Member Meeting Minutes for April 19th, 2022

Call to order

Becky called this meeting to order at 19:31

Attendees

• Adam Longwill
• Alex Reasinger
• Alisa Grishman
• Andrew Lobos
• Becky Zajdel
• Brian “Beebo” Esch
• Chris McCann
• Chris Napolitano
• Dan Trafton
• Dave Bouwkamp
• Geno
• Hunter McGillvernay
• James Keener
• Kiefer Mansfield
• Kris Kunihero
• Leszek Wajner
• Morgan Wable
• Nick Lapp
• Nick Naro
• Pedro Herrera
• Rex Coughenour
• Rich Simpson
• Rob Bedel
• Sean Guzek
• Steve Norcup
• Steve Owens
• Vince Walker

New Members!

• Steve Norcup, Hunter Gillvernay, Pedro Herrera, Andrew Lovas, Nick Lapp

Treasurer’s report

• $8681.23 in the bank, $806.18
  • Several new purchases happened, such as linear rails for the laser cutter
• Luis Hermoso’s company donated $1500 to the space in largely unrestricted funds
  • Can’t go towards the laser tube fund; earmarked for projects and classes
• People have been great about giving donations toward the laser tube. Yay us!

Two Board seats open

• Adam’s term is up, Taylor quit
• For the next week we will be accepting nominations, then there will be a vote announced in a week, and then there will be a vote via Wild Apricot
  • (There will be exceptions for people whose memberships are temporarily lapsed.)
• Send your nomination to info@hackpgh.org
• The nominee does not have to be a member
  • Board Member does still have to pay for their membership

Masking

• Becky’s friend is a doctor with the CDC
  • Three weeks ago he would have supported us going to a voluntary mask policy as long as people continue to hand wash and clean up the space
    • Masking isn’t the only thing! We need to clean up!
  • Since the doctor said that, there’ve been spikes in COVID cases and rising of Omicron variants, and now he recommends us going at least another month requiring masks
• Alisa wants them still on to protect people who are immunocompromised, plus members with kids
  • Steve Owens, Morgan Wable, and Rex Coughenour agree
  • Steve points out that it’s not just about future germs in the air, it’s also about the germs that already happened
• Becky says we need to do better about cleaning up stuff around the shop, doing hand washing, sanitizing, etc
• Having masking an option unless people ask for it isn’t a good option
  • Puts to onus unfairly on compromised people
  • The person who called for it in the first place got very angry and refused to do so when asked
• Good source for seeing the stats: COVID Alert PA app
  • CDC.gov has a good metric
• Still fine to take your mask off in the wood shop while using a tool
• Votes were overwhelmingly in favor of keeping masks, along with hand washing and station cleaning

Classes/Meetups etc

• We’ve gotten a lot of requests for classes and need people to teach them
  • Perks: Can keep half of the fees, free membership, etc
  • Contact the Board
• Meetups
  • Many questions about getting those going again
    • Board games, foam and fiber, lockpicking, etc
• Summer get-together
  • One idea is having it at Tustin St. Tot Lot for cleaning up stuff and then having a cookout
    • Tot Lot has its own separate funding pool that we can use to pay for food and stuff and have it be a community get-together

Website

• Morgan might be able to work on some of it over the summer
• Vince can also help with the website, and also works professionally in social media and would be happy to work on our SM presence

Vote of No Confidence

• Alisa is still waiting to hear from lawyer apropos going through everything
  • Will bring this vote up again at a future meeting once the lawyer has had a chance to go through things
• Every state, commonwealth, etc has policies on how those work
• Hope we never have to use it, but it should be there as a check

Shop Clean

• All the stuff in front of the garage
• Dust collection sound reduction system
• Organization of the cubbies by soft arts
• Check off stuff on the list on the door

Soda Machine

• Kris and Rich took a look at it
  • They have some equipment and can probably borrow other equipment to solder on a new valve, empty the thing, and recharge it with new coolant
  • Board will reimburse for anything we need to get it working again

Weekly/monthly checklists

• Need someone to do a weekly check-through and a monthly check-through of supplies
  • Need to have a dedicated member
    • Board member at large?
• Make an @ tag on Slack – instead of tagging @board, have it so we can tag @supplies
• Have it be a board member’s responsibility to make sure it happens once a week

Laser cutter

• Current work
  • Cleaning out the insides, which are disgusting
  • Realigning lasers
    • May need to close the shop for half a day for safety reasons
  • Redesigning mirror mounts
  • A whole bunch of other stuff
• New linear rails coming later this week
• We’ve had it for 8 years, and it’s going to be working better at the end than it did when we first got it

Sean’s Patreon

• Sean is spending all of his time fixing up the shop
• Sean is awesome
• People can voluntarily contribute to his Patreon, or put money into the piggy bank at the shop
• https://www.patreon.com/HackerSean

Move to adjourn

• Adjourned 20:55

• Minutes by A.Grishman (talk) 18:37, 19 April 2022 (PDT)