Meeting Notes 2014-11-05

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sudoroom meeting Nov 5, 2014

Attendees

  • Korl [facilitating]
  • Matt
  • Brian
  • Cere
  • Liz [note taker]
  • Jonathan
  • Caitlyn
  • Jared
  • Timothy
  • remote yar
  • Kwe
  • Brendan
  • Aman
  • Madeline
  • Patrick from CCL

Icebreaker question

  • If you had to get a tattoo right now, what is the minimum stupidest tattoo you would get? (It's paid for, no pain, but it has to be something you hated).
    • e.g. "Dolphin riding Hotdog"
    • remote yar: schaaf 2014
    • Brian: Giant technicolor unicorn on lowerback
    • Matt: An image of "Ratfink" in olde english across his chest
    • Cere "I don't care."
    • Liz: Candycane stripes all the way up my toes, legs, torso, fingers, arms. No face tattoos, that's tacky. C'mon.
    • Jonathan: Alfred E Newman on my back "What, me worry?" on back
    • Caitlyn: Any image since I only get tattoos of words
    • Jared: "Wings" (chicken wings?)
    • Timothy how long it would take a 1 foot wide dog traveling the speed of light across the surface of the Earth to start at the south pole and touch every person before making it to the north pole. This equation on my forehead.
    • Hi, I'm Korl and I'm addicted to the internet
      • Giant Hello Kitty chest-piece, but like, as a wreath? Hello kitties would be the flowers and the vines would be made out of--I don't know--my little ponies or something? Drawn by a fourth-grader.
    • Kwe: I'll make it the best tattoo instead, and that would be one of the adinkra symbols (folk art from Ghana, which is where I'm from). It would be this one that is three concentric circles, so it's kind of like a bulls-eye... so maybe it would be the worst...
  • Brendan: Either an ex lover, or a tattoo dedicated to my mom, my mom hates tattoos. I mean, I don't know if that's worse than a swastika on my forehead or something...

Announcements

  • Defragmentation? two week anniversary, w00t!
  • Cere: Marc and I talked about putting in LED lights instead of flourescent, and a Mitch Altman (Noisebridge) has offered to buy some for us while he's in China, as long as we let him know what we want and have the money to reimburse him. Tentative timeline to let him know is within a month? (before he comes back, of course)
  • Korl: Scott Nanos and Kevin Laird notified her that some pieces of their music equipment have been misplaced during the defrag, including an SM58 mic, guitar cable, mic cable, percussive instruments
  • Korl: The Q.R. scanner will be operational later this week for labeling items around Sudo
  • Korl: Taking a hiatus from Film Night for one month, while discussing a merger with another group/ personal reasons.
  • Omni Fundraising - talk to Matt ASAP

New Members

Jared

  • down if he can pre-pay with bitcoin
  • Member of VillageCraft, awesum
  • Knows arithmetic
  • Definitely not an undercover
  • Wanted to be a G-Man (FBI) when he was a little kid, but at around age 14 he realized that he actually has a very strong sense of justice and the two were not compatible

Money

  • Internet Credit Union account: $3,131.08
  • Community Bank of the Bay Account: ? need to close it... should be a cool $1,000
  • bitcoin (about $)
  • $550.18/wk on Gratipay
  • October Omni expenses were: $2340.86 + $140 internet

Defragmentation

  • Matt would like to have another brainstorming session to go over what has been done and what still needs to be done
    • We now have a fully functioning sewing section which is totally absurd, including an old industrial machine, a button sewer, and embroidery machine
    • Robotics materials have been sorted and stored on the shelves next to the lockers
    • More electronics to sort
    • Joe will be coming in with the media lab, requiring space for many computers
    • Yar will remove the pile of e-waste
    • The donations rack still needs to be sorted
    • The shelves next to the stairs are intended to be used to store items that don't have a place in Sudo and will be taken elsewhere. Items will be continually cycling through these shelves
    • Working on path access and bike access
  • Korl organized most of the tool corner and she encourages people to contribute to organizing hardware (screws and nuts and bolts etc), otherwise it's going to take her ten hours to do it alone
    • Jonathan plans to build a stand for the drill press this weekend

Omni

  • https://pad.riseup.net/p/omninom
    • Synopsis of the finance group's proposal: groups who ask for a budget must provide an itemized list for the full project ahead of time, and designate an individual to be responsible for keeping track of the budget and reporting it. If a project goes over-budget, a second proposal must be submitted before funding can continue. (Passes with friendly amendments)
      • Potential amendment: set a limit to discretionary funding (petty cash), but perhaps we need to do more research (Matt's follow up: there is a $500 emergency spending limit, but the details of this clause are unclear)
      • Change some language: ** maybe change language from "before work on the project can continue" to "before over-budget payment is allowed or additional reimbursement is allowed". Or a slash/andor ?
    • Ballroom is asking for (an extra?) $1000 for soundproofing
      • There is a group of people who would like to have regular high-decibel events (to Omni's benefit), and they would like to re-install soundproofing on the ceiling.
  • Tomorrow's delegates:
  • Brendan

Consensus Items

  • Regarding Chris B.:
  • "Amendment: Any further sleeping by ChrisB at Omni will result in an immediate temporary ban." https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Meeting_Notes_2014-10-29#Conflict_Resolution
  • We recognize that the decision last week was made informally consented to by Chris B, but without quorum, and therefore acknowledge that Chris' hiatus is self-imposed. We invite him to end his hiatus when he sees fit, and we will enact Sudo's formal conflict resolution process to resolve the situation.
  • Consensus: 10 yes, 2 abstainees
    • Korl's amendment: Revisiting the process for banning people for sleeping, as well as in general (have different levels of restricted access, not just use the word "ban" for everyone). Send out an omni-wide email to correct misperceptions. (seconded by Jonathan, Brendan volunteers to write the email).
    • Matt's amendment: "not to say that last week's decision was unofficial, but that it is a temporary hiatus that was self imposed, and not a conclusion voted on by the Sudo Room membership" (seconded by Brendan)

Conflict Resolution

  • Chris B (Temporary Ban)
    • Relevant email thread: https://lists.sudoroom.org/pipermail/sudo-discuss/2014-November/008185.html
    • Agreement Chris consented to: https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Meeting_Notes_2014-10-29#Conflict_Resolution
    • Decision was made last week without quorum... Is the ban illegitimate?
      • Brendan: We met in May/March about how we often have meetings without quorum and we still need to make decisions. The bottom-line decision was that, at no point should we let our own bureaucracy get in the way of our progress; we retain the right to make decisions on issues without quorum (and not necessarily critical issues). I don't remember if there was even a consensus on it, or if people just went with it because he agreed. I propose that we invite him to come here for conflict resolution between himself and other members of Sudo who take issue with this and get to the root of the problem. I don't think we need to take this to Omni, because Chris is not a threat to the community. If Chris wants to appeal, he should feel free to do that, and maybe we should invite him to do that. But if he doesn't move on from this pattern, it's going to become an issue again. But this also has to do with his living situation.
      • Matt: I regret using the term "ban". The term used more in our process is "to deny access". To me, the difference is philosophical. Chris attended the meeting and he himself consented to the official warning, that if he was found sleeping again he would be temporarily banned. The decision that was made last week is irrelevant because Chris consented to the conditions. I don't think the term "conflict resolution" is what we need here; we need a healing process. I also think that in this situation, we could affirm tonight that Chris' ban is self-imposed, and that we encourage him to end his break at a certain date and he's welcome to come back. Ultimately, more than anything, I think it benefits Chris to not be in our space for some time, because this has been a pattern for years, and it's caused a lot of issues. On the other hand, I've had experience working for accomodation for people with various disabilities, and I think we should take that on it's merit in its own way. This issue has never been framed in a way to accommodate a disability.
      • Korl: Of the two emails sent out to SudoDiscuss, only one of which reached me, and it was the discussion list saying that Chris had already been banned. I feel that there was a lack of official process. The fact that quorum was not met translates into heirarchy; that whoever is present can make the decision, in spite or to spite whoever is not there. I have known Chris for many years and seen his narcoleptic tendencies. Should we address and fix certain discrepencies in our process? Yes, he did agree to the conditions of the warning, but he also said that he couldn't guarantee that it wouldn't happen again, as he has no control over his sleep disorder. Chris is very hurt by this, he feels he has always been up-front about his sleep disorder and regrets if it has ever caused people frustration. I would still be upset about how this process was carried out. In regards to non-violent offenders, I would like to see some sort of amendment that involves at least remote-based quorum, for members who are not an immediate threat, to have at least 10 other members vote on a ban.
      • Patrick: I don't think the current process for banning people who are sleeping in the space even involves a quorum.
    • Sudo's process for conflict resolution was not followed, Liz volunteers to enact it (see section 3.2 [ https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Articles_of_Association#Section_3.2_Conflict_Resolution ])
    • Jonathan: there is a conflict-resolution aspect to this, but it also seems to be a policy issue, and perhaps we should keep them separate. There's probably a really technical difference to being asked to leave the premises and being banned. It is important to understand if that ban was official or not. I'm not sure that, outside of formal process, an official ban can occur. Instead of voting to rescind the ban, we should vote on whether it was legitimate or not (otherwise we're treating it like a legitimate ban that we're overturning).
      • Timothy: The details of banning as a result of sleeping seem unclear, whether or not a quorum is needed. It seems like the legitimacy of this ban is in question, but we have quorum now, so shall we just rescind it?
    • Perhaps we should add a new policy in our Articles of Association to deal with compliance with our Articles, rather than inter-personal conflicts, that would have a different (maybe similar?) procedure.

Action Items

  • Meeting ends at 9:40pm
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