Meeting notes

2013 minutes are at Meeting_notes\2013 2012 minutes are at Meeting_notes\2012 2011 minutes are at Meeting_notes\2011 2010 minutes are at Meeting_notes\2010

Mar 11th, 2014 - 18:00 @ 374 Donald

Members present: Cian, Brittany, Courtney, Nate, Jay, Alex, Colin, AMichael, Zoe, Stef, Ben, Alex, Brian, Robert K, Edwin, Sean

• Agenda and minutes
  • Ideally, the board sends the minutes out on Saturday/Sunday
  • They were late last week
  • Aside: once minutes are posted, they become "official" and cannot be changed, so delays are expected

• Reading of minutes postponed until the end of the meeting

• Protelec automatic door unlocking
  • No update yet
  • Action item: Colin C will talk to the landlord and Colin Stanners about this forward and provide an update in the future

• Fire extinguishers
  • Alex volunteered to buy two small ones and bankroll them
  • Show of hands was taken to pay Alex back, majority said "yes"
  • Stef suggested we find out what we require to pass an inspection and buy those instead
  • Action item: Alex to buy extinguishers

• Wiki updates
  • Many pages are out-of-date and a lot of them are ugly
  • SkullSpace has changed a lot and the wiki has not kept up
  • Brittany is looking for some people to help with this
  • AMichael stated that he is organizing a strike force to handle this issue

• Electrical upgrades and server hosting
  • The circuit is approaching overload
  • The quote is $250 to effectively double our capacity
  • Possible solutions
    • Negate the need by getting rid of non-critical servers (VM sever, mailing list, DNS)
    • Fund the upgrade through crowdfunding
    • SkullSpace can pay for it if the membership agrees
  • Rich from Voi offered additional Internet service dedicated to the servers
  • Find out the interest level for people who have machines in the rack?
  • Member comment: "if we upgrade the power, it's not a free-for-all, the power still costs us"
  • Action item: the board will discuss with the server owners and gauge crowdfunding interest

• Donation tracking
  • Proposal: obtain cash boxes that allow deposit but require a key for withdrawal
  • Jeremy volunteered to donate a plexiglass box that he owns
  • How many lockboxes are required?
    • Donations
    • Drinks
    • Snacks
    • 3D printer
  • Lockboxes with non-unique keys are acceptable
    • Stef was asked about the 3D printer box - he indicated that he did not require access to it
    • No other boxes need to be opened by members that are not on the board

• Reading of the minutes
  • Discussed the AGM
  • Discussed the general and student member audits
  • Discussed the splitting of the calendars into community
  • Covered the meetup, and that everybody can create events (not just Brittany)
  • Discussed the CODE event
  • The membership in attendance was not asked to approve the read minutes

• Meme cookbook
  • If anybody is interested in resurrecting the meme cookbook, talk to Nate
  • Needs a lot of work, but Nate is confident we could publish it and sell it someday
  • Ideas
    • Asking Wil Wheton or Penny Arcade to write a foreword
    • Organize with them for the proceeds to go to charity
  • Brian proposed that we simply start working on it as a blog, and then we'll put it all together
  • AMichael suggested that this will be positively affected by the wiki cleanup

• Recurring community events
  • Nate proposed that we have a rotating list of events to mention during meetings to keep members informed

• International Tabletop Day
  • ITD is an event organized by the folks that run the "Tabletop" web series
  • This year's day is April 5th
  • SkullSpace is hosting a get-together for International Tabletop Day
  • Talk to Nate for more information

• User groups and using the space
  • The PHP user group was here, and it went very well
  • The Android user group wants to have their meetings here as well
  • If you want to book the space, email admin@lists.skullspace.ca or talk to Colin Childs

• Yuri's Night
  • April 12th at the Museum of Man of Nature
  • Drinking in the museum (including the planetarium!)
  • Action item: Brittany will follow up with Jay about getting a table or having some other kind of SkullSpace presence

• Brewery tour
  • Jeremy has a contact at the Half Pints brewery, and might be able to organize a tour
  • By show of hands, many people were interested in doing that
  • Jeremy will email the mailing list to gauge interest

• New members
  • Jordan Justice became a full member today

• Adjournment

Mar 4th, 2014 - 18:00 @ 374 Donald

• Introductions

• Reading of minutes
  • AGM last week
    • New board elected
      • Alex Weber
      • Ben Bergman - Financials
      • Brittany Postnikoff
      • Colin Childs
      • Courtney Lofchick
    • Events from last year discussed

• Audits
  • Student membership audits
  • General membership audit
  • What is a membership audit?
    • Making sure we have financials backed up for every member
    • Making sure we have forms and the like
    • In short, due dilligence

• Calendars
  • Colin split the calendar into two calendars
    • One for community events
    • One for SkullSpace events
  • Kevin V. wrote a calendar webapp
    • API integration with Meetup?
    • API integration with Google Calendar?

• Meetup
  • Lots of people ask Brittany to add events
  • Anybody can add events if they are subscribed as a SkullSpace member (???) (5:28)

• CODE
  • People from Meetup showed up
  • People scrummed
  • Not much happened at the space
  • Pizza, ideas, and then people went home
  • Mark Jenkins put in a lot of work
    • when-ei.ca

• External community emails (8:35)
  • Once per week, generate a digest of some kind?
  • Forward with the meeting reminder?
  • Bring up during the meeting

• Adjournment

Feb 25, 2014 - 18:00 @ 374 Donald

Members present: Alex, Mark, Michael, Kevin, Jason, Courtney, Nate, Ian, Cian, Brittany, Edwin, Jay, Sean, Thor, Dave, Ric, Colin, Jeremy, Nishan, Stefan

Annual General Meeting 2014

• Year in review
  • Alex presented with some pictures throughout the year
  • Events
    • CTFs, user groups, social, cryptoparties, Comic Con, hack-a-thons,

movie nights, Peg Jam, Freeze Frame, CDC, game nights

• • Financial update
    • A proper one will be coming, but summary is we are stable
  • The future
    • Fire safety
    • Occupancy permit

• Bylaw changes
  • Late dues
    • Intent is to remove some process and make it smoother for the board
  • Minutes being read
    • Intent is to ensure minutes are taken and agreed upon by members
    • Could be implemented as a policy if the bylaw is voted down

• Board nominees
  • Cian, Brittany, Courtney, Alex, Colin, Sue, and Kenny

• Vote results
  • New board: Ben, Colin, Courtney, Brittany, Alex
  • Both bylaws passed

Feb 18, 2014 - 18:00 @ 374 Donald

Members present: Courtney, Brittany, Ben, Stefan, Ric, Thor, Brian, Edwin, Sean, Colin, Ian, AMichael, Adrian, Alex, Marcel, Troy, Kevin, Rob

• Nominations closed today
  • 8 people running
  • Last minute nominations allowed, but earlier the better

• Door is almost ready to open when fire alarm goes off
  • Last part is getting building panel connected, which is locked
  • Fire alarm might not even work
    • No battery and no phone line - landlord should bring in alarm company
  • Remote access needs to be tested

• LES.net upgraded our phone line
  • Calls now last more than 30 minutes!
  • No MTS landline needed anymore

• Coinfest last weekend
  • First Bitcoin ATM in Winnipeg!

• David - heritage/community museums
  • Looking for interested members to help create interactive electronic exhibits
    • Push button activated sounds for guessing game
    • Electric fire glow
    • Lit routes on map
    • Fibre optic lights modified to be activated by motion sensor or push button
    • And more!
  • Many small contracts available

• Raspberry Pi users group this weekend

• Booking the space is awkward right now
  • Suggestion made for a webpage for applying to use the space

• Wiki needs updating
  • Brittany will be working on this, contact her if you are interested in helping out

• Switch inside for when we are open
  • Notification on website/IRC/Twitter?
  • Light in the window?

• Next hackathon - Manitoba retro computing
  • Winnipeg was the BBS capital of Canada at one time
  • Some speakers already contacted, more being contacted
    • Les
    • Bill Reed
    • Michael Gelespie

Feb 11, 2014 - 18:00 @ 374 Donald

Members present: Ian, Mark, Marcel, AMichael, Brian, Colin C., Courtney, Alex, Kevin, Thor, Stefan, Troy, Rob, Cian, Edwin, Ben, Zewwy, Colin S., Dave, Ric

• You have less than a week to nominate yourself for the board
  • Email admin and Nathan

• Crypto currency day last weekend - success
  • Slides will be posted on discuss

• Crypto party last weekend - success
  • People can learn about privacy protecting technology and do key signing
  • Everyone should come to the next one

• Door hardware - no news

• CDC Feb 20
  • 3rd year
  • 10 high school teams
  • No more volunteers needed
  • Virtual env. for students to secure
  • Feel free to come by and hang out

• Sci-fi skirmish day coming up - info on discuss

• AGM Feb 25
  • Email coming to paid-up members with voting codes
    • Make sure you are paid up by the 15th!

• Big hydro bill
  • Likely due to air conditioning for the summer
  • Will check if the bill is est. or act.
  • Will look into going on a budget

• Things that annoy Ian
  • Booking the space and not showing up
    • Please email pics of the space to admin so we can use it to show off to potential renters

• Dedicated IPv6 network being installed by Voi
  • CDC storage servers will be installed here on that network, Octopi donating blade server for VMs
  • Early stages, nothing bought yet, still discussing

• MTS Future First providing stuff like shirts and scholarships, sponsoring CDC
  • Talk to Cian if you are interested

• By-law amendments
  • Can be policy instead of by-law - vote against by-law if this is your choice

• PHP users group tomorrow

Feb 4, 2014 - 18:00 @ 374 Donald

Members present: Phoul, Sean, Alex, Thor, Ian, Cian, Stefan, Jeremy, Ben, A. Michael, Adrian, Edwin

• AGM - 25 Feb.
  • Elect new board
  • Vote on two by-law amendments
    • Membership dropped if no payments for 3 months
      • Nominate yourself by Feb 17 ??pm
        • admin@skullspace.ca
    • Read minutes
  • Voting
    • You will get a token by email
    • Bring token to do your vote
    • OR give token to a proxy to vote on your behalf

• Door & occupancy permit stuff
  • Getting fire extinguishers
  • Front door quote was really expensive - ~$2000
  • Colin Stanners will be fixing door himself next week
  • New drink machine process
    • If a drink is out, feel free to buy drinks at Giant Tiger, put receipt with name in cash box

• CryptoParty
  • OTR & Tor - Phoul
  • Security from ISP perspective - Theo

• Crypto currency day - Sat. at noon
  • Dogecoin "samples"
  • Crypto stuff regarding block chain

• Big Hydro bill
  • Need to check if that is a reading or an estimate (might be overage from summer)
  • Keep some drinks in the fridge, only use drink machine for events

• Beefs
  • If you schedule an event on the calendar, show up
    • Game day and movie night had people show up when no one was hear

• CDC Feb. 20
  • If you are interested in helping kids fix sketchy networks, contate Nathan

• Thanks to Dave for sorting out the electronics bench
  • There was a mediocre round of applause

• Sunday RPG day
  • D&D style, combining many different games
    • Bring any game rules you have to make the system more robust
  • More info coming to mailing list soon

Jan 21, 2014 - 18:00 @ 374 Donald

Members present: Ben, Countney, Stefan, Michael, Alex, Thor, Phoul, Brittany, Marcel, Brian, Edwin, Ian, Rob, Jared, Sean, Aemilianus, Cian

• International Table Top Day
  • Beginning of April
  • Nate is taking charge

• CDC
  • This Saturday, Linux experts presenting Linux Security Part 2 with Jared and Theo
  • Preperation for CDC high schooler event Feb. 20

• Hackathon
  • Ghost in the Shellcode - 20th place
    • Pretty impressive, considering we were a small team doing it part time
  • Jim's Unity talk at the last hackathon
    • Went well, Jim is willing to do more Unity talks in the future

• The Annual General Meeting cometh - Feb 25th
  • Need signage for what is being voted on (ie. board and by-laws) 21 days prior to AGM
  • Board vote
    • Everyone that is interested in running for the board should nominate themselves
    • If you want to nominate someone, email admin@
    • You may nominate yourself the day of the election, but it is prefered that you do it sooner so your name can be on the ballots
  • Tabling of bylaw amendments / special resolutions
    • If you haven't paid your dues and haven't made special arrangements, your membership will automatically lapse (currently we need a vote by the board)
    • Probation period for new members, not just two week delay (other spaces have this)
      • Should this impact privelages, ie. voting?
      • Should they be required to be at a minimum number of events? (eg. 3 regular meetings and 3 other events)
      • Should members need to be vouched for by n number of full members by the end of their probation period in order to be a full member?
        • Execution could be complicated
        • Could be combined with complaints
        • Ian's perspectives (food for thought, perhaps need more discussion at a future meeting)
          • Is it in our best interest to make it harder to become a member?
          • Are we looking for people to improve our cash flow?
          • Are we looking to be just sustainable? More than sustainable? Should there be a membership cap? We are the most expensive technology group (other than AssentWorks) in the city
    • If there are any other proposed special resolutions, email the list

• Fundraising
  • Bowling night?
    • All you can eat pizza/popcorn/soft drinks - $25/person ($20 without pizza)
  • Minigolf night?
  • Doodle coming for choosing date
    • Saturday is likely cheapest

• Programming for Beginners course
  • Jan 27, for 6 weeks
  • lectures and assignments
  • Will be a very dense, professional course
  • $60
  • In SkullSpace classroom

• Canadian Open Data Experience Hackathon (http://www.canadianopendataexperience.com/)
  • Should we participate?

Jan 14th, 2014 - 18:00 @ 374 Donald

Members present: Brittany, Ian, Nate, Thor, Brittany, Courtney, Brian, AMichael, Ben, Jeremy, Phoul, Edwin. Sean, Ric, Colin, Alex, Stef

• Financial update
  • We're stable
  • One social or other event per year covers unexpected expenses pretty easily

• Our "Meetup" account
  • We have 80 people, lots of people that aren't members
  • If you want non-members to come, post your event on the Meetup

• Minutes
  • A request was made to send an email when meeting minutes are published
  • Minutes should also be uneditable by the general public

• Hackathon!
  • Ghost in the Shellcode CTF
  • Unity talk

• Cleaning
  • The cleaner charges $100 for 3-4 hours of cleaning
  • Ian has been paying for it
  • Quick vote was taken: overwhelming "yes" for SkullSpace to foot the bill

• CDC
  • 1/3 forensics, 1/3 presentations, 1/3 securing servers
  • February 20th is the big event
  • If you want to help out with the event, talk to Ian

• Fire alarm/door locks integration
  • No news

• AGM
  • The next Annual General Meeting is on the of February 25th
  • Please consider running for the board
  • Please consider any bylaws you would like to be modified
  • More information to follow

• Comic Con
  • Pop Culture Expo is coming up
  • Last weekend in March (?)

Jan 7th, 2014 - 18:00 @ 374 Donald

Members Present: Ric, Thor, Jarred, Ian, Jeremy, Sean, Courtney, Alex, Nate, Jay, Brian, Stefan, Colin 2, Cian, Michael

• Game Day
  • The place was left a mess
  • Please clean up after yourselves and please date you food

• Missing Gloves
  • If you find them they belong to Dave Stewart

• AGM
  • Will be Feb 25

• Cleaner
  • Will be coming in Jan 13

• Hackathon
  • Jan 18
  • Jim is giving a talk on Unity

• Network Changes
  • See discuss

• Meetings
  • This Saturday, 9:30-11:30 a server security talk for the CDC
  • The PHP user group is going to start meeting at the space
  • Game day is every second Sunday

• Door
  • Ian will talk to Bob

Dec 10th, 2013 - 18:00 @ 374 Donald

• RuCTFE
  • Attack/Defend Capture-the-Flag challenge
  • Starts at 4am on Saturday
  • Talk to Phoul for more information
  • http://ructf.org/e/2013/

• Routers
  • Our router collection has been distributed to various good homes
  • If you need help with your new router, Sean Cody offered his skills to the group

• CDC
  • We had Red Team training last weekend and it went well!
  • We're looking forward to the event

• Coderetreat
  • We are hosting Coderetreat at SkullSpace this weekend!
  • Some members are meeting up on Thursday to prepare for the event

• New IP address range
  • SkullSpace is migrating to a new IP address range
  • If you have a server, talk to Colin about moving it

• Board game day
  • We have a board game day on Sunday!
  • It went well, lots of people came out

• SkullSpace's Anniversary
  • December 7th marks SkullSpace's third anniversary

• Financial update
  • We will have a financial update prepared for next meeting
  • We will discuss plans for renovating the space

• 6 week course in (blank)
  • Mark's partner will be teaching a course for a nominal fee
  • Reply to the mailing list post to vote for the course you want