Meeting notes/Meeting Notes 2025 09 02

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Only after finishing notes, writing summary, uploading summary to discord/email. REMOVE ME (and above).

These are the notes from the The 828th Meeting of Noisebridge.

Date	2025 08 26
Note-takers	Andrew
Moderators	Weezy

Previous Meeting Edit redirect [Last meeting]

Next Meeting Edit redirect [Next meeting]

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

Meeting Summary

FILL OUT AT END OF MEETING AND SEND TO MAILING LIST/SLACK/DISCORD Include: TLDR what happened at the meeting:

• Announcements:
• Consensus Items:
• Discussion Items:

Introductions

• Ask people to share their name, access needs, and preferred gender pronouns what they do at noisebridge

Weezy - hacker by day musician by night Loren - Talk to him about treasury things and does infra on Mondays. Andrew - self Elle - Fundraising and would love to do a report Ricky - New here, retired electrician but does other activities Jackie - former test flight engineer. Burned OUT! Discovering food x innovation. Dablles in all things tech. Loves to have the student mind and learning new things. Jamison - startup related to fishing gear! Nixie? - Hoping to become an elevated member. Zota - Not looking to be an elevated member. Does computer stuff. Organizing the electronics room but woodshop is what brough them here. Jay - student who comes to the space from time to time Online:

   Yasser - been to NB several times and aspires to be a member on day. Signal processing engineer.

Elon - spacebridge and computer stuff Mark: I like games and organizing things at NB

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)

Couple Sewing events coming up Hacking Jeans, Pt 2 Leather class - having a class not sure what day Crochet - having a class not sure what day Zota - seeking content for NB socials. Anyone willing to be recorded while taking about what they're working on currently. Andrew - associate member & Proposed AI hacking workshop, wednesdays in October to start Loren/Weezy - Hacking/Crypto conference Elon - Challenge grant to raise $10k Elle - Membership drive Jamison - 3D printers available

Excellence

Our One Rule is to Be Excellent to Each Other. (Give a quick, 1-3 sentence summary.)

Someone going out of their way to make you comfortable and support you Being kind Standing up for others All of the "unsaids" Acting in cooporative and predictable ways Supportive of others and the space

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.) 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 participation, say 3, unless the passion moves you.

Mohammed for being very awesome during sewing yard sale 3 days running. Would not have happened without him! Honorable mention for Liz

Mohammed for trash

Ken, Brian and others to complete the woodshop so we can close permits and not get Fined

Mohammed clearing out the space and inviting new folks to the space (Jackie and Ricky)

kudos zoda for cleaning up nb. Electrics room looks beautiful

kudos Zach m for helping with coinbase

Ken for finding time in the day to organize the sewing room

Everyone for being here

Buddy the dog for being excellent

Zoning & Permitting Standing Item

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

Loren - zoning permiting: we're expected to close our permit by Sept 20 5k electrical, 2-3k on permits, another 2k on HVIC supplier, and also for roofing labor. We expect to pay out 4 vendors in the next month.

Vents/ducts additionally going into the space soon in the woodshop soon

Holes in the music room are good

Guilds

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

New Members/Associate Members

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

• Andrew

Financial Report (first Tuesday of month only)

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

• Using Fava which is a front-end for beancount
• Have daily postings from Paypal / stripe
• Everything is assigned assets, liabilities, income, expenses
• Filtering for this month: brought in just under 4k and spent over 16400
• This month we expect to spend 20K
• Looking into ebay to sell things, registration with funds will allow us to receive donations from larger donors. Can more easily get more grants.
• Are all members paying? Prob not. Need someone to look at the data a little closer.
• Noah - going to up donation
• Put up signage about NB seeking funds (in particular) this month
• Jameson - have guilds build things to encourage donation
• We are going to create a thermometer tracker
• Scan your tag at the door idea?
• Where are QR codes? How do we get them? Loren - can make them for the wiki and can get one from Paypal. (Best practice is to include a link under the QR code)

• 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

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

Silent Auction: Coming up on the 13th of September. Volunteers needed! - A lot of donations have been coming in. Raised a good amount last year and are set to raise more this year but Elle seeking more involvement - Silent auction invite, but waiting on language, design, one other thing. - Example of a donated item: Fart sensor to be made by Noah(can order more for next year)

Challenge Grant: We have received a 5k donation and are challenged to raise an additional 10k. Plea will go out today or tomorrow. Working on the language. Will include a link to Zoda's video.

Question: how much is the annual fundraising goal? Answer from Loren: We spend about 150k a year and raise about 5k a month without additional fundraising.

General Fundraising discussion:

   How much do we raise in a good year? Are we in trouble just because of the zoning issues?
   Loren: No for quite a few other reasons. We run a deficit every month every year.
   Zoda: Membership can cover our regular costs. It is a small step to grow to enough to cover and more members means more engagment and more $ comes from that.
   Elle: We can consider raisine the expected cost of membership from 80 to 100. We cna also add innovative fundraising techniques that comport with our ethos. 
   Noah: Encouraging folks to add to their monthly donnation is very helpful. Did not know about funds problems until heard at the fundraising meeting and is now upping his donnation. Suggestion: a poster at door saying "We are in deep doo-doo...'

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 or can be reserved for the discussion section of the meeting.

Discussion Items

It is recommended to post items for discussion ahead of time at https://pad.riseup.net/p/nbmeeting. (Check that the template for the meeting is in place already, and that last week's notes have been moved to the wiki, of course)

Item prompts should follow the format: From/Raised by: [your name here] Seeking [decision/outcome/advice/something else] On topic: [topic]

Discussion Item 1

From/Raised by: Jameson Seeking advice On topic: 3D printer

I have several 3d printers I can donate to nb if 10 people donated

Ruth bought supplies that need to be actively maintained.

Print to fabic, ruins printers, but able to make cool patterned fabrics. We can make NB fabrics, for hat / patches, shirts, jackets.

In the past when raising $ for cool equipment we would ask 1/2 from NB and 1/2 from people in our space. Zoda suggests: Ken's success in raising 500 by asking on discord

$1000 new, $500 would be the goal.

Discussion Item 2

From/Raised by:Making it easier to pay noisebridge by Jameson Seeking On topic:

• we now have Paypal nonprofit certified. 50c + 1.8% (?), vs previous [base] + 3.8%
• Loren wants to get people who are interested in APIs/webhooks & wants to build excitement/interest on a call
• We can get a free payment terminal from them
• Have one more call with paypall to confirm things
• Elle: Used to have QR codes & can we have them again for Paypal? Loren: Yes, probably
• Elon has a github pr for nb python donate page
• Will probably end up as a working group in Discord? Post now?
• Loren suggests a working group about finance regularly (fundraising meetings are weekly but only for the month of Sept.)
• Jameson offers solar panel instalation for noisebridge, found someone on craigslist that has bunch of solar panels, and knows how to unlock it on a software level
• Julius mentions we have $1000/mo bill for electricity
• Batteries are good
• Jackie mentions grants that can count for us have solar renewable energy
• Loren suggests posting some of this content in Discord (WG forum)
• Loren has tools that helps with finance
• Technical difficulties are being had with the meeting tech

Discussion Item 3

From/Raised by: Elon Seeking On topic: What's the associate membership process?

• Membership drive is an opportunity
• Recurring event maybe? Happy hour? as a way for people to get more involved vs. just the Tue meetings
• Elle suggesting Mondays
• Might require a change to the bylaws
• Zoda - not sure about making such a big change
• Loren - people want to be albe to claim affiliation
• Mark - Might be a big C consensus item to change membership application language at best
• Zoda - Membership is about the culture of NB.
• Jackie - New "Friends of NB" category? Not an assoc. member but still involved
• Jay - Schedule dictates what they're able to do here, does not have RFID token but has a key. Loren will help get them access.
• Elle seconds the idea of "Friends of NB" or trusted person. The idea of having a membership drive is people having access to members (not necessarily getting a huge batch of new members)
• Loren talk about the space being open when members are here. Nice balance of members signing up for office hours (agrees to be here between a time range) AND agrees with some of the aforementioned concerns re: membership
• Elle: enforcement might be difficult
• Loren proposing a token / medallion
• Zoda - people don't know each other within NB groups. Likes the idea of a regular happy hour or office hours. People who don't come to the NB space physically are still interested in supporting (keeping in mind w/ social campaign)
• Elle assoc. members can be elevated to members and it's a big deal. People want to be members as well so we shouldn't dismiss that either. There are benefits to increasing membership beyond more income. A community that doesn't grow, dies. People go on to do other things, live in new places, etc.
• Jay - one of the first things he noticed was the deficit
• Jameson - nothing to sign or immediate next step after coming here. Brought a friend who wanted to sign up right away but the friend was discouraged by the second or third meeting. Could add a disclaimer that it [new tier] does not include 24 access to the space
• Josh - Does not require a change of the bylaws to change the meeting night
• Weezy seconds the idea of happy hour or something of that sort
• Loren Q3 newsletter, including info about woodshop, wants to have someone write it up (here's what we did, why it matters, etc.). Possibly do this by guild?
• Jameson - giving members of the community a way to pay and/or be recognized somehow
• Elle - suggests asking people to teach or host workshops. Can't assume that people will be interested in the same things we are.
• Patreon is a good idea
• Jackie - Maybe this is where the "friends of NB" thing comes in? Needing to maintain this status

• Backpack model of membership -- what parts of the shared load are you helping to carry?
• Zoda - have we lost the anarchist plot? All this conversation of teirs of membership from Big M, to associate, to now friends of Noisebridge? My idea is that the understanding of noisebrdige's flavor anarchism is that all members are equal and that everyone deserves to argue, no is above others, we hash it all out until we reach consensus. No one can take it down and say "sorry youre just friends of noisebridge, not a big m" it feels like the wrong undertones for the community.
• Elle - some may see membership as a burden, but others might see it as something they can do to contribute
• Loren - How we participate is not beuracracy but this is one way we can expand. Doesn't see it a challenge to the culture.
• Yasser - Seconds office hours. Part of being a member is comitting to spending x amount of hours in the space.
• Jameson - maybe we downgrade the assoc. member tier.

Discussion Item 4

From/Raised by: Elon Seeking On topic: Would people be cool with hosting a fundraiser for a science-based nonprofit in Sept?

• Nonprofit aiming to supplement funding that was cut for the [group that had funding cut]
• Link: https://science-foundation.org/
• Many events happening in Sept. and might be some conflict
• Andrew - Working group or thread in Discord to discuss further?

Discussion Item 6

From/Raised by: wheezy Seeking On topic: zoning compliance responsibility

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.
• 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)