2010 February 16 - General Meeting Minutes
From St. Louis Hackerspace Wiki
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Meeting Agenda
Meeting commenced at 8:20 pm. We started with brief introductions.
Officer reports
President
Deech received a call recently and we found out that Jimmy, our landlord, had a hearing in front of the local neighborhood alderman to address a series of complaints. Stephen showed up for the hearing. Essentially, Jimmy's business is shut down until the complaints are addressed. While the complaints against Jimmy were looked into, his permits were investigated. Jimmy's buisness permit is for band rehearsal only. The permit specifically excludes meetings and parties. This automatically puts us out. Jimmy is hard at work getting things in order. We will find out from Jimmy soon what our future is here, and if Jimmy will pursue a permit allowing for meetings. Jimmy does want to have a venue in the upstairs space so it is in his interests.
So it is clear: Arch Reactor has nothing to do with the complaints against Jimmy. The alderman doesn't even know who we are.
However we want to maintain ourselves legally, and not pretend we are something we are not.
There are two resulting scenarios:
- We stay and proceed normally.
- We move. This won't have as much affect the new members. It will just peeve off those that helped build the place to what it is now.
We realized we were growing faster than expected. Moving has already been a topic of conversation as a result of that growth. This would just expedite our plans. The board is actively looking for newer accommodations.
At the moment there are 4 possibilities:
- Jason D. is a realtor and a member who owns several spaced on Cherokee who is willing to help us out. He has some spaces he is willing to help us build out if we are interested.
- Koken art factory – An art gallery that is home to Naughty Gras, a yearly exhibit. Not just any group can get studio space here. Tim, the exhibitioner, is discriminating toward prospective tenants. He asked around and heard good things about Arch Reactor. As a result, Stephen was invited to take a look. There are several spaces available. The landlord is willing to build out the space and work with us on the price. He would want a lease depending on how much work goes into the setup. Tim is very interested though in our skill sets. He just got a new security and camera system like ours and is looking to exchange services to set it up. Our own Ben W. has a similar setup with Tim doing some work. There is a lot of trust in the building, and not a lot of locked doors. You will get us evicted for walking around outside “our area”. Tim is also willing to help us with any permits we need. There is ample parking, unless there is a large event being held. Events are infrequent.
- The City Museum – We were contacted by Scott, from the City Museum. He says they have space available and are very interested in what we do. Normally space at the city museum is very expensive. Scott says they are willing to work with us on the rent. The only majorr requirement was that City Museum has projects going on that they would like us to participate in. That actually sounds pretty good. The parking situation is that there is a free lot across the street from City Museum.
- Polar Wave – A building next to Hodack's chicken has a 3000 sqft space on the first floor that is raw and unbuilt. But it does have a loading dock, ADA access, elevator, bathrooms, we are able to build out, and they are willing to work out the rent. They are really just having trouble renting it out so its not useful to them otherwise. There is also a secured parking lot.
Our popularity has grown and people want us to be in there places. Nothing is discounted at this point.
Moving will be a lot of work and it will be a flurry to get it all setup. Then we get to have another Open House!
The President stated that he supports signing a lease provided its large enough to support our growth during the term of our lease.
All the spaces listed above will have 24 hour access. Everything should have proper zoning for us now.
Please let any of the board members know via email if they have other options. Don't put it on the board just because its still public.
Jimmy has not told us to stop what we are doing. So in the meantime just keeps going. Please follow the rules. Park behind the black gate from 6 to 11, or on this side of Cherokee. And no wondering drunkenly or loud music clubs.
Vice President
Nothing to report
Secretary
Behind on posting meeting minutes.
Treasurer
Nothing to report
Sargent at Arms
Nothing to report
Director Reports
Webmaster
Private Member forums will be up this week. Forum categories coming soon.
Space Design
See President's Report
PR and Fundraising
Nothing to report
Education
Nothing to report
Social Affairs
Nothing to report
Other Buisness
We have not been told to discontinue classes so we are moving forward. If you want to hold a class, then submit a copy of the form on the wiki to the Sergeant at Arms and it will be posted to the calendar.
2600 Meeting
Paul contacted Emmanuel, publisher of 2600. We missed the publication deadline for this quarter to change the location of St. Louis 2600 meetings to the Arch Reactor. It will definitely be in the next issue. We shouldn't start expecting new faces until then. Paul will start the first meeting by giving a talk on finding personal information online.
For those who don't know, 2600 is a magazine that started publishing in the 80's about hacker related interests. It has a thriving following that meets every first Friday of the month in multiple cities around the world. St. Louis use to have a very active community around their meetings that has died out. Paul 's goal is to revive the local meetings and move them to Arch Reactor.
Arduino Class
Check out the website under the Events tab. Classes start February 24th at 7 until whenever we finish. What is Arduino? It is a micro-controller thats easy to program. It's like a little computer. It is completely opensource. Even the system design. You could build it yourself out of electrical components and it would still compatible. The bulk order of the boards goes out tomorrow. So tell Derek by noon tomorrow if you want to participate so you may get a board. Currently 12 of the 18 spots for the class are filled. There will be 1 hour to hour and a half of lecture/presentation. After that, we'll break out the laptops and play with the boards.
Contact Derek at audrino@archreactor.org if interested. Let Derek know if you don't have a laptop and we'll get a loaner to use. The cost is $30 for the board. Money is due at first class. You will require USB device cables, the development tools from the website, and breadboards. Breadboards are cheap and available at Radio Shack.
Sunday night will be workshop time for Arduino projects. You must also be a member to take the class.
Programming Class
Pete talked with Deech about a programming class on Tuesdays. Intended for beginners with no experience in programming. Eventually more advanced stuff would be covered. Probably a few weeks at a time for each topic. Between 6 and 7 before the weekly Tuesday meeting.
Art Club
A new name coming soon. Stacy asks that you bring your Arduinos to Art Club. Art Club starts next Monday night at 7pm. Bring a sewing machine if you have one, as sewing will be the first topic. Topics will be posted a month in advanced so you can tell if you want to be there for a specific topic.
Other Discussions
Ben W. mentioned CAMP's Finder's Hive is having an event next week. Ben will post announcement on the board. Finder's Hive works with second hand materials to recycle and make art. There is potential for cross pollination between our groups.
Ryan will talk with Dan and Keith about a possible CNC class. Keith also may be able to get us a tabletop mill and lathe.
Bob is wanting to start a TV-B-Gone workshop as a solder practice class. It would be roughly $15 for the cost of the kit. A TV-B-Gone is a small gadget that's sole purpose its to turn televisions off. It has a single button that when pressed, cycles through every know “power off” code for IR televisions remotes
Stacy mentioned Josh Hart is raising donations for the McCall family. They had a terrible house fire in which they lost their daughter, Tegan. He is asking for donations of any kind. Arch Reactor was contacted to see if we could help. Possibly if we had computer to donate. They are also accepting clothing, etc, as everything was lost in the fire.
Ryan, still accepting MAKE magezine subscriptions. Half of the $35 subscription fee gets donated to Arch Reactor
The meeting adjourned at 9:18 with a round of introductions to include the latecomers.
