Plenum 2021-08-17 Minutes
Accuracy of this month's minutes
Minutes are usually taken on a shared screen during plenum and therefore capture reasonably accurately what was discussed. Unfortunately I had a problem with my PC late during this plenum and lost the edited file before committing it, so the minutes below are reconstructed from memory rather than as recorded at the time. Please assume some margin for errors and omissions. — Roland
Venue
20:07 Open
Credentials
- Present: Valentine, Jen, Joyce, Andrei, Roland
- Apologies: (none)
Reports
Regulatory (Jen)
- ACRA Annual Report: Up to date. Next due 30 Apr 2022.
- IRAS: C-S (tax filing): Up to date. Next is for YA2021 due 30 Nov 2021.
- IRAS: ECI: Up to date: Next due 30 Dec 2021. (Remembered date correctly? - Roland)
Finance (Jen)
Cash
- $??.?K in the StanChart+PayPal as of 1 August 2021
- Unable to report this month as bank credentials have stopped working.
- (Valentine, Jen) Sort out bank credentials in time to report finances at next plenum.
- 0.66914519 in BTC
Accrual (up/down $?/month)
- The bank credential problem means that reporting this month is not possible. There do not appear to have been significant changes to income or expenses, so last month's figure is likely to be close:
- Including predicted upcoming costs amortised monthly, we are down $1.44K a month.
Significant changes to regular expenses (if any)
| Regular Expenses | Amount | Frequency | Monthly Cost (amortised) |
|---|
| Rental | 3400 | 12 | $ 3,400.00 |
| Utilities (est'd) | 450 | 12 | $ 450.00 |
| Internet | 148 | 12 | $ 148.00 |
| CorpSec | 240 | 2 | $ 40.00 |
| Accounting/Corp Services (est'd) | 3000 | 1 | $ 250.00 |
| Aircon | 980 | 1 | $ 81.67 |
| Cleaning (est'd) | 80 | 26 | $ 173.34 |
| Income Tax (est'd) | 600 | 1 | $ 50.00 |
| | | $ 4,593.01 |
Memberships/Contributions (Valentine)
Update on new members and contributions.
Current membership/contribution breakdown by tiers.
| Tier | Count |
|---|
| 16 | 5 |
| 32 | 0 |
| 64 | 17 |
| 128 | 11 |
| 256 | 1 |
| 512 | 1 |
Old Hardware Pattern (Andrei)
- Ref: recent Google Groups posts
- (Valentine, Andrei, Roland) Updates; review if Old Hardware Pattern works.
- Discussion noted that the mailing list / Google Group may no longer be the appropriate primary communication mechanism, and even that it may no longer make sense to think in terms of "a primary" mechanism but instead to operate on a multi-channel basis as standard. See AOB on a social media officer.
- It may also make sense to offer some items for sale through Carousell.
- Discussion about what to do with the enormous number of PC power cables (BS 1363 - IEC 320 C13). Proposed choosing a fixed size container holding a reasonable inventory for HackerspaceSG purposes and that any additional cables be considered clutter to put through OHP.
Storage boxes (Valentine)
- As proposed, $64 tier gets 22L worth of storage, with every additional $64 contributed getting an additional 22L.
- (Valentine) Implement to start charging for additional boxes starting in September.
- Update membership page, announce in relevant channels, add to invoices as required.
Back room water issue / Shifting of Hardware Room (Valentine)
- Ref: GitHub issue
- Management company believed to be already undertaking repairs. Expected to complete by end of September (Remembered date correctly? - Roland)
KGB premises lease renewal / Potential reboot (Valentine)
- Ref: Hackerspace Design Patterns 2.0 "Reboot/Refresh Pattern"
- (Valentine) Advise membership of imminent renewal and potential for relocation. Actively pursue consensus on criteria and options.
- (Valentine) Approach landlord of another unit in the building that's current vacant with a view to establishing at least one plausible alternative ahead of negotiation with our existing landlord.
- Open question: Should we ask to renew for 2+2 years?
Governance reboot (Martin)
- (Jen reporting in Martin's absence) (Apologies, I've forgotten what was reported. - Roland)
- (Valentine) Publish existing drafts (i.e. as they stand, without undertaking further drafting work) of items specified in June minutes. Actively pursue consensus.
- Some confusion was noted on the objectives of this exercise:
- Establishing consensus on what we're about, as part of recruiting a team and likely some members. This is an ongoing, interactive process that can only be driven by the CEO. There is a large upfront task to establish strong consensus around a first adopted version of course, but the process continues so long as the organisation exists. Not having a clear picture of what we're about — or allowing it to fall out of sync with the organisation's situation — risks making it very, very difficult to make progress. The identification of a vision, values, mission, and high-level goals is not the only way to achieve this, but it's a simple, well-understood, widely-used way of doing so.
- Developing a means of communicating what we're about to grant bodies, as for inclusion in grant applications. This is perhaps an afternoon's work and doesn't by itself require interaction with others, although the result is likely to be more useful if it reflects a real consensus. This latter point may have led to the present confusion.
- (Vaentine) Re-engage with Martin. Ensure that he's crystal clear on what's expected.
Website revamp (Valentine)
- The HackerspaceSG Docs site is now live.
- A draft revamp of the existing site is anticipated before the September plenum.
House rules (Valentine)
- Discussion, if time permits.
- Discussion, if time permits.
- Roland mentions a lack of clarity on what he's being asked to do here. Valentine suggests perhaps leading a discussion on how to. Roland' s view is that the process to establish consensus on what we're about and recruit a team to execute will cause much of this as a side-effect.
- Item closed.
Permitting large group gatherings in a COVID-endemic Singapore (Valentine)
- Brief discussions suggests general consensus that we should go ahead, subject to prevailing legal requirements.
- (Valentine) Put a proposal to the membership at large, mindful of the concerns of people frequently present in the space who were not present at plenum. Actively pursue consensus.
Events (not currently delegated)
- Upcoming events that HackerspaceSG might be interested in
New business
Admin help wanted (Valentine)
- We are actively looking for volunteers to reply to Facebook page messages asking to visit the space, among other things.
Further adjustment of membership tiers (Valentine)
- Instead of the current 9 hour soft cap, should we move to business/non-business hours differentiation?
- Proposal: $64/$128 tiers can use the space after 6pm daily and on weekends, with 1 day a week allowance for weekday 9am–6pm OR 12mn–9am use.
- Pros: Easier to explain; might be more attractive to potential members looking to use the space after work. Easier to set a norm that 9am–6pm on weekdays is quiet time, and all other times are not.
- Cons: One less carrot/stick to offer members to help with tasks.
- Some consensus that this made more sense.
- (Valentine) Put a proposal to the membership at large. Actively pursue consensus.
Change of accounting firm (Joyce)
- Propose we cut costs by using a new accounting firm.
- General consensus that this is not warranted as (a) no material problems identified, and (b) no material savings identified.
- Item closed.
Updates on facility maintenance and issues
- Fuji Xerox laser printer toner has been replaced.
- Front room sink and shower were fixed on 1 August 2021 (thanks Elise and Joyce).
- Spectrum analyser seems to be broken (according to Joyce).
- Almost certainly uneconomic to repair commercially. No-one is voluteering to fix it. Put through OHP as usual.
- Item closed.
Any Other Business (AOB)
- This arose during the OHP discussion and the realisation that the mailing list is probably no longer a sensible sole channel. As Andrei prefers to use email only, the need arose for someone to deal with announcement via other channels, notably Facebook and Twitter, but also Telegram, perhaps others.
- Joyce indicated interest in taking this up.
- It became clear later in the discussion that it wasn't clear whether what was being discussed was responsibility for HackerspaceSG's social media presence generally, or just for OHP communication.
- (Joyce, Valentine) Sort out what role is to be taken on.
- Item remains open, Valentine reporting.
Next meeting
- 2021-09-21 20:00 tentative (tentatively scheduled for 3rd Tuesday of every month, but subject to change depending on the schedule of key people)
23:30 Close (approx)