Meeting Notes 2014-10-29

sudoroom meeting october 29, 2014

Icebreaker

• What's the weirdest thing you've found at sudo?

Attendees

amy (herself), korl, april, timothy, jonathan, julio, marc, matt, sean, akira, brendan,

Announcements

• marc juul is our new treasurer
• new board nominations
• film night! (about water pseudoscience and "Young ones"), popcorn and tea
  • Everything you "wouldn't've thunk" about water.
• We are cleaning sudo room RIGHT NOW
  • Marc turned lightbulbs into garbage (and used his lungs to filter the air)
  • Amy
  • Julio delivered monitors to April to test them
    • The testing was all April, for sure.
  • Timothy worked on the workshop corner! Replaced counter-top, permanently de-locked one of the filing cabinets
    • Started moving junk from CCL-border
  • Sean pushing building materials across walls
  • Jonathan defraged some peoples' personal effects
  • April put art supplies on the ground, and now they are somewhat arranged on a shelf
    • Also had sorted Electronics / microcontroller / robots components that were on the ground but are now on a shelf!
    • Why are there books here?
    • Empty shelves OMG
    • Labels, for sure, it's gonna happen, are you ready? So excited. So. Ex-. Cited.
    • Think about cords
  • Korl has been coming in on the "night shift" for "night cleaning"
    • Defragged massive tangle of cords in the Computer Nursery.
  • SCANTRONS, STDs, AND MORE!

Discussion of organization

What we want and don't want: https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Donations

New Members

• https://sudoroom.org/wiki/New_Member_Script

• Claire
  • Fun
  • Use all the different craft things, and learn more about hacking
  • friends make me happy!
  • oatmeal, publish zines and drawings!
  • zine workshops
  • never banned from a hackerspace
  • Sometimes a federal agent...

• Trisha
  • Only heard about it today, seems cool, cool resources
  • Tons of stuff, didn't know how many sewing machines you had, I'd love to play with them.
  • I like Claire! We work on a zine together, working on it for a few years now (the oatmeal)
  • share food! repaired jeans for Julio already!!!
  • zine workshops
  • never even been inside a hackerspaces, let alone banned

• 8pm at awaken cafe -- zine release party!

• alex has been pondered

Money

• Internet Credit Union account: $2,625.90
• Community Bank of the Bay Account: (probably) ~ $1,000
• 0.2387 bitcoin (about $80)
• $570/wk on Gratipay

• October Omni expenses: $2340.86
  • Paid.

December Event

• still needs livestreaming
• are we going to set up a comcast line?
  • We should check if we can get a second line with Sonic. Jenny volunteers to contact Dane Jasper (Sonic's CEO) and will reportback by Monday.

Omni

• https://pad.riseup.net/p/omninom
• Tomorrow's delegates:

Backspace proposal

Juul proposes the following amendments:

• That this is a 3 month trial period (not actually an amendment)
• That they don't take the downstairs space (current TIL space)
• That since they are not a non-profit they are not a member collective but simply a tenant
• That they don't have access to any common space other than the disco room and upstairs kitchen
• That they drop the "up to 50%" time access to the disco room

Consensus on the backspace proposal:

• As long as this is a 3 month trial period we agree to the proposal, with the following amendments:
  • backspace does not take the downstairs room and pays $750 per month instead.
  • backspace has no special privilege over any other member collective in accessing or regulating access to common space.
• In addition: sudo room feels that backspace, being a for-profit renting private space, should be a tenant and not a member collective but we can discuss this over the next three months.

Points of info:

• They've already requested a trial period of 3 months
• If they don't get the downstairs room (TIL room), they'll be reducing their rent to $750
• La Commune is a worker-owned coop as well, and is considered a member-group. Folks interested in discussions around tenancy and membership should join the Facilitating Collectivity working group, now known as 'How We Organize': https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/how-we-organize
• I share this concern as well but we need to fine-tune language around membership qualifications etc

Conflict Resolution

• Update on conflict with ban of person that Pigeon asked us to ban. Referred to as J.
  • Korl and Liz are finishing up an interview with one more person and they are leaning toward proposing a lift of the provisional ban of J we passed at a meeting earlier this month.
  • Korl and Liz are very interested in preventing blind solidarity (which seemed likely to occur unless someone spoke up), especially without having both sides of the story, and as much information as possible. We are also keen on working to help set a fair precident for situations like this; that both sides of a story/ incedent are sought out by an objective party, before Any decisions are made, to prevent social bias and blind solidarity.
  • Important aspects: None of the people involved in the conflict are members of the Omni, and the conflict happened three years ago. This issue was brought up by a person who is not part of the Omni and has been known to act untrustworthily and dishonestly, within the greater community.

• Juul proposes a 1 month ban of person who was using a knife to attempt to open the omni door and when confronted was super rude, calling one of our members a bitch. Person was drunk. Juul and others kicked this person out yesterday and told him that him he was banned until it could be brought up at todays meeting where he could show up. He looked disheveled and was holding a can of beer but seemed otherwise reasonable and attempted to defend his attempt at opening the door as trying to demonstrate a security problem and said he wished to apologize to the person he was rude to.
  • Remote-Jenny votes yes on ban.
  • One abstention, rest approve. Passes.
  • Need to take a picture.

• Proposal: Temporary Ban of Chris B (unspecified duration) for being in "bad standing" with regard to sudo room's values, specifically in disregarding the needs of the sudo room and omni communities with his use of the space above the stage (aka "crow's nest" aka "man cave"), as well as often attempting to sleep in the space, despite warnings, confrontations, and a clear expectation of it not being permitted.
  • During the BACH Unconference, Mitch Altman found Chris B sleeping under a sign in the basement that read "No Sleeping".
  • Amendment: Any further sleeping by ChrisB at Omni will result in an immediate temporary ban.