2023-12-12 AGM
Steve Barnett
OP
— Yesterday at 19:37
Attendees list on HMS
Steve Barnett
OP
— Yesterday at 19:43
We are quorate! 66 attendees currently
Starmouse — Yesterday at 19:45
Excellent
Robert — Yesterday at 19:52
slay!
Steve Barnett
OP
— Yesterday at 19:53
Just waiting for 8pm before we start. 🙂
Mic checks
Steve Barnett
OP
— Yesterday at 20:01
Betty: Welcome to 2023 Hackspace AGM
Currently 78 attendees
Joshua had to send apologies due to car trouble
Trustees are introduced
Steve: Lots of events this year
Mike: Members meetings are where decisions are made. Documented and a good place to bring ideas and suggestions for events and changes to the space.
Minuted on Discord and available on Zoom
Good place to find out what is going on.
Hackspace is run by its members, trustees are just liable.
Betty: Hack the Space days have been going strong this year.
Lots of improvements including laundering the sofas.
Next Hack the Space days is January 7th, so please come along and help tidy up the space.
If you want to improve the space this is your chance.
As a reminder, when Hack the Space is on the space is closed for hacking as we are in the way.
Andrew: We decided to move off of Slack when they moved to a 3 months message limit.
A lot of people have moved over to Discord and it is working well.
Similar to Slack with some improvements to permissions for teams.
Some public channels accessible to anyone including Show and Tell channel which is a good place to showcase projects.
We will be enabling community features soon.
If there is anything missing please let us know and we'll sort it out.
Betty: Lift is finally working!
First exciting thing is to try and get the new laser upstais incase it breaks again.
Watch out on Discord if you are interested in helping with this.
Andrew: We had an opportunity for a new laser cutter funded by pledge drive.
Now the lift is fixed we can move it upstairs finally.
Similar to the old laser but more power and better software (Lightburn).
Join us on the laser channel in Discord for more info on when this is happening.
Steve Barnett
OP
— Yesterday at 20:09
Aaron: We're hoping to go to EMF next year. Quite a few of us in 2022 and it was amazing. Lots of events and we had a tent, though shared as it was a Workshop tent.
Likely to be a similar setup next year.
Planning session Dec 18th for discussing what we might run at EMF 2024
Hopefully it will be as exciting as EMF 2022.
Lots of pictures of lights and BarBot.
BarBot not likely to go next year unless someone wants to get involved and fix it.
<Speculation about the date>
Matt: Until the 22nd of June starting late May,
Mike:
We had a bit of a dilemma a few years ago about the amount of money coming through the space and liabilty for VAT.
Unfortunately due to past events we had to Pay VAT for the time we were over the threshold.
Implementing a minimum membership fee helps us avioid this.
Somewhat of a dilemma as we didn't want the space to close but also didn't want a minimum. Settled on £5 minimum. Everyone above this threshold if a full member. (but please pay more if you can)
Aaron:
Tracked members who have been paying less than £5 before Oct 1st and done some basic statistics.
89 have continued to pay their contribution as a donation. (from 133->121 doing this)
52 members just cancelled, which is fine if they're not using the space.
48 so far have increased their contribution to the minimum which grants them full membership.
Net inrease in terms of membership contributions, which wasn't really the point, but this puts us in a good place.
Big thank you to Matt who made the changes required. Quite a lot of work involved and nobody else wanted to do it.
Douglas: Talking about work on downstairs metalworking, which has been inactive for a long time.
Slow progress, but the new floor is in.
Consulting on electrics - we have a list of components we are currently trying to procure.
Once electrics are in we will be in a position to start moving equipment down.
<Pics of current state>
Still quite a lot of mess, but well organised, and hopefully soon we can start moving tools down.
Thanks to those who came to the weekly work parties on this which we are running when there is work to be done.
Hopefully soon we can do the work to the stud floor in and painting as required.
<Floorplan image>
Hoping to get a grant for a downstairs toilet, but BizSpace have now opened a shared downstairs toilet in the building which helps things - code in HMS.
<Douglas talks through the plan>
Looking forward to reorganising upstairs metalworking area once we move the tools from there down.
Steve Barnett
OP
— Yesterday at 20:17
Mike: We are going to discuss how things are going in the space next.
Reviewed some of the teams in the past few years. Discussion of what it meant to be in a team and how teams worked.
Thank you to all the teams for running the space. Most of the space is run by members in teams.
If you enjoy filling vending machines or fixing tools please get in touch and you can join a team.
Aaron: One of the thing we'd really like to bring back is open nights.
Currently doing tours that are bookable on EventBrite. Sometimes 1 or 2 people, sometimes 6 to 8. A bit awkward when it's just one person.
Not quite where we were, but lots of stuff going on on Wednesdays now. This is good but maybe not enough to justify an open night just yet.
If you're bored on a Wednesday please come to the space and socialise. It's fun. 🙂
The other important thing is that we now have a health and safety reporting form.
Not exciting but important. Can use it to determine which tools should maybe become induction tools.
Table Saw is now induction - thanks to Andrew W for running these.
There are posters in the space with a QR code to scan for access to the form.
If you're hurt seek medical attention first, and back fill the form.
We also need to do PAT testing soon. If anyone knows how to do it and is bored please let us know. We have a PAT tester which is about to be calibrated
Andrew: Reviewing inductions in general for a while due to team changes.
Good improvements and some things people find frustrating and lacking.
We want to bring everyone up to the standard of the laser team which has a handbook, wiki page, and multiple people running inductions.
For some tools we do need a tailored induction and would welcome volunteers who know what they are doing.
We intend eventually to have RFID on every tool listed on HMS. This is a slow process due to available hardware and because sorting it out takes time.
Metalworking is separate to a degree - Betty will cover this.
Steve Barnett
OP
— Yesterday at 20:25
Betty: Lovely pictures of the workshops.
Thanks to everyone who came to and enjoyed the metalworking workshops. We will have ore coming in the new year covering welding, milling, and turning again.
Stlll need to attend an in person safety induction as the tools in the space may be different to those used in the workshop.
If anyone who has attended has any feedback, please let us know,
Unfortunately college gives us a small time frame, so quick responses are helpful when these become available.
Also open to non members 19+.
They have a plasma cutter and large metal cutting laser.
Milling and Turning course covers Bridgeport style mills and lathes similar toour Warco.
Welding covers MIG and a brief into to TiG.
Douglas: One of the issues with the space is it's currently split in two. We'd like to have a downstairs toilet to make this less of an issue.
This requires money and planning.
Important that people looking at joining the space understand what the space can do from them and what they are getting. We'd like to improve this and smooth out the process for new members.
Important that anyone who's new can have a night where they can come along and be part of the community.
Advertising is important too since if people don't know about the space they are unlikely to join. We have leafletted, but currently nobody has signed up as a result of this.
We had Left Lion visit a few weeks ago so hopefully there will be some positive coverage from that.
Our main goal is to keep the space alive.
Questions: No serious questions yet. 🙂
Financial update from Matt:
2023 Financials. Income this year up a bit from last year. Expenditure down 3k. 5k loss this year, better than 10k last year. Little bit of an improvement.
Tangible assets - machines equipment stuff we own has gone up. New laser is a tangible asset as is the waveform generator. Depreciated over time.
Stock is stuff in Snacksapce.
Debt is BizSpace Deposit
Cash in Bank is in TSB.
Reserves going down slowly.
Tangible fixed assets:
Additions, 3.5k for laser, 400 for waveform generator. Depreciaton slowly being marked off down to 2922
Imcome for the year:
Membership: 61k up 5k
Workshop events: 650, down so more events please!
Snackspace: Down
Tool usage similar
Inductions: 261 - lower became money is being sent via donations directly so not being tracked
Donations down 1k but will be higher next year due to minimum payment
Steve Barnett
OP
— Yesterday at 20:33
Expense: Rent up lease amount of 4%
Insurance 697
Electricity almost doubled - unit price went from 33.2 to 50.4 pence per kilowatt and the space has been used more in the last year so the bills have gone up.
Other utilities - virgin internet, water bill
BizRates: +705 from -6761
actually income becuase we had a refund due to being overcharged during COVID
Infrastructure - shelves, walls, doors,
HS2.5 3750 - mostly the cost of the floor
Team expenses mostly self explanatory - Network and servers is rent on servers and DNS
Not a lot of Snackspace refills
Trustee Expenses can be high because of services, password managers, opa vote for elections
Total Team expense is 5251 down from 12945 so spent a lot less on teams this year
Any questions on the finances?
No Questions
Thanks Matt
Betty: Here we are, another year come and gone. Wonderful workshops, new people and old friends
Please join the monthly members meeting
Join a team if you can.
Please join Discord - if you're struggling with that please let us know and we an help
Festivus Christmas party at the spae on the 23rd.
We are here 'till 11 - have a good xmas!
<Applause>
Meeting closed.
Festivus will kick off at 6pm ish on the 23rd