicit, e.g. "members for the purposes of the 501C3 legal requirement".
• Daniel: The bylaws just say we have our own internal naming scheme. If we want to change the names as proposed, we can change it to hacker, x hacker, whatever else. I've brought up on discord and was shot down that if this is a legal risk we can ask a lawyer for advice.
• Loren: Concern I expressed and also by Nicole -- we should clarify in the bylaws what these all mean.
• Naomi: Choosing to amend the by-laws would cost a lot of community time. They have never been changed. This would be walking down new territory and this might be the wrong threat to be concerned about.
• Julius: I'm looking at the by-laws now and there's stuff in there like the fact that we're at 83C Wiese [NB's first space] and so maybe it would be good to just all-at-once edit the bylaws to correct + update
• Elan: I don't want to voluntell anyone to do this but does anyone have a contact w/ a lawyer that can help w/ this?
• Loren: Yeah I can try, I might know somebody

2: Fashion Pop-Up

From/Raised by: Jawa + Joseph

Seeking: Approval

Event Details:

• Date: March 28 (Saturday)
• Location: Probably downstairs
• Format: Market-like experience
• No alcohol - some music

Discussion:

• Jet: If you could host in day time it could be better since we try to avoid night events. Do you need help with setup?
• Jawa: Yeah just someone to clear the tables downstairs
• Jet: Okay just ask people around to help out. I run the NB insta account feel free to connect with me after!
• Naomi: General advice: check our 86 page before running events
• Loren: Last two years there have been concerns about fundraisers that didn't actually pan out to make any money for the space and inviting people who are in that community who are banned
• Joseph: Plan on bringing people who are interested in coming to NB -- or we could sell tickets. We have an upcoming fashion show that we'd like to fundraise for.

3: GrillBridge

From/Raised by: Caitlyn

Seeking: Approval

Proposal: I go fishing - I'd like to grill stuff and charge people money for NB

Outcome: Approved

4: ATL Clarification

From/Raised by: Wheezy (WEZ)

Seeking: Advice

Background: On Feb 2nd I was ATL'd and the original message that was sent to me was asking me to leave for one week and then edited for 2 weeks. What should I do?

Discussion:

• Naomi: Zack asked WEZ to ATL for a week but edited it to 2 weeks. Zack has ATL'd himself indefinitely, though I got him to agree minimum 2 weeks.
• Daniel: ATL can be cut by consensus (impromptu)
• Loren: I want WEZ to just return without having to warp consensus in weird ways
• Blitz: IDK what happened IDC just solve your shit and leave it at the door -- my personal opinion ofc but being excellent is not being a dick. Zack doesn't wanna come back fine if WEZ wants to comeback then cool just resolve the conflict
• WEZ: I apologized to Zack and I also apologize to Julius for interrupting the conversation. If anyone else is offended by my words and actions please say so and seek me out
• Julius: TY WEZ -- can you keep the peace if Zack is in the space? Can you be chill?
• WEZ: Yes I can
• Loren: To WEZ & community -- it's excellent to respect the ATL and just leave the space, thank you. It's excellent to ask the meeting and willing to respect a "No", thank you.
• Elan: I don't think it's a safety concern and it's not gonna be worse if you come back but it may be escalated on Zack's part if you do.
• Julius: We have to treat Zach with the presumption that he can process his emotions from here out. If that turns out not to be the case, we can't preemptively protect him from that.

Outcome: Community consensus to allow WEZ to return to the space.

5: Board Elections!

From/Raised by: Naomi + Everyone

Seeking: Take Action

Discussion:

• Elan: We're getting ready for board elections! We will send out a nomination thing, decide how we're electing
• Jet: How do we decide who's electing?
• Naomi: Core Members
• Loren: We've let associate members participate....
• Jet: How has it been held in the past?
• Loren: Various different voting processes
• Jet: Let's make a Consensus item for How Do We Do a Proposal
• Loren: Big-C Consensus?
• Elan: No like small-c but we talk about it online
• Julius: Everyone should read the bylaws -- notification, proxy voting, stuff like that
• Elan: You need to give your legal name if you're on the board
• Naomi: Point of board is a legal API to the world -- not for obtaining power
• Elan: People resign -- they are not removed from the board...I resigned (/tried resigning? what is my legal status lol)

Next Steps: Discussion to continue online about voting process and timeline.

6: How We Impart Legitimacy of Authority Over the Culture in the Space

From/Raised by: Naomi

Seeking: Discussion / Sunlight to disinfect

Background: Concerns about high-trust Discord channels (e.g., Space Guardians), lack of mechanisms for turnover, and trust issues with out-of-state members having decision-making power.

Key Discussion Points:

• Naomi: We don't have any mechanism for pulling people out of high trust positions. There are people in these channels who I don't trust, especially those who don't live in the state anymore and are out of touch with day-to-day operations. There have been trust violations including screenshots being shared inappropriately.

• Zacchae: The premise of having these cabals of police sounds very anti-anarchist. Instead of thinking about how to kick people out of this space, why not start another group/channel?

• Elan: This is the "tyranny of structurelessness" (Jo Freeman). We try not to have organizational hierarchies, but then those become social hierarchies. This was originally a list of people who could respond to urgent issues like people sleeping in the space - like an "adult table" for dealing with unpleasant things.

• Loren: This channel has been around since 2023-2024. When creating the channel, I put the year in the channel name so people would be inclined to let it die, age out. I've registered a complaint every year that the channel should die or have turnover.

• Naomi: Part of the difficulty is that there is no agreement about how it is supposed to operate. We need better conflict routing principles. When we created Space Guardians in 2016 (in Slack), it was a place where people shared interpersonal conflicts in trust to actually help people. This hasn't seemed to work the same way.

• Julius: Yeah, I think we should let it die. I would like to plant the idea of having specific people volunteer to be contact people, and have their names and faces attached to QR codes so that they can be reached individually. That way people can have some agency and have more trust in the person handling the issue.

• Elan: As a fun point-of-information, SpaceGuardians has become "Space Animal Gifs". We have a policy for access-members being "be responsible for the space". There has been an unspoken sort of carry-over.

• Zacchae: These interpersonal convos have been described as gossip but that's what it is. This is how people coordinate in an anarchist space.

• Loren: Groups like this will exist again in the future. People should know who they trust. I think you've succeeded in getting support for your goal of specifically de-legitimizing this specific group.

• Jet: I also have similar grievances with high-trust groups limiting access to API keys etc, and then just ditching. We need to have those groups shared with people who can track access to critical infrastructure. There should never be a situation where just one person has access to something critical.

• Naomi: Yeah so the reason I was able to get SuperQ's attention within 15 minutes while other people called him "hard to reach" was because I maintain relationships with people. I don't come to Noisebridge to have *another job*. This place is made of people. That was also the point of the guild system. It's simultaneously a knowledge-transfer system and also helps people be in relationship to each other.

Note: The tyranny of structurelessness stipulates that tyranny doesn't follow from anarchism, it follows from failure to *define structure* where tyrannical gossip-y backfills are likely to cause harm. See also Anarchy.

End of Meeting