Member Meeting Minutes for August 3rd, 2022

Attendees

• Alisa Grishman
• Becky Zajdel
• Bill Shaw
• Brian "Beebo" Esch
• Clarissa Somers
• Geno Soroka
• Jeremy Sweeney
• Joe Fraker
• Kiefer Mansfield
• Rex Coughenour
• Rich Simpson
• Rob Bedel

Call to Order

• Meeting was called to order at 19:40

Welcome New Members!

Clarissa Somers

• Initially joined because she wanted to learn about woodworking and 3D printing
• She want to learn how to 3D print buttons for her knitting
• Came to Disability Pride to help with installing wheelchair nighttime safety lights

Announcements

Vaccine Clinic

• Sunday, October 16 from noon to 3
• Partnering with Hilltop for the last 3 years
• Vaccinations are free, though if you have an insurance card please bring it
• There will be coffee and food available to anyone who comes
• Full spectrum of vaccines will be on offer: COVID boosters, meningitis, hepatitis, pneumonia
• Can’t vaccinate kids 3 and under (need to double check ages)
• The flyer that was done by a professional designer in the past gets altered every year with info about the upcoming clinic and will be available mid-August for distribution

Timers on fans

• In the summer one of our biggest power sucks are fans
  • Fans are frequently left on while no one is in the shop, wasting a lot of electricity
• Alisa bought a set of timer outlet plugs that can be set for running 1, 2, 4, or 8 hours to automatically turn fans off when no one is using them

PPE and access to safety equipment

• You can’t spell HAPPINESS without PPE
• There’s a lot of dangerous stuff here that you signed a waiver about when you joined saying that you acknowledge the risks, but this doesn’t mean you don’t have to take the risks seriously anymore
• If you are doing any sort of work where there’s a lot of debris, sharp edges, gives off fumes, anything like that, please wear the proper PPE
• Safety equipment must be easily accessible at all times
  • There is now a green circle around the eyewash station and trauma kit by the metal shop to keep items from being placed in front of them
• There was a safety incident in the shop last week that resulted in a member being taken to the emergency room
  • They did not put on any sort of PPE before using the air compressor to blow on some uncured resin and they wound up getting resin into their eye
  • The situation was made worse when the Board member responding to the incident found that a piece of furniture had been placed in front of the eyewash station and had to move it to access the eyewash
  • Thankfully them eyewash flushed out the resin and the ER doctors gave the member a clean bill of health (at least for their eye)

Treasurer’s Report

• Current bank balance: $10,515.15
  • July is a very expensive month (low membership due to vacations, lots of electricity usage for the fans)
  • Just paid rent
• Paypal: $435.79

Old Business

Ukraine Fundraiser

• As of today we got all of the money to the recipient in Ukraine
• Link to the article that was done about the people we donated to: Death from above, printed at home: Ukrainians deploy DIY weapons against Russian troops

Laser Cutter

• It is now aligned and mostly tuned
  • It will drift out of alignment over the next couple of months as people use it and will just need realigned while things settle into place
• Software
  • Rob needs to do some tweeks over the next couple of days, but it should be up and running by the weekend
• Training will be absolutely mandatory for everyone no matter what you’ve used in the past, as this is an entirely new machine with new software
  • Rob will be doing training on the new machine all weekend
  • It’s “scary fast”
• RFID system isn’t up yet – we will continue to use the paper sign-in system for the next few weeks until we get the RFID up and running

Tustin Tot Lot

• Alisa is just going to see if she can find two or three people to go over to the lot with her on Saturday the 13th at noon to redo the tiles
• Adam did a pair of recordings with Alisa explaining how the electronic mechanisms work so we have them for posterity
  • When we were at the park we discovered that the power to the wifi is off and we need someone on the 13th to go up a ladder and fix it using instructions given
• Home Depot did not have the needed supplies (1/16” wire rope (aka aircraft cable) and cable crimps) so Alisa will be ordering them online
• Helping fix up the tot lot absolutely counts toward your 2 hours of service for the month

Air Conditioning

• We have a unit picked out!
  • Alisa will talk with Beebo this weekend about ordering them, and then we just need people to come and help install them
• Alisa attempted to have a conversation with someone at Home Depot about our plans to convert our doorway into swinging doors but was unable to do more than find out the name of the specific type of hinges we’re looking for
  • Double Action Hinges
  • There are a couple of issues still for the doors
    • Modifying the door jamb
    • Reconfiguring where the cabinet that currently holds all of the up-for-grabs stuffs is, as it currently blocks one of the doors from opening all the way

New Business

Halloween Party – October 22

• When choosing between the 21st and the 22nd of October we opted for the 22nd so that people aren’t having to rush from work and can spend time on their costumes as needed
• Always a very successful fundraiser for the shop
• Many local businesses have donated items to our raffles in the past, and Becky has already gotten a few donations for this year’s party as well

ReelAbilities Film Festival

• Alisa is proposing that HackPGH becomes a Community Partner for the festival
• ReelAbilities is an annual film festival that’s taken place in Pittsburgh since 2013
  • Focuses on the lives and experiences of disabled people
  • Many films were created by disabled people
  • The local disability community comes out in force to celebrate
  • This year it will be at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh
• Hack has a number of disabled members, including two of its Board members, and strives to be welcoming to people of all abilities
• The only things that being a Community Partner entails is that they will include out logo in their promotional materials, and we will promote the festival in our social media and amongst the membership
  • We are also supposed to buy four tickets within the entire membership, but a) Alisa does that anyway and b) we get a discount code that we get to share with everyone

Section Leads

• This is ostensibly old business but Spencer Zacher had some new ideas that made it worth putting in new business; unfortunately Spencer could not join the meeting tonight
• There is a difference between a “section lead” and a “leading expert on a particular section”
• While there are a couple of de-facto section leads, we both need to clearly define what being a “section lead” even entails and then find people who actively want to do that job
  • Needs to be someone who is very respondent to Slack messages or other forms of communication
• Setting up a reporting hierarchy
  • If a member has a problem with a tool they go to the relevant section lead, and then if the section lead needs to they can escalate the problem up to the Board

Item tabled

• Spencer Zacher had a number of ideas regarding having intra-section meetings, but as he was unable to attend the meeting we have tabled this until next meeting

Member Questions

MIG Welding

• Kiefer: “Do we have anyone signed up for the welding class yet?”
  • MIG class on the 27th
  • There’s at least one person signed up
  • Kiefer requests that we move the class out a bit if there isn’t at least one more person signed up by the 13th
  • Lamp kits have been ordered

TIG Welding and Plasma Cutter

• Bill: “Will a TIG or plasma class come up at some point in the future?”
  • Not enough equipment to do a full class
  • Kiefer and Bill will connect to set up a private class

Motion to Adjourn

• Meeting was adjourned at 20:31

Minutes by A.Grishman (talk) 21:25, 23 August 2022 (PDT)