2013-03-05

March 5th, 2013

Agenda

1. Approve draft minutes of the last meeting
2. Consent Agenda
3. Officer Annual Reports
   1. President
   2. Vice-President
   3. Treasurer
   4. Secretary
   5. Public Relations
4. New Business
5. Old Business
6. Member Reports
7. Adjournment

Minutes

Initialization

5 new faces tonight.

Officer Reports

President

Over the weekend Lenore came down with a visitor and was confronted with horrible, horrible stink. It seems like the smell is worse over weekends. We have managed to get in contact with the building managements, but they have not seemed particularly motivated to investigate the root cause.

So anyone who is willing to to put together a report, or come up with a strategy to move, has the power to do that as a member.

We'll have to figure out what we have to do in regards to filing taxes.

Vice-President

We had our Atomic Empire event on Saturday, and it was really a blast. We got a lot of interest, some people stayed a half hour to talk. The RPi Minecraft exhibit had a large crowd, and so did the 3D printer. Atomic Empire seemed happy to have us because the place seemed slammed.

Joe Diver continues about the RPi Minecraft event: many people inquired about the RPi computer and asked about the space. Other people thought we only did hardware and software, and were surprised to learn we did other projects.

Treasurer

• Account balances:
  • BB&T balance as of 03/05: $8587.26
  • WePay balance as of 03/05: $0.00
  • Total balance as of 03/05: $8587.26

• This month's income:
  • WePay - $1368.16
  • BB&T Deposits - $0.00
  • Total: $1368.16

• This month's expenses:
  • CREH-Snow (rent) - $950.00
  • Key fobs - $150.00
  • Total: $1100.00

• Income - expenses = $268.16
• Maintenance fund ($179.01 + $20) = $199.01
• Tool fund ($1809.61 + $134.08) = $1943.69

About the moving, please update the wiki page with your requirements so we can test candidate places.

Secretary

Posted last month's minutes just before this meeting.

Public Relations

• We've seen a rise in awareness, hopefully with a rise in membership, since our several recent events.
• We've got tracking of some of online presence stuff now via Thinkup; if you're curious about what data we're getting, just ask me when I'm back in town (next week).
• We are developing a backlog of things to post on our blog. This is awesome. Please keep sending me projects &c.

Member Reports

Jeff:

I've been trying to run a vinyl cutter with Linux, but it's a colossal fail with WINE. Other people have figured out that the cutter should speak HPGL, but the manufacturer appears to have tweaked some of the codes. Working on figuring this out with the few other people using the cutter with Linux.

Matt:

I have a schedule conflict this Sunday, so I need to work out an alternate host for the 3D printing meeting. I can attend from 2-3. Please talk to me.

Carl:

I bought a miniature LCD screen to connect to a RPi, but it's meant to connect to a car. I really need to touch base with someone who knows their stuff about LCDs so I don't break it or start a fire.

Joe:

I brought the paper roller coaster in, which we showed at Atomic Empire. I want to build another to donate to Scrap Exchange, so let me know if you want to help.

I saw on the list today there was a lot of interest in the monitors that Daniel had to offer. You can get LCD monitors for $15 from Triangle E-Cycling, bare computers for around $40.

Mark:

Quick request for help: the power cord to my laser printer won't plug into my tamper-proof recepticles in my new house. Any ideas?

Peter:

I managed to break the bandsaw today, so I'll go to Lowes soon to buy a new blade.

Darren:

A while ago I said I was buying a bunch of parts for my brewing setup and I'll probably do the order this week. Let me know if you want to go in on the order.

Pete:

I have a signed Cory Doctorow book (Little Brother) that I'm donating to the library.

Geoff:

I have a Grid Beam book that I'd like to donate from the library.

I met with a member of liberty arts a couple of weeks ago, and they have unoccupied space in their space. Co-location may be a possibility. They have a metal shear, several welders, and several kilns that could be available to co-inhabitants.

Pete:

How about renaming the Arduino day to include more hardware architectures? It's not backed by an organization. It could be a transition to a more general name (about microcontrollers).