Difference between revisions of "Meeting Notes 2023-10-05"

jems recently got 3 endorsements for membership

* jems - used to be involved. bio-art, help out with friends battle bots, background in physics weird art stuff

* andy - anything you are interested in doing volunteer wise. right now stuff just happens sporadically when someone has the energy to do stuff. things needed - organizing an event, or a clean up day monthly

* jems - saturdays i was in the space all day watching bots and organizing and working. down to help more. hosting a blender wnb night.

* jems - some questions, what are the responsibilities or expectations of delegates. Im interested in that and live close by. Also interested in helping with grant writing and fundraiser

* andy - if youre interested in being delegate i would be enthusiastic about that

* andy - delegates meeting are every 2nd thursday. first wednesday is the most reliable meeting day for sudo room meeting but there may be some interest in moving it. as for the finance stuff, pretty informal. No specific structure, mostly automated. I think it would be good to have a treasurer or finance wg. omni has a finance wg. could have a rep from sudo to go to the omni wg. lots of opportunity, lots of thing are derelict.

* jems - another new member jade is also excited about helping with things i mentioned. Not sure if they are looped in through email.

* andy - i would be happy to help debug that project. They should get onto the discussion mailing list, thats the main way to get info.  

* yar - discussion list can sometimes be a scary place. good to have someone hold their hand welcoming them into the space, email list not always the best place for newcomers

= how do we make sudo room more welcoming =

* andy - ive been trying since ive joined a year ago to slowly gain support for things. i think we should be willing to consider more structure. an example would be to have a board structure that most volunteer orgs have. i.e. president/treasurer. i dont think we need to deviate from nonhierachical idea, not titles that would grant any powers, but could help make things more maneagable. create some system for establishing a board

* jake - what's the purpose of this?

* andy - to establish an easily identifiable person who exists with a purview. absence some structure, we end up with an ol' boys club. all power rests with knowing someone. if we have elections or groups to join, offers new ppl an avenue to leadership

* jake  - no leadership, we are horizontal

* andy - i think that is a myth, absence organization, your space's power is given to whoever is loudest or tallest

* yar - i agree

* jems - do we have a charter?

* andy - bylaws and code of conduct (general set of what u can and cant do)

* jems - when i was with dsa sf, i liked their charters for their subgroups. had built in affirmative action. ppl had to have effects in the community, number of POC or women in leadership. if not meeting the quota, that group could not exist. those charters for subgroups, i dont want to speak for all of wnb, but if they had organizational structure, they could have a delegate to come speak for them at events. still keep horizontal structure but have a constant known person people can go to

* yar - those are ideas worth copying and i appreciate you bringing energy to the conversation about it. my experience of sudo is that it is not horizontal in practice. few people tend to collect power, that is partly because it is a do-acracy. some people have more time and energy to do. i am speaking as someone who did end up holding a lot of power there in the past. i tried to use it for good, but dont want to repeat. identity of a tiger tamer. a toxic dynamic

* jems - role for a steward type position. hard to have a neutral position. we could think about thinking how we handle restorative justice

* yar - balancing act between creating positions and making sure there are people to fill them

* jems - may be a good idea to create a list of things of what we'd like to have/what needs are

* andy - cleanup the spacce, try and get influx of people (bring your friend), people would feed off each others energy.  

* yar - Andy that sounds great just wanna boost how much invisible labor goes into a really good event. Full support for people doing it. But it's not easy!  

* sudoer: i support all these great ideas to make the space more welcoming, thank you.

* sudoer - do board members have to be delegates

* andy - thats for us to decide. sudo room as a computer program, we are the admin, code defines how it operates.  

* jems - are any events paid?

* paige - no, but media lab is doing that if we want ideas

* andy - i think we should attempt the radio station model, continually encourage ppl to donate if they are using the space/ appreciate it, but no fee required

* jems - how do we do marketing?

* andy - romy post events to meetup, and someone posts on instagram, but vast majority is through word of mouth

* yar - and ppl who just moved here and google hackerspace

* ELT - I am against adopting hierarchy at Sudoroom. A "board" sounds alarmingly hierarchical to me.  

= appointing a new delegate =

* andy - I was nominated, paige was nominated. Normally we wouldnt nominate someone who is not officially a member/finished waiting period. But I nominate Jems, pending completion on membership.

* andy - proposal: the delegate committee will be jems (by next meeting as a fully fledged member) and paige. What do people think?

* yar - approve

* ELT - i like Jems but I think we should stick with people who have been around longer. just because they may understand the space better

* andy - can i propose to adopt that as an amendment to the proposal: ELT could you act as an interim delegate for one or two meetings?

* ELT - yea we can alternate

* Jake - elephant in the room is nobody is asking me about . i feel underappreciated for both my work as delegate taking a lot of fire in the recent episodes with CLP. Due to yar's villification with me, which is because of a longstanding conflict with yar, I was focused on by CLP, everyone focused their rage on me. "Now we are looking for a new delegate because Jake's name is tainted": I want to call this out so everyone knows what is going on here.

* Andy - anything you would formally request? I would just like to say that I appreciate all the work and sympathize with the abuse you have taken. I want you to know that I am grateful

* Jake - i want people to recognize that the vilification of me by CLP and Yar was invalid. people should make opinions based off what i've said in meetings, rather than just basing opinions based off what yar said. reason i have not been defending myself as much -- im tired of it, everyone is, ultimately i want omni to stay, and sudo live. Just because im not bringing it up, it doesnt mean its a problem.  

* ELT - do you still want to be the delegate?

* jake - doesnt matter, in the past nobody would step up to be delegate despite me repeatedly asking. so i did it because nobody would want to. nobody else was joining the omni mailing lists and keeping track with the omni stuff. so i kept doing it. great, now that other people are stepping up to delegate. But its not because they want to help out, but because they heard jake is cancelled, and they want to get him out of the position. im glad we are having another delegate, and i invite said person to ask me what is like/advice.

* andy - i appreciate what youve done and the continuity you have offered

* sudoer - (in the chat) sudoer says:i vote for restorative justice to untaint jake's name  

* andy - that is a very thoughtful idea. we don't have time to discuss that right now but i want that in the minutes.

* Carl - Jake, I appreciate all the work you've done for sudo & omni and I don't believe what was said about you.  

* jake - thank you Carl I appreciate that  

* jake - we really had to drag this shit-throwing group out kicking and screaming and they were covered in shit and so shit got all over me