¶ Annual Meeting 10 March 2026
¶ Time & Location
| Date | 2026-03-10 19:35 |
| Members Present | Liz, Andrew, Bob, Oby, Maddie, Sven, Ivan, Eric, Nick H, Gabe, Brock |
| Others Present | Kevin, Austin, Joey, Tim, Damian, |
| Quorum |  |
¶ Approve Meeting Minutes
February was unable to hit quorum so there are no minutes available from the meeting.
¶ Approval for January Minutes
- Liz motioned; Oby Approved
¶ Treasurer's Report
- Balenance: $4388
- Trying to withdraw money from Coinbase
- Working with
- Current Membership: 28 people
- Extra donations from Tayeb, John, Oby, and Gabe
- Expenses: $3142.61
- Feb last month will be the last month of Truist Serivce fees
- Internet: $104.30
- Insurance: $23.31
- Profit: ($1246)
- We will likely be out of money by the time our lease expires in July
- We need to start pushing hard for fundraising, or start looking for a new space
¶ Old Business
¶ Space Blimp
- FAA Coordination
- Working to identify FAA rules for performing the launch
- Target date (depending on weather): 29 March / 4 April
- Chase Car Planning
- Will need volunteers to drive in order to follow the balloon once its launched
- Will be putting out that request shortly
- Completion
- Electronics
75% - Chassis
10% - Firmware
<Ivan> - Planning
30%
- Electronics
¶ Volunteers
- Oby (Car Seats 5)
¶ Firmware
- Hard to estimate what is left
- There is still a lot of work that we have left to do
¶ Fundraising
- It would be a good idea to look into doing a fundraising event for the Space Blimp
¶ Questions
- How can I participate if I do not have a car?
- That will depend on who volunteers to drive
- How are we going to get the helium for the ballon?
- We'll need that do be donated
¶ Member VPN
- Netbird
- Grants access to the HacDC Member Network, allowing to access to
- There are some quirks with it, so please post in the Discord if you run into problems so that way they can be resolved
¶ Cyberpunk Movie Nights
- Movie Nights went very well
- Everyone who showed up enjoyed them
- Aure is looking to do it in the future
¶ Grant Applications
- Working on an ONR Grant submission
- Putting together a whitepaper to submitt
- If anyone has any comments on how HacDC engages in Post-School technical education, send them to
treasurer@hacdc.org - App Deadline is June, so we'll likely not hear anything for a couple of months
- Working to use some of the AI stuff that we have in order to find more grants
¶ Potential Oppurtunites
- Bob knows people at NASA
- Joey has a lot of affiliations with Non-Profits, and has reached out to people
¶ Questions
- What is the general area that the ONR grant is about?
- Specifically for organizations that support STEM education outside of a school setting
- Link: https://www.onr.navy.mil/work-with-us/funding-opportunities/fy25-office-naval-research-onr-science-technology-engineering
¶ New Business
¶ New Member Voting
¶ Raelyn
-
Yes: 12
-
No: 0
-
Raelyn is now a member!
¶ Joey
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Yes: 12
-
No: 0
-
Joey is now a member!
¶ Lucy
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Yes: 12
-
No: 0
-
Lucy is now a member!
¶ Tim
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Yes: 12
-
No: 0
-
Tim is now a member!
¶ Questions
- Does a member need to be present for them to be voted in?
- Members do not need to be present to be voted in, per the Bylaws
- The only requirements are that they must pay dues and voted in at a Members Meeting
¶ Education Outreach
- Bring This up Next Month's Meeting
¶ Space Organization
HUGE thanks to Nick and Aure!!
- Needs clear plan & SPoC
- Need to develop a clear plan on how we want to organize the space in order to keep it clean
- Also need to setup a Single Point of Contact that will determine how things will be organized
- Electronics Parts
- Started working to organize all the electronics componenets that we have (resistors, capacitors, etc.) into one location
- Misc Hardware/Tools (laser cutter area)
- Lots of general storage bins in this area
- Need to start going through those bins and remove any trash
- Project & Donation Storage
- Need to come up with a plan for how we want to organize this area
- Joey volunteered to figure out where we can put all of the donated equipment that we have
¶ Suggestions for Maintaining Organization in the Space
- It would be useful if individuals took ownership over certain parts of the space, keep it clean, and ensure that others keep it clean as well
- Would it be useful if we used an Open Source Inventory Management System?
- Its definetly a good idea
- Work was done in this area a while ago to put item barcodes on some of the stuff that we have
- We can start that labelling/setup during Hardware Night
- We could create a task list that says what work needs to be done
- Routine tasks
- Upcoming/Anticipated organization items
- Completed Tasks
- Helps to set the tone that the organization of the space is important
- Will also look into setting this up at Hardware Night
¶ Server Room Acoustic and Wood Panels
- Want to get rid of those panels
- Looking to do that this weekend - just need a volunteer
- Nick is willing to volunteer to do this
¶ Black Paint in Sink
- Already has been removed
- Thanks Nick!
¶ Seeking Funds
¶ Grants
- Grant Writing Friends (Wedge)
- Wedge has already reached out to some individuals in the non-profit space to help with Grant soliciation
¶ Sponsorships
-
Reached out to Yubico
-
- Someone mentioned that we could try to become affiliated with them
- CCC is aligned with a lot of HacDC's goals and values, so they would be a great organization to partner with
-
We had a previous partnership with Sparkfun
- We could look into setting that up again
-
Other orgs we are planning on reaching out to
- EFF
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District Bridges
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District Bridges is a "connector organizations" that could help put us in touch with other organizations that need assistance with various things
-
We could reach out to them to see if there are any orgs that need our assistance
¶ Membership Recruitment
- Need SPoC to organize efforts
- We want to designate someone who is the primary Point of Contact for handling directly reaching out to potential members for recruitment
- We need to ensure that we document who that person is in the Wiki
¶ Soliciting Donations
- An idea would be to put QR Codes around the space that links to Paypal
- NOTE for Members Donations outside of paying dues are tax-exempt
- Should get a board member to use their phone number on the Paypal buisness account so that we can get a non-Paypal QR code for donation
¶ Misc Ideas
- Paid classes (set rate / sliding scale / donation-based)
- We could use part of the fee for the class to fund the required tools for that class
- Ex. Use the fee to pay for everyone making their own Bump Key
- Basic Linux Mint Install
- Basic Python Scripting for Office Automation
- 3D Printing Workshop
- Interest in homelab class
- Lockpicking Class WIP
- We are affiliated with TooL
- We reached out to TooL to see if they are willing to come and present at HacDC
- Brock
- We should also look at what classes people want to actually pay for
- We could use part of the fee for the class to fund the required tools for that class
- Add funding goal tracker to main board
- Already on the board - need to update with the latest numbers from this meeting
- Coinbase
- Offer up our Coinbase address in case people want/prefer to donate in crypto instead
- Patreon / KoFi
- No perks like membership, but a way to support us
- Remember: donations outside of paying dues are tax deductible!
- Relaunch/Reopening?
- Allow Other Orgs to Use the Space when we aren't using it?
- We might not be able to do this, as it could conflict with the Certificate of Occupation and (potentially) lease terms
- We will look into if we can do it or not
- We can also ask people to donate if they are using the space for their meeting
- Equipment Donation List
- Also after posting any equipment that people would like to be donated into the discord, we should post it online
- Merch
- Maddie and Obi have already started making some merch
- In Progress/Done
- Patches (Obi)
- Lasercut stuff (Maddie)
- Potential Ideas
- PCB Badges (Liz)
- Shirts
- For shirts, we could have people bring their own shirt, and then Screen Print something onto it
- This helps to cut down on the needed space that would be required
- Maybe also print-on-demand
- HacDC-branded YubiKey?
- We should be careful that we do not spend too much money on the required materials for making the merch
¶ Questions
- Could we sell the large amount of atennas that we have at cost?
- We are allowed to do that as a 501(c)(3)
- What does the Sponsorship Policy govern? Does it say what the mechanics or sponsorship are, or who we will/won't sponsor with?\
- Yes, the sponsorship policy covers all of those things
- Are there any donation avenues that we can use that are easier to
- We could look into using Square to integrate between all of these options
- For selling merch, where would we sell it besides the space?
- We have various online approaches
- It will
¶ Better Communication
We need clear labeling of SPoC's for each task and piece of equipment in the space
¶ Rent
We need to start planning in case we cannot continue our lease.
- Cheaper space?
- We are hoping to negotiate with the landlord
- We are also looking for a new potential space that is cheaper
- We are also looking to incorporate outside of DC for potentially cheaper rent
- Is outside of DC ok?
- Communicate with landlord to negotiate rent lower
- Need to offer benefit back to building to offset rent without risking property investment value
¶ Projects
¶ AI Machine
- Up and running! Accessible by member VPN
- Coding agents & webUI chat
- Hope to get 5th GPU functional in future
¶ Laser Cutters
New laser WIP, has proprietary controller, replacement will be here in ~month
¶ Discord
- Reconfigured guild to require captcha for all new users, successfully cutting out AI slop
- Due to age invasion reqs we are looking into migrating to a different platform
- Current viable options
- Matrix (Available for testing at https://matrix.hacdc.org
- XMPP
- Will see where people tend to migrate to
- Ideal requirements
- Easily handle large groups
- E2EE
- Federation
- Clean cross-platform UX
- Current viable options
¶ HacDC Mascot
- "Mo" a kawaii hacker snail
¶ Sidewalk Projection
(Nick & Maddie)
¶ ARC Application
Liz as trustee
¶ Bylaw & Standing Rules Amendments
NOTE: This is just to vote on the language that will be included, not specifically to included it in the bylaws
-
Codify 18+ Requirement for Membership
- In order to qualify for membership, the applicant must be 18 years of age or older at the date of membership voting.
-
Adjust BoD Term Limits
- Board members may spend no more than 5 years in any specific role, with a total of 25 years on the Board of Directors as a whole. Both at large positions counting towards each other's limits. This policy will be revisited at each Annual Meeting.
- Currently no officer may serve more than 3 consecutive terms.
-
Adjust Bylaw Amendment Requirements
- Upon a successful vote during a monthly meeting with quorum, an online or in-person petition will be sent to all voting members. Such petitions after 30 days from being sent out must receive at least 20% of voting members (based on membership counts as of the relevant monthly meeting) to pass.
- Currently 3/4 of all voting members are required to pass bylaw amendments.
-
Lower Meeting Quorum
- Adjust duly called meeting quorum to be 10% of the current membership count. (This is to facilitate the growing membership base)
- Currently quorum requires 25% of current members.
-
Allow Member Voting Outside of Meetings
- New members would be able to be voted in by passing the standard monthly meeting vote or instead a digital vote sent out to voting members as described in the above amendment resolution adjustment proposal.
-
Additional At Large Position
- Add a third at-large board seat
¶ Voting on Postponing the Vote on the Amendment Language
-
Instead of voting to accept this language at this meeting, we'd like to instead motion to suspend voting on the bylaws currently, and table that to the next meeting
-
Maddie motioned; Nick seconded
¶ Voting Result
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On Suspending Voting on the Language of the Bylaws until the Next Members Meeting, voting is as follows:
- Visit Next Month: 8 [X]
- As Written: 1
- Just Revisit Board Limits Next Month; Push Others Now: 1
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We will be revisiting these bylaws amendments in another month
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The bylaws amendments will be put in the Wiki and made editable for members
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Members should make comments on what changes they would like to see, and then those changes will be considered at the next monthly meeting
¶ Questions
- Why are we voting on increasing term limits?
- We need to do this because some members on the board cannot serve as the current bylaws exist
¶ Board Elections
¶ Current Slate of Nominations
| Position | Running Members |
|---|---|
| President | Liz |
| Vice President | Maddie |
| Treasurer | Obi |
| Secretary | Andrew |
| At Large 1 | Sven |
| At Large 2 | Aure |
¶ Voting for the Proposed Slate
- The proposed board slate has passed
¶ Adjourn
- Liz motioned; Joey Seconded
- Meeting adjourned at 09:45pm
¶ Unofficial Miscellaneous
We've been invited to an early screening of The AI Doc
Mike Videopunk, an Experimental A/V Artist from NYC to show a Remix & Rescore of Ghost In The Shell