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The months fly by — BACE updates from the first quarter of 2014

You may have noticed that you haven’t heard much from BACE administration in the first quarter of 2014.  The turn of 2014 saw a large turnover in core volunteers supporting the every day operations of BACE, and our new volunteers (like me!) needed time to learn the ropes and figure out how best to contribute.  We apologize for the silence, but are here to remedy that with some updates from our BACE monthly meetings, and a few notes on what to expect in the coming months.

Let’s start with the most important announcements:

  • A Tech lead is needed for the BACE website.  If you have sysadmin skills, please consider helping BACE continue to thrive. Your help is seriously needed! If you (or someone you know) is a programmer with experience in Ruby on Rails, and you can commit a few hours a week for the next three months, volunteer your time as the BACE Tech lead.  Specifically, the BACE tech lead will help
    *Modify the website to return to the original source code
    * Handle the accounts
    * Investigate and fix bugs
    For each hour that you work, you’ll receive an hour. You can obtain all sorts of services through BACE–from guitar lessons to bicycle repair to health care–and use your hours to say thanks.   To make the new economy real and connect with people who share the vision, email the BACE volunteer coordinator, Emily Wheeler, at emily(at)emily4english(dot)com.
  • The BACE core is in need of additional volunteers.  Volunteering with the core means committing to one, two-hour meeting per month (always the first Wednesday of the month from 6:30-8:30, rotating between Oakland and San Francisco), and following up on small tasks to keep BACE operational between meetings.  These small tasks can include: maintaining the BACE blog, planning BACE events, answering BACE support emails, attending local meetings to promote BACE, and more.  To get involved, join the BACE volunteer list-serve, and attend our monthly BACE meetings.
  • The BACE “board” becomes the BACE “staff”.  After much discussion, the BACE staff has decided to change the language we use to talk about our work.  Instead of a “board” doing “governance,” a “volunteer staff” would handle “administration.” We are a do-ocracy; the board has been essentially whoever shows up at meetings, not an exclusive decision-making group. The new vocabulary is meant to communicate inclusivity. You can comment by emailing support(at)bace(dot)org.

And now into the nitty-gritty.  For full transparency, here are meeting notes from the last three BACE staff meetings.

  • January, 2014.  Full minutes were not taken at the meeting, however we did draft this letter to BACE membership calling out for greater volunteer engagement.  The letter was never sent, due to disagreement amongst BACE staff about language and purpose.
  • February 2014.
  • March 2014.

And looking forward, a few goals we have for the coming quarter are:

  • Find a tech lead and facilitate the transition of BACE back to the original source code, allowing for improved user interaction
  • Plan and host a DIY Festival
  • Begin to showcase stories of successful BACE exchanges on our blog

The possibilities are limitless!  Now is a great time to get involved with BACE.  Join the fun, won’t you?

 

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