April, 2014:

BACE meeting minutes • Sudo Room • 2 Apr 2014 FINAL

Present: Megan Stoddard, Nicole Wires, Ricardo Simon, Emily Wheeler

1. BACE bank accounts

During March, Emily investigated several possible financial institutions but found none that would work. Our SF Fire account is still open, but it needs to be closed this month. Rick, who is a member of the Coop Credit Union in Berkeley, will be able to set up a BACE account there in a week or two. Rick and Emily will put their names on the new account.

2. Tech team

Lisa Renery did not respond to Megan’s request for the notes from last fall’s meeting with Tom Brown about the BACE website. As a result, the topics of that meeting must be revisited and a new plan made. A better understanding of the needed changes is necessary to do outreach for a new tech lead. Rick and Nicole will meet immediately after the May meeting to review the demo site.

3. DIY festival postponed

Because we need to raise money at the DIY festival, it would be preferable to hold it on private property, not in a public park or street as previously planned. It was decided to postpone the festival until September

4. Language change

No one has commented on the proposal to change ‘board’ to ‘staff’ and ‘governance’ to ‘administration. These changes were adopted.

5. Blog and website

Nicole has been working on the BACE blog. She will update the bios and calendar and add posts to the blog. Emily will draft new content for the website in time for review at the May meeting.

6. Media inquiry

An editor with OZY.com is considering writing an article about BACE. Nicole will respond to his email.

7. Next meeting

The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 7th, at Noisebridge.

6:30 – 7:00 Pre-meeting orientation for those new to BACE

7:00 – 8:00 General meeting

8:00 – 8:30 Post-meeting “nuts and bolts” discussion

BACE meeting minutes • Noisebridge • 5 Mar 2014 FINAL

Present: Megan Stoddard, Nicole Wires, Ricardo Simon, Eric Mauer, Emily

Wheeler, Cynthia Lee, Carl Gorringe, Wendy Yu

1. BACE bank accounts

We currently have two checking accounts: Patelco and SF Fire. We need to

close the Patelco account; it cannot be used to pay our monthly bills. The

two people whose names are on the SF Fire account are no longer active

with BACE and wish to have their names removed. Because no one else has

a San Francisco mailing address that could be associated with the SF Fire

account, it was decided to close it. Emily will investigate opening an

account at One Pacific Coast Bank, a B corporation in downtown Oakland.

2. Tech team

No one has volunteered to replace Carl as the tech lead. The scope of the

work that is urgently needed is not too extensive. Ricardo explained that

returning to the original source code could happen fairly easily. We can pay

Tom Brown to do it, but we need someone from BACE to work with him.

Lisa Renery started to work with Tom last fall but left suddenly. Megan

will contact Lisa to ask for meeting notes. A new test site has already been

created. Carl, Nicole, Megan, and Rick will work on finalizing the

switchover to the new site. A half-day working session is planned so that

Carl can train others; the date has not been set.

3. Support emails

Nicole volunteered to check for support emails. If she gets questions she

can’t answer, she will ask Megan for help.

5. DIY festival

Emily checked with Oakland’s Parks and Rec department about holding a

DIY festival at San Antonio Park on June 21st

$300 deposit, and fundraising would be prohibited. The team has decided

to go ahead with plans to have the event there without a permit. We will

start inviting organizations to participate.

6. Input from the collective

We still need to solicit the input of BACE members about changing the terms

we use. Instead of a ‘board,’ we would be a ‘staff’ or ‘volunteer staff;’

instead of doing ‘governance,’ we would do ‘administration.’ Emily will

learn how to send a newsletter to the collective. The newsletter will invite

members to comment on the proposed terms.

. The cost would be $180 plus a

8. Next meeting

The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, April 2nd, at Sudo Room.

6:30 – 7:00 Pre-meeting orientation for those new to BACE

7:00 – 8:00 General meeting

8:00 – 8:30 Post-meeting “nuts and bolts” discussion

BACE meeting minutes • Sudo Room • 5 Feb 2014 FINAL

Present: Wendy Yu, Megan Stoddard, Emily Wheeler, Carl Gorringe, Ricardo

Simon, José Henriquez

1. Removal from volunteer list

Someone has posted personal attacks on the volunteer list. This isn’t

acceptable. Megan will email him to give him a warning that another such

attack will result in removal from the list.

2. Volunteer tech lead needed

We urgently need a new tech lead. Carl has been doing this work for too

long and is very busy with other tasks at present. He will get account info

and other info ready to hand off to the new lead. Emily will write a

volunteer job description. Rick will post it on the Sudo Room and

Noisebridge lists. Emily will post it other places.

3. BACE bank accounts

We need to close our account with Patelco and deposit the money in our

other account at SF Fire Federal Credit Union. Ricardo will do this. He will

also pay Carl the money that he is owed by BACE.

Megan and Emily will arrange to have their names added to the SF Fire

account.

4. Support emails

Megan has been responding to emails requesting support in using the BACE

website. She will hand off this responsibility to Emily for now. Megan and

Emily will devise a system for sharing the work.

5. DIY festival

BACE will put on a DIY Festival in East Oakland. It will be similar to the

Urban Homestead Festival in San Francisco in 2012. The tentative date is

Saturday, June 21st

formed: Ricardo, José, and Emily. Emily will research possible venues such

as San Antonio Park.

6. Vocabulary

BACE is considering changing the terms used to describe BACE people and

activities.

a. Instead of being on the “board,” those doing BACE work would be

“staff.” Any members of the collective who are at a BACE meeting or

– the summer solstice. A festival working group was

contributing hours to BACE projects would by definition be on the

staff.

b. Instead of “governance,” the work of the staff would be considered

“administration.”

c. When the website content is revised, references to money and

payments would be eliminated.

7. Volunteer coordinator

Emily has offered to be the volunteer coordinator. She will keep track of

what tasks need to be done and who has offered to do them.

8. New meeting times

We will continue to meet on first Wednesdays and to alternate between San

Francisco and Oakland. The new meeting times will be:

6:30 – 7:00 Pre-meeting orientation for those new to BACE

7:00 – 8:00 General meeting

8:00 – 8:30 Post-meeting “nuts and bolts” discussion

Carl will change the meeting times on the Sudo Room and Noisebridge

wikis. He will also change the MeetUp listing.

The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, March 5th, at Noisebridge.

No notes were taken.  This letter was drafted but was not sent to BACE membership due to disagreements among BACE Board.

Time bank urgently needs your help

We have expended energy of existing core volunteers

Urgent need of volunteer energy, we need 10 hours per month for a minimum of three months, the kinds of things we need help on are:

We need help in these three specific areas:

1. Education

• Volunteering to host a party
• Volunteering to be the person who responds to emails

1. Maintenance

• Moving code back to original folks
• Figuring out a better way of communicating
• Managing social media
• Reboot

1. Governance

If this interests you, please respond to this email and tell us what your interest level and commitment is, and we’ll get back to you with next steps.

Have a meeting time set up

Concern: longer the letter is the lest likely it is to be grocked (doesn’t have to be long), have been spreading ourselves too thin for too long