Meeting notes/Meeting Notes 2025 11 04

These are the notes from the The 838th Meeting of Noisebridge.

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UPDATE meeting number above where it says the XXXth meeting of Noisebridge (by checking previous meetings)

Date	2025 mm dd UPDATE DATE
Note-takers	Elan, Loren
Moderators	Zoda

Previous Meeting

Next Meeting

• One or two bullet points of high-level meeting summary.

Meeting Summary

• Fundraising Update:
• Announcements:
• Finances:
• New members:
• New associates:
• Consensus Items:
• Discussion Items:

Introductions

Cynthia - before bitcoin was $8

LX - came from defcon, stuck around for games/...

Michael - coming for 6months, was away/am back, usual attends game dev

- I'm not here

Anh - coming here for a year, here for the meetups and free pizza

Robbie - coming for a month

Elan - spacebridge, infra, graffiti stuff

Loren - mcint online, infra meetups, finance

Daniel - aka Daniel(Web) does a lot of thing, considers himself a computer man

Wheezy- ios/android/redteaming/linux/music production/electric speeding man/instersection of tech and art

Carl - coming since 2010, if you have questions about programming Flaschentaschen please come ask! Here in east-bay.

Zoda - I do computer stuff - I like the woods, interested in woodworking

Elle/Ellen - Coming for 2 years. I like to write/sew/raise funds/doing organization stuff (Noisebridge and elsewhere!).

Jess - 3d printing, spacebridge, enjoy NB as a community

Nthmost - been part of NB for awhile (pre-2009), most recently helped move into the new space

Nat - I like to lurk, 2018, recently build an electric horse that sadly horse.

Larry -

Short announcements and events

• 60-second description per item in bulletpoint.
• Copy-paste any pre-announcements for the upcoming meeting from Announcements.
• After announcements, copy them to the past Announcements list. Retire any from the Next Meeting list that aren't marked ONGOING.
• (See https://www.noisebridge.net/ and https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Category:Events for events, and welcoming people)

• There's a Wikipedia game jam coming up! (link tbd)

• Noisebridge Theory night will continue next week - moving to 5:30

• Field trip to Hayward hackerspace (Sun Gallery)

• Community poll happening!

• We are collecting stickers from bay area hackerspaces to trade @ CCC

• GoFundMe going out! (soon/after tomorrow) Talk to Zoda/Anh/Aja

• 5MoF needs volunteers!

• Silence auction is being restarted as a holiday party - if interested please reach out to fundraising-wg!

Excellence

Our One Rule is to Be Excellent to Each Other. (On first Tuesdays, seek a few definitions. Other Tuesday, give a 1-3 sentence summary.)

Z - Being as welcoming as possible.

Michael - Agree with being welcoming, respectful, acting in good faith is excellent.

LX - Going above and beyond the minimal bar to not get kicked out. It is good to aim to be remembered fondly. Contribute to other people - field goal above the bar whatever that is. Not just following Anti-harassment policy but also being proactive about being helpful.

Robbie - I measure excellence by a feeling of gratitude. When someone is excellent I feel surprised and grateful.

Elle - Excellent means being aware of community and community at large. E.g. cleaning up tables, saying hi to newcomers, being kind to both individuals and at large.

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.) TWO MINUTES MAX 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

Recent examples of excellent behavior, say 3, unless the passion moves you.

• Ty to ghost for food @ meeting.
• Ty to Erik for cleaning up/reorganizing Music room
• Ty to folks who are continuously cleaning the electronics

Zoning, Permitting, & Improvements -- Standing Item

Status this week? Helpful broad asks to the community? NB city bureaucracy WG -- JD & Alice, among others.

• Teneatively our final inspection is ***FRIDAY*** 2025-11-07

Guilds

• What are guilds - briefly describe (much like the previous section on "Excellence")

• LX - Pattern in the open-source world of mantainers. A million things at NB reqruire maintainers. We want to avoid the bus-rule so no one person knows how something works.
• Elle - Guilds were historically a repository of knowledge that gets passed down. Guilds in NB are much the same way - e.g. who to call to fix machines.

 * (thank you for calling this out-nthmost)

• 5MoF needs volunteers! Many great ideas comes through these lightning talks. Definitely <IDEA> did not come from 5MoF.

• Electronics room please organize shelves in the morning / throw out things on table at night.

• Woodshop guild - specifc trash for wood scraps.

• Sewing guild - we need teachers! Even if you have relatively little experience we can get you up to speed. Specifically for Sewing101 which always sells out!

New Members/Associate Members

What are they? Is anyone trying to become a Member or Associate Member? If not move on. No long discussions.

What is a member? / participant?

• 501c3 needs a board and a definition membership of who can vote for the board.

• Full membership is participating in consensus process. (totally participatory)

• 24 hour access - level of trust to take care of space.

• One never needs to block things - it is rare. One of the main purposes of membership is find cool new members to join!

Financial Report (first Tuesday of month only)

Anarchist societies under a capitalist state need money to survive and thrive, yo.

• 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

<Loren to copy screenshots into discord/wiki>

Coinbase unlock is still in process

• Carl - typical numbers for monthly expenses?

• Loren - $12-14k expenses - $5k revenue

• Carl - how much do we have in savings?

• Loren - $18k

• LX - how much bitcoin?

• Loren - ~1btc so ~100k

• Jess - What changed over the last few months?

• Loren - fundraising drive, a donor offered a large sum for matching donations, fundraising activity on top of that. We asked for folks to donate through normal channels we can't deliniate - so instead we are looking at the difference in month-to-month.

• Elle - An email went out to inform folks of our financial situation (unfortuantely with a broken papypal link), some members pre-paid their membership to help out, meant to throw more fundraising parties (OpenSauce, MakerFaire, LitCrawl, NoiseBar).

• LX there is a fundraising group??

• LX?? Membership drive as a means to raise funds. How many new members ae needed to meet our arrears?

• Elle - How many members do we need? We are consistently 6k in the hole

• Josh -How much of the BTC is from NoiseTor?
• Loren - unknown exactly but a small %.

• LX - Back of napkin math - 6k shortfall we'd need ~75 members. I haven't thought about it as a recruitment drive as Elle suggested. Membership is the most sustrainable

• Jess - Looking at the past couple of months we need to focus on the # . We need to make it more welcoming as well as come up with new ways of introducing folks to the space. Be more active in a giving a pitch. To me thinking of just the # of members we need is not healthy or sustainable.

• Elle - For the last 2 years I've been involved with fundraising at NB, party organizing, grant writing, these approaches may have worked in a different SF but haven't seen it happen here. We may never get the BTC. Things can get tied up for years and involve legal struggles. We will not be able to "hold our breath" long enough to get access.

• Loren:

 * Hopeful angle is talked with employee that has has stated they will need to do an auth check to do this (based on board letter).
 * I agree we shouldn't hold our breath for coinbase funds. 
 * I think based on napkin math ~100 people is an approachable number. It is a weird switch to go from mostly people you know to approaching new people

• LX - I agree that is a weird to think about it merely as a numbers game. We do need to expand our outreach and communication to be more welcoming. People should leave with a clear experience/understanding what the space is. We don't need to call everyone we know.

• Zoda - What I tell people: come here, enjoy the space, donate. Don't worry about the process.

• Nthmost - large fundraising happened at last reboot. Had a fundraiser (kickstarter?) that went a bit sideways at times (keys being cut, international tshirt smuggling). Teach-a-thons, build your own home assistants. Getting listed on fun-cheap was great for raising Noisebridge's visibility.

• LX - We did a teach-a-thon as part of the NB15 stupid-hackathon.

• Zoda - I think a lot of these events requires a lot of planning and then can flop. My push is NB is a global phenominon and we should encourage folks around the world to contribute $10/month.

• LX - Adopt-a-hacker?

• Elle - we have a fundraising-wg on discord - meeting close to once a week on sundays. I've heard people waiting for the rescue.

• Zoda - we should encourage small donations whenever someone visits.

• Elle - one of the draws is that NB is free

• LX more physical space reminders

• Nthmost - a lot of folks believe free things are already paid for.

• Michael - as someone who just had a paper thrust in front of me - I'd rather just pay.

• Carl - discussion of associate-membership.

• Michael - we should be very direct with the ask.

• Elle - we've been doing this for months but haven't

• Nelson - I don't know recomended rent

• Elle - membership happy hour to answer questions/find people who can sponsor.

• Carl - we need to target 10 new members(monthly donations) a week

• Solderfumes - I think gatecode could be tied to membership.

 * Loren - object to making it transactional. 
 * Solderfumes - I think transactional is part of the space
 * Jess - I think the gate code should not be tied behind nominal donation 

• Elle - why don't we raise membership to $80 to $120

• Loren - I have explict requests for folks who want to help with finances.

 * 

• Elan -

- outreach to similar scenes

- bot to remind new folks we run on donations

-largess of big money donations

• LX - Donor with an account to get involved. superstar fundraiser for my work bc it was making people feel involved. We should target educational institutes, jobseekers etc.

• Loren - we should make newcomers feel part of something.

• Naomi - Noisebridge has been here many times. We'll get through this by throwing the book at it.

• Zoda - I think we should do all of this - just do it! (*Shia labeouf meme) This is Noisebridge!

• Elle - there are grants to help orgs like us that may support us into the future. The amounts are quite generous. More research in the works. Amounts of 30k are avalable for groups like us. Also, Often there is a pushback to fundraising at NB. The first time we talked about expanding membership there was concern about changing the culture. There is often pursh back in or space when change or new ideas come up. Be ready and do not take it personally.

• Carl - I support increasing membership dues.

• Loren - We can use public declarations to increase funds.

...E get's distracted to look up numbers...

Spending Needs

Gotta spend money on XYZ (i.e. Gate, wiring etc.). WHO CAN SIGN THE CHECK OR LEND THE CREDIT CARD!?!?! It doesn't matter if we agree to do something and it can’t be paid for.

Fundraising Update

How's it all going

Big C Consensus Items

Nobody likes 3 hour meetings, only explain if new people are present. https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Current_Consensus_Items

Consensus Items

Only for talking about Big C consensus items, small c consensus items should be discussed with people at the space at the time of the change/new item.

Discussion Items

Template: (copy me)...

From/Raised by: ... Seeking: decision/outcome/advice/[?] On topic: ...

1: Friendsgiving party! Nov 18th

From/Raised by: Nat Seeking: advice On topic: hosting a potluck friendsgiving

https://nb.wtf/host == https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Hosting_an_Event

make a gSheet -- channel in discord #friendsgiving (24->25) suggest.

Elle: wants a Thanksgiving day event, again. -- but host yours on the 18th if you like, there may be another.

What day? Tuesday - writers guild + weekly meetings Wednesdays - might be better - up to Nat

Nat - let's do Wednesday 7pm

2: Seeking funds for signage/posters

From/Raised by: LX Seeking: approval On topic: for reimbursement

https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Signage

Would like help with making more signage.

Wants the entire space to glow w/ LED signage - particularly for events/classes

We currently have nb.wtf to help with this

https://nb.wtf/host https://nb.wtf/host?qr

Nthmost - We give a lot away for free we should sell the irresponsibility.

• E - Let's try crowsourcing the funds as a way to get

• Michael - Happy to fund that!

3: Renaming membership tiers

From/Raised by: Daniel (Web) Seeking: decision/outcome/advice/[?] advice On topic: Renaming membership tiers

Discusson on the wiki as well as fractured on the discord:

• https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Discussion:Rename_membership_tiers(2025)

4: Scalable Web tech class

From/Raised by: Elan Seeking: decision/outcome/advice/[?] On topic: starting a new Scalable Web tech class

what kind of scalable? tech that i like that is related to what i want to learn/build

what languages?

• python ts go rust etc

what are you seeking?

• approval on date

 * Wednesday seems good

• possible co-host particularly on front-end tech.
• will make a poll?

5: Silent Auction as Xmas party

From/Raised by: Elle Seeking: (for tonight) announcement On topic: Silent Auction -- push into December, make into a Xmas party

Do-ocratic Task Board

Participation also means doing stuff to contribute to the space. Propose new tasks or pick some tasks from Github, from what needs to be done around you, or whatever, and see if someone will sign up to work on that task. Anyone can sign up and it's a great way to show you are contributing!

End of Meeting

Note taker posts the notes

• Clean and tidy the meeting notes including removing all these really verbose instructions.
• Fill out the short summary at the top listing just announcements, consensus items, discussion topics, and names of new members and philanthropists.
• Copy paste the notes to the next meeting page. (They will become Last meeting at midnight.) https://www.noisebridge.net/index.php?title=Last_meeting&redirect=no
• Email the meeting summary to Noisebridge Discuss and Noisebridge Announce lists.
• CC on the email treasurer@noisebridge.net and secretary@noisebridge.net if there are new members and philanthropists.
• Edit the Current Consensus Items if anything is proposed for consensus next week.
• Edit the Consensus Items History if anything was reached consensus or failed to reach consensus this week.

Fun things to do after

• Do a 10 minute cleanup, bring dishes up stairs and wash them, clean the bathroom
• Have some beers on the patio
• Prepare the next weeks' meeting notes
• Lick the walls. Or just draw on them
• sing the Hackernationale (this almost never happens)