Meeting notes

This page serves as the index for SkullSpace meeting minutes.

Minutes from previous years

Meeting_notes (2016)

Meeting_notes (2015)

Meeting_notes (2014)

Meeting_notes (2013)

Meeting_notes (2012)

Meeting_notes (2011)

Meeting_notes (2010)

AGM, February 27, 2018 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• bell rung 6:00pm
• do we need to name actual officers as per our incorporation??? right now we just have directors. Look into this!

• candidates
  • Michael kozakewich
  • Ryan Wall
  • Stefan Asmundsson
  • Chris Johnson
  • Ben Moulden
• DO WE HAVE QUORUM? -- YES
• FINANCES
  • finances are steady due to frequent small events e.g. recent synth event
  • we have a fair amount of unrealized dues e.g. members who owe a few months
  • we need to be more aggressive about handling late dues collections
  • we are at approximately 60 members
    • out of the 60, 7 are in arrears on their dues
  • current financial synopsis: "treading water"
  • goal: grow enough reserve capital to cover 3 months of expenses
• General banter:
  • we should market to students more
• ELECTION - the board is elected by default
• bylaw changes - ALL PROPOSALS PASSED!!!!!!
  • amendment 1: Under the section "Application for membership": "If two or more members object to the granting of membership to an applicant, the board must not approve the application for membership." changed to "If two or more members object to the granting of membership to an applicant, the board must reach a unanimous decision if they are to approve the application for membership."
  • amendment 2: Under the section "Membership rights and privileges": "The privilege of bringing one guest at a time to the Hackerspace (other than the workshop within the Hackerspace), as long as they assume responsibility for the conduct and actions of their guest." changed to "The privilege of bringing guests to the Hackerspace in accordance with SkullSpace policies, on condition that they assume responsibility for the conduct and actions of their guests."
  • amendment 3: Under the section "Ceasing to be a member": "Such a membership may be reinstated upon application for reinstatement, which is to processed in the same manner as an application for membership [...]" changed to "Such a membership may be reinstated upon application for reinstatement, which is to be processed in the same manner as an application for membership [...]"
  • amendment 4: Under the section "Filling vacancy": "[...] the vacancy is to be filled at a regular or special meeting of members to be held within one month after the vacancy arose." changed to "[...] the vacancy is to be filled by election at a special meeting of members to be held within one month after the vacancy arose. The election shall operate as described in the "Election of directors" section."
  • amendment 5: Under the section "Application for Membership": "A membership application must be given to a director." changed to "A membership application must be delivered to a director."
  • amendment 6: Under the section "Application for Membership" under the subsection "Other membership obligations": "Every member must subscribe to the SkullSpace announcements email list." changed to "Every member will be subscribed to the SkullSpace announcements email list. A member may only unsubscribe from the list if he or she agrees that any notice sent thereafter to the announcements email list in accordance with this by-law is considered to have been delivered to him or her as well."

• MEETING ADJOURNED 7:02PM

December 19, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• The official monthly meeting was rescheduled to tonight because holiday.

• Finances
  • Stable slight increase due to lower costs (hydro bill)
  • Having food drives food donations
  • Membership numbers good at 57
• New website
  • Set to go live Friday Dec 22 possible launch party.
  • Any members that can provide content would be good ie) project.
  • Does any member own the Skullspace Instagram... we should ask on announce/discuss
  • Website can post blog posts to social media but we need credentials for Skullspaces social media accounts.

• The Gary effect will be hosting a gift give way for low income families. If interested visit garyeffect.ca

• Carl's enclosure nearly complete just wire routing and dust management left.

November 28, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• 13 members present (no recap of last meeting minutes)
• Lively discussion of how to generate revenue and events for Skullspace
  • Liquor licensing in the space
    • Have to get space up to code and investigate what blockers there are (fire inspection)
    • There should be past emails to investigate what is exactly needed
  • Running weekly/monthly events at a bar
  • Promote Skullspace as a coworking space
  • If we can separate the classroom from the rest of the space, we can make the classroom nicer and then potentially host events there (small scale dance parties?)
  • Running classes for things that our members are good at
    • programming/3d printer/CNC Router/Soldering, video games, art, designing things
  • colocation services and/or vm services
  • Hackathons at the space
  • Discussed having a paid position for volunteer/event coordinator to run things
• Discussed how to make the space nicer
  • Purchase good furniture and replace crappy furniture
  • 'Recycling run' is needed to get rid of unused junk (MAME machine, etc.)
  • Justin wants to make curtains to separate the classroom from the rest of the space

October 31, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• Projector kerfuffle w.r.t. pinball
• Financials
  • Net worth a little lower, but we're still healthy.
  • We had a large snacks/drinks expense, but we've paid nearly all of it off and we'll be seeing good returns next month.
  • A. Michael made a pre-paying account for our summer insurance, so we'll never be hit by surprise by that.
  • Our membership is paying our rent and a little extra; donations, snacks, events, and such pay for everything else.
• The 3D printer (which we bought in 2013!) is driving Edwin bonkers, and he'd like to buy a new printer. Is anyone willing to pitch in for a Prusa I3 Mk3?
• We will contact the landlord about putting up signs telling people not to park under the fire escape?
• Troy is taking pictures of the space for our website.

September 26, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• 9 members present
• Recap of last meeting minutes
• Financials:
  • A little lower this month than last, but still about a month in the bank
  • Big insurance payments are now done
  • Michael to add an account to average those insurance fees across a whole year for better budgeting / foresight
  • Drinks tend to sell better than food
  • Quite a bit more in membership dues compared to last year
• Unit upstairs (cheaper by $600/month) is becoming available soon - Michael to reach out to Bob Brown. Will look into it and report back.
• Anti-social: Michael won't be running it, but Wayne sounded like he might want to. Best not to rush it to ensure a better turnout. Michael will talk to Wayne to make plans.
  • Michael wants to eventually plan a smaller, quieter, more geeky night targeted towards members of SkullSpace and their friends.
• Papers we love is at the space tomorrow. Some fancy text to speech stuff.
• Communications strikeforce has met. More coming soon.
• Meeting over 6:42pm

August 29, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• Intros
• 8 members including Michael, Stefan, Thor, Edwin, Keith...
• financials
  • we have 1 month rent as backup
  • downward trend due to insurance will continue for another month.
  • events made August somewhat profitable
• Lockpicking event happened - it went well
• Ingress event happened - it went well
• attendees at lockpicking event had trouble swiping in at front door, possibly due to to much use
• member reports getting lock in the space because motion sensor is flakey
  • get a sign asap
  • look into installing pushbar
• member suggests hold a "fixing the space" hackathon
• b-sides nov4-5, looking for speakers
• should get update photos for the computer for refugees soon
• member suggests creating strikeforce to update wiki, webpage, member intake process etc.
• motion to turn air cond. back on

July 25, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• Members: 8
• 3D Printing Workshop over here. IEEE might be sponsoring refreshments? 5 or 6 talks. Reverse engineering Tiko. Retrofitting the motors, etc.
• Ai-Kon went good. We had a lot of interest and there were no hiccups. It was like a mini comic-con.
• Financial news:
  • We're seeing a spike in members after all last month's memberships started coming through. We won't be relying quite as hard on event funds, but those will still be necessary for now.
  • We're still in that four-month period every summer where we're paying for insurance. We're continuing a downward trent, but we shouldn't fall below where we were in February.
• Our air conditioner might have problems. It seems to be working now, but we'll keep an eye on it. Someone predicted a few years ago that it was on its last legs.

June 27, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• Intros
• 3D printing intro day - stay tuned for sometime this summer
• X-Carl is now operational once again (thanks Edwin!)
• Finances appear to be stabilizing
• New Keyfobs are in - rejoice!
• Mark Jenkins is presenting a talk at the space tomorrow - "Resisting the Surveillance State"
• SkullSpace fund2013 minutes are at Meeting_notes\2013

raising campaign is active - check out http://skull.space/summer - Donation matching!

• Michael K is still looking for volunteers for the AiKon table, hit him up if you are available!
• Temporary water service is now in effect @ 374 Donald
• Unix Epoch rollover to 1500000000 is happening on July 13 - stay tuned for an event announcement

May 30, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• Intros
• April minutes read
• 72 Princess location for social- Chris made preliminary contact.
• Free credit pinball today
• Two pinball events still to come - contact Manitoba Pinball Asc. or just show in interested
• Edwin asked developer for discount on KISS slicer. Developer gave gave us a free licence
• Edwin and Thor experimenting with mater control for 3d printer
• X-Carl may have a damaged arduino and/or X-axis stepper driver
• Edwin ordered replacement and upgrade parts for Carl
• Edwin looking for Windows Vista licence for some bizarre reason
• 1st pinball event happened, it was fun
• Papers we love happened it wen well, apparently it's on YouTube
• Student films screening event being planned
• cyber-defense challenge happened, it went well
• Front street being torn up from June 8 - July 27, good luck parking.
• sandbox table still incomplete and broken
• abridged financial report because scripts were configured for USD not CAD. Micheal may email complete report after meeting

April 25, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• Introductions
• We read the minutes from last week.
• Adrian had a suggestion for an Anti-Social space. 72 Princess, third floor, $450.
  • Freight elevator if needed.
• Financial Report:
  • We had made some money from events, so we're holding steady.
  • We have a couple new members.
  • The insurance payments in the summer are what usually do us in.
  • Member dues essentially pay for rent. We rely on donations and event revenue to cover insurance and utilities.
• Plans for the floor? Getting ends of linoleum would be nice and cheap. We should be able to just roll it out without gluing.
• Chris's friend has some ideas on how to decorate the place.

April 11, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald - Special Meeting

• Meeting held to vote on proposed amendments that were not voted on during 2017 AGM due to procedural error.
  • Due to not meeting a quorum, the bylaw amendments were not voted on.

March 28, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• Meeting called
• Approved previous minutes
• Financial report: Looks okay. We had a good event with the synth meetup, so we probably aren't losing anything this month. Michael doesn't have the bank records at the moment.
• Why is the door always locked now?
  • The architects lock it at 5:00?
• A lot of members had applied lately, and we're contacting them one by one.
• Hackaday is hiring contract writers! Writing about projects and such, so apply today.
  • (P.S. we should document all the neat stuff we do here.)
• Was there money in our fund to purchase upholstery?
  • So Chris had the idea to get furniture to make our space better.
  • More flooring! Stuff like that.
  • We need lockers, too. Costco has a sale.
    • We can probably get old ones from Habitat for Humanity, too.
  • We took a vote. The people who didn't show up will never know.
• Flickr is full of pictures from other events, but never anything in our space. We should take more photos in the space.
• Edwin talked about pinball and such. Virtual pinball, etc.
• We've got an orange (the construction type) SkullSpace toque for sale.
• Marcel is looking for a video camera (camcorder?) for an upcoming trip. He was looking for something "a step up from an iPhone."
• Upcoming events:
  • Ron's CTF event this Saturday
  • Manitoba Comic Con this Saturday and Sunday. We have a table.

February 28, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald - Annual General Meeting

• Introduction
• Announced bylaw meeting which will come up after the AGM.
  • Give us suggestions if you missed them
  • We will announce the meeting for voting three weeks in advance
• Financial update for the year
  • This month's projection still shows downward slope, two months left
  • We're losing ~$300 per month until the major expense of insurance kills us
  • Balance seems high at $13,000 but liabilites are at ~$10,000
  • Yearly figures show earnings of $30,000 and $24,000 expenses
  • High donation amount, power's been a consistent expense
  • Expenses were surprisingly even with earnings
• Year in review
  • Members who have come and gone
  • Events we ran this year
    • Months electronics workshops in the beginning
    • 3D Printing Events
    • Comic Con
    • Jimcon
    • Aikon's Winterfest
    • GIS Event
    • Weekly drone events
    • Computer Refurb
  • Space change
    • Great purge of 2017
    • Adrian rekagiggered the server rack
    • Sean improved our Wifi
    • We no longer have VOI as a provider internet
    • Winnitron is now updated with new games
  • Projects of the year
    • Pong game with Troy and Edwin
    • PDP-8 restoration by Adrian
    • Arcade Joystick
    • Bluetooth hacking with Troy and Edwin
    • Ben's ball-o-buttons
    • Synthesizer modules created by Jordan Justice
    • RAM dumping by programming
    • Netbright signs with Jay

January 31, 2017 - 18:00 @ 200-374 Donald

• Meeting called 6:00pm
• FPV update
  • FPV Wing build moved to Feb 23rd
  • discontinuing the regular FPV extravaganza until further notice, lack of interest
• Members: Read the Bylaws and propose any changes
  • announce proposed changes to bylaws on Feb 7th (still waiting for members to submit proposed changes)
• Synthesizer petting zoo is gaining momentum
• Bylaw amendment ideas
  • requiring invitation to apply for membership seems outdated as per our recent practices
  • one guest per member in the space rule
  • need to update wiki as per meeting requirements
• Finances!!!! - see report here
  • forecast: early April is when we die should we not grow our membership
  • next big upfront payment - july?? need to confirm
• Membership strategies: we need to throw more events to gain more members! Our efforts reflect membership growth, need to keep up the good work
  • Government Grants - paying for events, supplies
  • IEEE wpg section?
• Malware analysis was well attended
• Teddy Ruxpin > Furby
• POS terminals working - for snacks!?!?!?
• KeyFOBs should be hear by Feb 3rd
• Meeting adjourned @ 18:41