Hello Sudoers, I wanted to introduce myself to the group.
I'm Joseph, a Linux guy and community organizer from Concord. As many
of you probably know, there isn't really much of an active geek scene
out here and I'm trying to do what I can to change that. We recently
launched Concord Wiki at http://www.concordwiki.org and a group of us
are working on starting up a hackerspace over here. The blog for the
project is http://www.eastbayhackers.com
I've been over to Sudo Room maybe four or five times now and I've
always been made to feel very welcome. I really enjoy the personality
of the group and conversations that take place there. I'll be around
Sudo Room usually on a Sun - Tues, and if any of you feel like coming
to check out what we're working on over here, feel free to drop by or
if you're curious send me an email.
The "Darkplaces" gaming engine I ported to the Raspberry PI that was
released last month has been quite a success with thousands of downloads
and positive reviews. I am about ready to release the next version of the
engine along with a batch of open source games that will run in the engine.
I was thinking that it might be a good opportunity at this point to ask for
a donation. I would like to ask people to make a donation to Sudoroom
(instead of me) to support ongoing community outreach efforts and in
particular, to make a donation in support of the activities relating to
"Sudo Kids." Also, the Raspberry PI Foundation announced last week that
well over $1,000,000 in grant money is available to non-profits that
support educational activities relating to teaching kids how to write
software and work with technology.
If this sounds like a feasible idea for raising funds then I would need a
little help in preparing a pitch to submit with the donation request that
describes what Sudo Kids is about and how Sudoroom works with the
community. There is also a grant proposal that could be submitted to the
Raspberry PI foundation.
Here's the thread on the Raspberry PI forum:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=78&t=72301
Peace,
Autonomous
My friend Mike and I stopped by Sudoroom for the first time tonight. I
hope to be spending more time there in the future, so I wanted to
introduce myself (and him by proxy).
We both have several years of medium-to-large scale IT experience: he
tends toward the hardware side, I tend toward the software side.
Sometimes it's nice to actually produce something physical and cool,
though, and we're doing amateur-level fiddling with electronic bits
and pieces. We're newbies, but enthusiastic ones, and hope to learn
from and be inspired by what other folks are creating and hacking on.
I'll stop speaking for him now: personally, I'm really excited about
3D printing and wearables and hardware hacking, and making those
things more accessible to people. I'm also very interested in the
Oakland open mesh work that's happening, and I hope to make it to one
of the meetings soon.
As I said, we stopped by tonight (I forget who came down to let us in,
but thank you!). We mostly stayed out of the work space because we
didn't want to interrupt anyone. Instead we perused the library then
sat on the couches to talk hypersonic sound projectors and DIY solar
panels. I was happy how conducive the environment felt to such
discussions.
Hi!
-- eric
On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 2:50 PM, Phil Wolff <pwolff(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Would the Sudo Room be jointly and severally liable for operating expenses?
> For unbudgeted expenses?
My understanding is the Omni Collective will be liable and responsible
for all the typical costs of being tenants and of day to day
operations. In the short term (probably several years), the building
will still belong to its current owners and most liability and risk
for major disasters will be on their shoulders (such as earthquakes,
the roof collapsing, etc). After that, if the collective is successful
in buying the building, I believe those risks will still be for the
Omni Collective and not for Sudoroom. That terrifying glorious day is
still far away.
Of course, we still carry the intangible risk that if the whole thing
falls apart we'd need to find a new space, but that is seeming less
and less likely every day.
Is someone closer to the legal aspect of things reading this? :)
For the past few months I've been Sudoroom's delegate to the Omni
Collective. If you don't know already, the Omni is a huge building in
Temescal, and the Omni Collective is a group of delegates from many
groups whose goal is to acquire that building and move into it
together. It's an amazing opportunity - the owners are quite eager to
sell it for significantly below market value, and we've been
negotiating a very reasonable rent-to-own agreement in the meantime.
It's real, folks. All the money and legal pieces are falling into
place. So far, 10 groups have officially joined the collective, shown
active sustained interest, and pledged a monthly rent. The pledges add
up to more than we would need to cover rent, utilities, maintenance
and other expenses related to moving in. The collective is legally
incorporated, we have a pro-bono lawyer, we're probably going to get
our parking waiver for a use-permit, we have a 15 year financial plan
(with the help of a local land trust), and we are very close to
getting an interest-free loan to cover first-last-deposit. We will
probably be able to MOVE IN by June 1!
You can find more information here, including all Omni Collective
meeting minutes: https://sudoroom.org/wiki/The_Omni
Sudoroom has had an informal discussion about this for a long time. We
consented to send me as a delegate. But I am worried that the consent
and commitment has not been full or formal enough given how serious
and imminent things are getting. So I'd like to renew Sudo's consent
and make it more properly consent-y. I will bring this to the next few
meetings as well, but honestly not all of you have been going to Sudo
meetings. So...
Are there any objections to actually doing this? Are there any blocks?
Anything else to say for or against this plan? Any questions?
Now is the time to make them known. Now is the time to really talk about this.
Thanks!
On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 9:13 AM, niki <niki.shelley(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I borrowed the short throw projector for a talk about bees that I'm giving
> to a group of middle school students today at 2pm.
>
> I'll bring it back to SUDO directly afterwards.
Does anyone know where it is currently? We can't find it this morning.
See all at https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Tax_history<https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Tax_history>
This is your treasurer *notconfusing* speaking. I'm a tax amateur, and you
can too.
This is a visualization of 2013 finances. When debit exceeds credit we had
a negative month. 'netcum' is net cummulative money aka total cash in da
bank. So if debit exceeds netcum, then our month costed more than we have
in the bank. [image: 2013
finances.png]<https://sudoroom.org/wiki/File:2013_finances.png>
On Apr 9th 2014, I went the Sustainable economies law center legal cafe to
get some advice about how sudo should handle taxes. Here's what I learned:
1. Tax day for corporations is the same as for people - April 15th.
2. Every year we must file *something. Even if you become a federal
nonprofit, which we aren't yet, you have to tell the govt that you don't
owe anything. The basic things we **need to file'* are:
1. State Taxes: *Form 199*, probably 199N
2. Federales Taxes: *Form 990* Likely 990-EZ.
3. Those forms are actually not due until *May 15th*.
4. I will file these soon. It's highly likely we don't owe much cash.
3. 2013 was the year we switched from being "Eddan Katz" dba (doing
business as) Sudo Room, to Sudo Room, the California non-profit public
benefit corporation.
1. Eddan is not claiming the income that was receieved, and it was
all transfered to the new corporation.
2. So the corporation will pay tax on it.
4. Since we are not 501c3 yet the money "donated" to sudo room are not
actually donations, i.e. not tax deductible.
5. Corporations like us get 27 months after incorporation to file for
501c3. That puts our date at January 2016.
6. The sudo EIN is 46-4109670
Max Klein
http://notconfusing.com/
"Corporations are people my friend" :)
Very easy to read, and well explained. Good job Max, thx!
Maximilian Klein <isalix(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>_______________________________________________
>sudo-discuss mailing list
>sudo-discuss(a)lists.sudoroom.org
>https://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
Hey all,
I borrowed the short throw projector for a talk about bees that I'm giving
to a group of middle school students today at 2pm.
I'll bring it back to SUDO directly afterwards.
xo
N
