¶ Members Meeting 2025-11-11
¶ Time & Location
| Date | 2025-11-11 07:35 |
| Members Present | Liz, Andrew, Sven, Madie, Bob, Oby |
| Members Remote | |
| Others Present | Fernand G., Ivan Johnson, Lorentz, Nick H. |
| Quorum |  |
¶ Approve Meeting Minutes
¶ Member Voting
¶ Ivan Johnson
- Results:
- 6 Yah
- 0 Nah
- 1 Abstain
- Welcome to Ivan Johson, our newest member!
¶ Old Business
¶ IKEA Trip and Space Improvements
- Shelves delivered + electronic organization underway (TY Oby)
- One shelf has already been put together
¶ Vice President Elections
- Madeline running for VP
- Aure for At Large 2
- David dropped out
- Temp until full BOD elections in March (Annual Meeting)
¶ Vote for Maddie and Aure
-
6 Yah
-
0 Nah
-
Maddie is now Vice President and Aure is now At Large Member!
¶ Space Blimp VIII
- Need to raise est. $500 for components and Helium
- Electronics design: Liz & Rachel
- Photography & Thermals: Madeline
- Misc. Payload responsibilities up for grabs
- Egg
- Balloon reuse system
- 360 Camera
- APRS/SSTV transmitter
- Potential Deflation Design: Bob
- People who have a General Interest:
- Nick H
- Folks can come to Hardware Hacking Night on Thursdays to collaborate on this project
¶ Equipment Update
NOTE: ANY use of the equipment cannot occur without a signed liability waiver
-
A couple soldering irons working and available
-
Two 3D printers operational; see chart on 3D Printing whiteboard
- Please reach out to the person who is maintaining the printer prior to printing!
- Only members can use the 3D Printers
- Members can print things for Non-Members, if needed
-
We may also need to dry our filimant as well, as it has been sitting for awhile
-
CNC Mill still waiting for testing
- We have found a local company who is willing to donate scraps of metal to us
- Just need to send an official HacDC request
-
Delta Printer
- Thanks to Madie for putting a ton of effort into this!
-
Laser Cutter
- Laser Cutter appears to be working thus far
- Just need to make some software configuration changes prior to doing some additional testing with cardboard
- We do not have the approriate filtration system that we would need for cutting acrylic, so there may be some material limitations
- We also have the documentation for it as well
- Also may reach out to Unallocated Space about what equipment we can get for protecting the equipment
¶ Financial Platforms
- Ko-Fi
- For donations
- Needs to be linked to PayPal
- Ideally used for one-time donations
- Patreon
- Donations & Membership fees
- Patreon charges a 13% Creator Fee, so we wouldn't get the full amount if we used that platform
- Ideally used for recurring donations, seperate from membership fees
- Coinbase
- Make more public for donations
- Would like to keep using Paypal for membership donations
¶ Grant Applications
- On hold currently
- Can't apply until we have a SAM.gov account
- Can't get a SAM account until our 501(c)(3) paperwork has been updated
¶ New Membership Tiers
-
$30/mo for virtual benefits
- Does not give space access outside of public events
- Ability to upgrade to full membership with Discord or eMail vote
- Still requires monthly meeting vote-in
-
$13.37/mo for Students
- Must verify enrollment in accredited university
- Full membership
- Ability to upgrade to full membership w/o vote
¶ Votes
-
Adding $30/mo
- 7 Yes
- 0 No
- Passes
-
Chaning Student Rate to $13.37/mo
- 6 Yes
- 1 No
- Passes
¶ New Business
¶ Bylaws Adjustments
These require 3/4 vote to pass
¶ Codify 18+ Requirement for Membership
- Never has been an issue for us
- Proposing to codify so that way it is not an issue in the future
¶ Change BOD Term Limits
- 5 year limit of current position
- Max 25 years board service
- At large positions count as each other
- Will revisit removing term limits all together at the Annual Meeting
¶ New Membership Perk
- Use HacDC location as Amateur License address for FRN
- Maybe make small set of mailboxes in member area?
¶ Change Member Qurorum
- Change Member Quroum from 25 to 20
- Would not have an impact for the moment, but could have an impact for the future
- We can revist this at a later time
¶ Votes
-
18+ Requirement
- 6 Yes
- 0 No
- Passed
-
BOD Term Limit Changes
- 5 Yes
- 1 No
- 2 Remove Term Limits Altogether
- Passed
-
FRN Address Membership Perk
- 6 Yes
- 0 No
- Passed
¶ Official Partnership with Unallocated Space
- A Baltimore Hackerspace, Unallocated Space, is looking to partner with us
- We have partnered with them in the past
- Will be crossposting some of their events in the HacDC Discord
- Will be writing up information about them on the HacDC Wiki
¶ Pending Donation for Project Bookmark
- Project Bookmark is a digitial "lending library" for books and other written materials
- Madeline knows someone on social media who wants to donate an instance of this project to us to use in the space for digital book donation
¶ Space Heating
- We had an idea to use GPU server or ASIC miners to heat baseboards in the space
- Aure looking into GPU server viability & cost for heating the space during the Winter
- Rather than just dumping heat via a baseboard heater, we could try to get computation out of it as well
- More efficient use of power vs. electric baseboard heaters
¶ Treasurer's Report
- Member Count: 26
- Extra Donations from:
- Tayeb Zaidi
- John Ritland
- Oby
- Gabe
- Freelance Writing and Editing
- Revenue: $1631.71
- Costs: $3289.78
- Eight months worth of funding, which covers us for our current lease
¶ Vote to Adjourn
- Liz motioned at 8:35pm; Oby Seconded
¶ Questions
¶ Space Blimp
-
How are we going to track and retrive the ballon?
- The plan is to track and retrive the ballon via using multiple viechles to keep an eye on it
- There is more information on the Wiki
-
How are we handling deflating the ballon for conservation purposes?
- We would need to likely do this in a professional environment due to the requirements
-
Are we allowed to launch a rocket from the ballon at its apogee?
- We would need to take a look at the FAA regulations
- Would have effects on the Mass Limit
¶ Equipment
-
Do we know if the iternals of the soldering irons are broken, or is it just a tip replacement?
- We are confident that it is the internals
- We could use the broken irons for parts, otherwise just toss them
-
Do we need to make any updates to insurance due to these objects?
- Insurance is set
- People need to sign a liability waiver prior to using ANY of the equipment
-
Do we know that the Liability Waiver is actually enforable under current local laws?
- We have had such waivers in the past, and are confident that what we come up with will be enforceable
¶ Member Fees/Donations
-
What is Paypal's specific fee that is charged?
- 2.8%
-
Are we able to use Venmo as well?
- We looked into it, but we can't use it because we don't have a dedicated phone number (non-VOIP)
-
Is it possible that we could use cash?
- We use to accept it, but creates a lot of hassle for us to keep up with membership dues, so we decided to remove that option
- Not something that we are interested in looking into at the current moment
¶ Student Rate
- What is the plan for advertising this Student Rate
- Planning on reaching out to local universities
- Also some people are going to spread the news around their local universities as well
¶ Membership FRN Address Perk
-
We can assure the security of the mail that we recive?
- We are planning on setting up a secure mechanism by which we can take in mail that requires access control to access
-
Do we have a mailbox for our current address?
- Somewhat
- Packages are left in the hallway outside of the space's inner door
- Mail is slipped under the inner door
-
How do we handle mail of people who are no longer members
- We will take this on a case by case basis
- It is the person's responsbility to update their own address
¶ Treasurer's Report
- How are we going to try to increase our membership numbers so we can increase our revenue?
- We are hoping that through our partnership with Unallocated Space, various social media outreach, corporate sponsorship, university partnerships, we'll be able to increase this member number
- Unallocated Space has also suggested some potential sponsors that we can reach out to
- Also planning on running some fundraisers as well
- We may also reach out to Gala, a Spanish theater organization, as a potential collaboration partner
- Thanks to Bob for the suggestion!