Member Meeting Minutes for May 17th, 2022

Attendees

• Alex Reasinger
• Alisa Grishman
• Bill Shaw
• Brian "Beebo" Esch
• Chris McCann
• Chris Napolitano
• Geno Soroka
• Kiefer Mansfield
• Rex Coughenour
• Rich Simpson
• Stephen Norcup

Call to Order

• The meeting was called to order at 19:38

New member!

• Bill Shaw
  • Hi, Bill!
  • Originally from Sacramento, but moved to Pittsburgh recently
  • Owns a Vintage Camelback drill press from the 1890s/1900s
  • Has a welder machine at home and is looking to get more into that as well as more woodworking

Board elections!

• Two new board members!
  • Jeremy Sweeney
  • Alisa Grishman
• The new board will decide within their ranks who takes what role
  • Alisa wants secretary

New donation

• $10,000
• Alisa Grishman’s grandparents left an estate to be used to contribute to charity, and she talked with her family and everyone agreed that Hack Pittsburgh was a worthy place to receive funding
  • Alisa has asked that the main priorities for projects be making the downstairs bathroom accessible and, should Dale give us his blessing, installing some form of air conditioning
• Part of Hack’s constitution states that new large-budget projects cannot be started unless there is 6 months of operating costs in the bank
  • This donation brings us well over that benchmark

Treasurer report

• Bank: $7,195
  • Does not reflect $10,000 donation
  • Recent payments made to buy equipment for metal lathe, laser cutter

Bathroom

• Dale has given us permission to work on the downstairs bathroom to make it accessible
  • Alisa has been actively communicating with him
• Biggest obstacle is the removal of the chimney
  • Would require a professional contracting company to come in and do the work
  • Dale has given us permission find our own contractor without him having to vet our choice; in return, we will keep him abreast of all progress including dates where loud noises and construction are expected
• After the chimney is out, we can do all of the work (drywall, etc) by ourselves
• Potential timeline is in the next 2-4 months
  • Need to find contractors and get estimates
  • Need to work with Becky to reshape existent grant applications and apply for money

Shop clean

• Last Sunday of the month (May 29) at 12:00
• There will be pizza!
• There’s still a list of things on the inside of the Jumonville Street door if people aren’t free for the big monthly clean and want to find some stuff to do
• Big shop clean will involve going through the unfinished parts of the list, plus additional monthly tasks
• For large area-specific projects it might be worth finding a bunch of the people who normally work in that section and planning a separate day with them to do the big things, and save monthly shop cleans for more basic maintenance
• Alisa could use some helpers for small projects around the shop in the near future

Tustin Street Tot Lot Clean-up and Block Party

• We are required by the City to maintain the work that we’ve done on the Tustin Street Tot Lot
  • Work includes but is not limited to:
    • Check on wifi connection
    • Test and repair solar charging stations
    • Replace missing tiles from the fence mural
    • Possibly repaint the wall mural
• Alisa will go over at some point this week to take photos of the current state of things
• Hopefully we can turn this into a neighborhood block party
  • Give back to the community
  • Get community members involved with Hack
• Food
  • Several members have said they have grills
  • Can serve burgers, hot dogs, etc
• We have remaining monies from the City that we can use to fund this
• Hopefully we can make this happen some Saturday in July
  • Need to work with Adam Longwill’s and Quara’e Canady’s schedules, as they’re the main people in charge
• There is a Slack channel, #tustin-playground, which we should utilize for planning

Ukraine Fundraiser

• Tentative date: June 18
• Two potential donation recipients
  • Geno posted an article on the Slack about the Kyiv Maker Space
    • They are 3D printing and laser cutting items to help people in Ukraine
      • Replacing housing items
      • First aid
      • Making parts for drones, javelin missile launchers, bombs
  • Alight Humanitarian Aid
    • Previously vetted by Geno and Becky on Charity Navigator
• As soon as we’ve officially scheduled everything, Geno is going to go to local businesses to get donation/raffle items, food, etc
  • Geno’s grandmother makes Ukrainian dolls that can be raffled off as well

Air Conditioning

• It gets really really hot in the Clean Side in the summer
• Alisa has been talking to Dale about the possibility of putting wall-mounted units through the drywall interior / wood exterior over the Jumonville St. entrance and the former door behind the vending machines
  • Not feasible to cool the Dirty Side both because we open the garage door, which would make cooling there wasteful, and because it’s leakier than the Supreme Court
• Alisa is hopeful that, should Dale approve our plan, we can fundraise the money to buy the units from the membership and then we can do the work ourselves
• Concerns were raised about the possibility of our electricity bill going up
  • More research will be needed on energy consumption of any units we consider buying
  • Current electricity bill is around $120 a month

Soda Machine

• Rich was unfortunately unable to borrow the tools to fix the vending machine ourselves
• Alisa will call the vendor recommended by our machine’s manufacturer to see if they’ll come and give a free estimate
  • If not, the Board will consult on next steps

Masks

• One millionth COVID death in the US today
• Allegheny County has had an uptick in cases, leading to a reinstating of mask mandates in public schools
• One nay, one abstention, otherwise ayes
• Keeping masks for another month

Move to Adjourn

• Meeting adjourned: 20:33

Minutes by A.Grishman (talk) 16:44, 22 August 2022 (PDT)