2021-03-11
Hackspace Manchester Board Meeting Minutes
Present Members
Ross, Mark, Jason, Ellen
Meeting Starts 20:20 - Chaired by Mark
Preamble
The Hackspace board is comprised of current members who volunteer their time with the intention of acting for the good of the community. It does not involve compensation, nor remuneration. Whilst these things aren’t sought the board would like to encourage members to bear in mind that this can sometimes be a responsibility of little gratification and to request that they be considerate and constructive in their feedback or criticism.
AGENDA
- Governance & Finance
- Membership / Teams / SubCommittees
- Any Other Relevant Business
Governance & Finance
Covid
- Rossy expects that with the next government announcement on Saturday 27th we will be able to confirm what level the space can reopen at.
- We are planning to open on the 12th April
Members Meeting / Board Q&A
- This has been rescheduled for Sat 3rd April @ 19.00 - Platform details to be communicated closer to the time.
- Your opportunity to engage with the board and ask anything you're curious about.
- Please participate if you're interested and able to!
- The Q&A will start first with the members meeting following straight after on the same call
Finance
- Bank mandate change
- Rossy has scheduled to visit the bank (Barclays) to prove his identity on Tuesday 16th March. (this has now been done)
Annual accounts
- Due by the end of March.
- Jason will work on completing this while asking Chris for help due to ongoing lack of access
- The board are aware that we will be fined if this is not completed in time, although, we will try to avoid this situation.
Insurance
- We have received a renewal letter from our insurance provider for £691.29
- The board have reviewed this renewal and agreed to renew at the quoted price
Membership Teams / SubCommittees
Membership & Outreach
- With the hope of the space reopening in the upcoming weeks Mark suggested a push on social media is made to show off the space and advertise we’re open again.
- With Laura absent, Ellen has been asked to check-in and provide assistance where required
Health & Safety
- Ellen has completed the Woodwork risk assessments, metalwork and visual arts are still ongoing with expected completion by end of March
- Mark has requested the woodwork ones are issued so that the woodwork team can take over responsibility for them
- Other areas will then be issued as and when completed.
Electronics
- One member of the electronics team has created a plan for spending the grant that was awared to it.
- No meeting was held to discuss the fund by the team generally.
- The board will now allocate the funds as they think appropriate using the plan as guidance.
Any Other Relevant Business
Covid Grants
- The space has received more additional funding.
- The board are looking at ways to reduce our tax liability by pre-loading expected costs before the end of the financial year such as consumables or infrastructure spending.
- Expenditure will be on items the board sees necessary and will still require board approval as before. Ideas for this were discussed including:
- Infrastructure where required
- Dedicated kitchen/cooking/refreshments area
- Ventilation and air filtration for the space
- Restocking of consumables
- Restocking of materials usually on sale by the space
- A managed mailbox so that mail is robustly received by the board. The hope being that previous oversights are not repeated by the sitting board.
Cleaning the Space
- A skip will be hired on the 27th March
- Rossy will be in contact with members who currently have large quantities of stuff stored at the space. Members who are aware they have materials stored outside of the current members storage area are advised to email the board. Items that have a clear DNH will obviously be kept and moved to large project storage.
- Equipment and tools displaced due to the ongoing infrastructure work will be returned to their home and where possible put back in working order.
Member storage
The board reflected on the situation regarding the changes that are being made to member storage.
On reflection it appears that the board was not transparent about making these changes before work began installing new shelving for members storage. Owing to a misunderstanding / miscommunication between the board it was believed that the proposal was public knowledge. They have been informed that this was not the case and would like to apologise for this oversight.
These changes had not been finalised and were still in development when an intended draft of the changes was published to the main telegram chat.
As a result the board has discussed the changes and the following was agreed: - The board sees the changes are necessary and beneficial to the space to ensure the storage situation is equitable for all members. Irrespective of any previous arrangement agreed by historic boards. - The space has grown significantly in membership since the original rules were set a few years ago. As such we cannot guarantee storage space at the same rate we gain new members. - Member storage has become severely unbalanced in what type of storage members can get. It is disingenuous for any member to claim that the former arrangements were equitable. Where some people had larger spaces than others and these were limited. The current board does not support, and will work against, tiered systems of membership or the perception that any portion of the membership is treated differently to another. - The Hackspace will no longer support or recommend a specific container type or brand, storage space will be governed by its dimensions, not what container it can hold. - All member will be required to fit their method of storage within the new constraints. - Member storage allowance will be subject to periodic review although we will try to keep any disruption to a minimum / infrequently. - There will be a transition period to allow members to move over to the new storage system. Afterwards members will need to adhere to large project storage if they cannot fit their stuff in their storage space. The period allowed will be decided on at a later date. - Going forward storage of member items will no longer be allowed in any of the project areas, there have been many instances where the workshop areas have become additional storage space blocking access to tools & equipment. Members must use either their allocated storage space or book an area of large project storage. - An official statement / rational separate from the board minutes will likely follow in due course.
Board Statement
The position of being a board member is voluntary and the responsibilities that come with the position can provide extra levels of stress that have been known to cause members to leave the space due to exhaustion.
Covid has brought challenges to the hackspace and the board has tried to work through them to the best of our abilities. We understand that members may not be happy with some of our decisions from time to time, however pointing out specific things a board member has said previously in a manner that focuses blame on said individual makes it personal and unwelcoming. We’d like to remind members that we do our best to make decisions in good faith, after all we are still members ourselves.
We recognise that we still have some way to go with improving our transparency and communication to the membership. We want to do a good job for everyone’s benefit and to that end it is important that we try and be considerate in our responses. It is worth pointing out that Telegram, by nature of it’s real time and context switching, is not the place to expect well thought out and considered replies. Where a topic is of importance we would request that you please write on the forum or to the board via email. You’re free to discuss what you want where you want but the board cannot take Telegram as an official line of communication to ourselves.