CommunityMeeting20180920

7pm @ Dinky or event room, or Google Hangout

Attendees: JP (chair), ZZ (minutes), SG, CT, AS, MC, JT, LC, SH, CH, HS, MG, SW

Review of/actions from last meeting

• JP following up on HR person
  • First meeting went well, further meeting coming up.
• Fab Manager
  • JM and AL planning to work on this during the "hack the space" evening on Monday 1st October.
• Crowdfunder rewards
  • Somebody asked where they should send the wording for their brick today (!)
  • All the keyrings have been sent out.
  • The mugs are awaiting postal addresses.
  • We’re going to start the t-shirts in October regardless of whether people have responded with their choice of decoration or not
  • Still need to decide on sizing and material of bricks.
  • ACTION: Zarino to sort out sizes and materials for bricks.
• Communication about this meeting
  • Communication this month was better, because SG remembered to send emails out weeks in advance!
  • Great attendance tonight!
  • Quick straw poll suggests only about half of attendees tonight saw the Google Groups email – the rest are here just because it coincides with a Maker Night.
  • There’s a github ticket about advertising events (like community meetings) on the doorbot TV screens.
  • In the meantime, perhaps we can advertise the next meeting on a paper poster?

Recent Events

• DoES Tastes Brownies on 23rd August
  • It was fun for people in the space that day, but it seems a shame that it doesn’t bring new people into the space for the day.
  • HC suggested we run a "Ready Steady DoES!" event instead / in addition, where teams are giving a "shopping basket" of kit, and they have to "cook" up an interesting project or invention using them. Could ask providers like Pimoroni for some kit?
  • Next "DoES Tastes" will be Halloween themed.
  • ACTION SG to decide on Halloween theme.
• DoES Epic Trip to the Science Park, 30th August
  • SG was the only person who went!
  • Science Park seems keen to build links with DoES – they suggested we could come along to their "Meet the residents" events, talk about some of the stuff people in DoES do.
• Modular Meet Up 8th September
  • Not brilliantly attended. But the people who came had fun.
  • MG thinks, once we get word of mouth out there, people might travel from other cities to attend. Our nearest Synth meetup is in Leeds!
  • MG considering renaming it to include "Synth" in the name ;-)
  • Potential untapped audience in the universities? Especially music, electronics departments?
  • ACTION MG to talk to Dawsons about next event, see whether they could help promote it.

Upcoming Events

• Festival of Maintenance, 22nd September
  • Festival is happening in London, but is being streamed for free up here in DoES 10:00–17:00. There will be caek!
• Bradford Media Museum will be filming in DoES on Thursday 27th September
  • If anyone’s in on Wednesday, can they make sure they leave the space tidy?
• "Get a Move On" / "What does health look like?" workshop, 29th September
  • Making health / movement sensors out of etexiles and microbits, then visualising the data and putting the visualisations on mugs and t-shirts.
  • We’re looking for people to volunteer to help run the event. Contact JP or ZZ if you’re interested.
• "Hack the Space" hacking day, 1st October
  • Some of us will be looking at getting Fab Manager up.
  • But, other projects / discussions welcome! Check out the somebody-should list for ideas!
• "Making It!?" half-day conference about making and manufacturing, 12th October
• Maker Day, 13th October
• Kerbinator Hack Day, 13th October (afternoon)
• Social Saturday, 13th October (evening)
  • ACTION JP to follow up with HC as to whether there’s anything we need to do in preparation. (Maybe JP forward emails to ZZ, as he’ll see HC weekdays, as a coworking space user?)

Finances

• Slightly improved since last month. Rent and service charge paid on time. Finances are still tight, especially considering we want to pay for new things like Room 29 flooring and blinds soon.
• Increase in out-of-hours workshop memberships. And increased interest from people looking to pay for event space.
• Income is approaching an even split between coworking and workshop users.
• SG enthusiastic about advertising DoES more widely.
• SG suggests referral codes? "If people mention that they found us via the poster you put up, then you get a free [something]"?

Equality

• We’re preparing documents with our HR advisor (who’s already changed a few things), and then we can get community opinions.

AOB

• Visibility of the building from outside.
  • SG notes that, if you walk up Kempston Street, you have to look very hard to notice the tiny black DoES logo on the window frame.
  • Signage in our Kempston Street windows? Might not be in keeping with external visuals?
• Tidiness.
  • It’s hard for people to find desk space to work at in the main room, because other people keep leaving their unfinished bits and pieces around.
  • SG suggests maybe putting the gigantic laser cutter back together, so there’ll be more spare room inside that nook.
  • There are disassembled / unused desks around the space. Should we give them to Bulky Bobs?
  • We should look again at our existing storage space – are the plastic bins all being paid for? Are people leaving stuff without paying?
  • Could we put up more shelves, to use some vertical space? Especially in the Laser Room, and Room 29?
  • Kitchen in particular needs the cabinets putting up, and maybe some more shelves, so there’s an alternative place to put stuff other than the worktops.
  • Discussion of whether the 3D printers cabinet is pulling its weight. It makes it hard to fix broken printers. And it lacks storage space, so materials end up spreading all over the nearby table.
  • There are TV screens leaning up against walls in most rooms – why aren’t they up on walls?
• The broken underfloor board, in front of the sofas, needs fixing.
  • We think the carpet fitters have gone bust, so they won’t be back to fix it.
  • ZZ is happy to help SG with fixing this, but we need more volunteers.
  • Should do it over a weekend – potentially 13th–14th October?
• ZZ asked whether we’d consider playing light music in the main space.
  • Communal spotify playlist?
  • Trial it for a day or two a week?
  • HS noted there would be PRS implications.
  • ACTION SG to investigate legal implications of playing music in the main room.
• SW suggested making YouTube videos to demonstrate how to use some of the equipment at DoES.

Confirm time & date of next meeting

• Thursday 18th October, 1pm