This is an old revision of the document!
Meeting minutes: June 14, 2016
- 10 full members in attendance
- Chairperson's address
- John Tumbach is chairperson, Albert La is vice-chairperson, James Cooper is secretary/treasurer
- Wants to review previous meeting minutes at each meeting
- Regular items
- Reading of the previous minutes
- Reviewed minutes. Albert motioned to accept. Accepted unanimously.
- Financial update
- $2349.46 in the bank and PayPal. Rent has already come out.
- Membership
- Currently 28 full members, 6 associates.
- David Martin has updated to a full membership.
- Jack Vu has applied as an associate.
- Tools
- James has not looked into the blade yet. Scott has put his blade on there in the mean time. Has donated it to us.
- Al's laser cutter has not yet arrived.
- Rob Philips is willing to donate money to us for us to purchase the laser cutter from Peachy. Albert has prepared a draft agreement for the donation and will be continuing to use it.
- Peachy's laser cutter is currently available for us.
- New business
- We have found that we have not been following the bylaws properly. The board is reviewing the bylaws and adjusting procedures to follow them, as well as proposing new bylaws that are more suitable for our use. We will propose these at a special meeting (at the regular meeting time) when the proposals are available. Changes are largely based around the rules for membership, since they are currently “whack”. For example, associate membership is ill-defined. Will likely move some elements out of the bylaws and into policies and procedures.
- We can currently afford 1100 sq. ft. at current rent and occupancy rates. Problem is, there aren't many spaces available at this size. If we could afford a 1400 sq. ft. space, we would have many more options. This would require and additional $4000 per year (the equivalent of 7 new members). There are many options for how we could raise funds for this. We should discuss what kind of fund raisers we are willing to do in order to accomplish this.
- Getting new members is the most reliable way to make this additional money, as opposed to having to run regular fundraising. However, it doesn't have to be the only way. Fundraisers can get us money from people who wouldn't otherwise be interested in paying for membership.
- Ideas for fundraisers: steak nights, “girl guide cookies”, 50/50, cooking burgers by Canadian Tire, silent auctions, corporate sponsorships.
- Scott has asked companies about corporate sponsorship, but the only things they were interested in getting for their sponsorship is “access to brains”. This was something he felt we couldn't guarantee.
- Rylan has a school bus that he would be willing to turn into a “hacker bus”. We could fill it with cool projects and use it as a mobile demo.
