Attendees

• • Rachel McCrafty
  • Sabrina Merlo
  • Cela Smith
  • Steven Sheffield
  • Patrick Safinya-Davies
  • Matt Cridland
  • Joanna Times

Agenda

• • Call to Order – 7:07pm
  • Attendance
  • Approval of the Agenda (1 min) – APPROVED
  • Approval of the Minutes (Oct 13 Meeting Agenda and Minutes) (1min) – APPROVED

New Business

1. Welcome Visitors! – Welcome Joanna; thanks for taking notes!
2. Secretary position – with recent departure of Angelina and struggle to find successful fit for this role, we need to discuss the options for this position and vote on the approach.

Discussion:

• Angelina resigned 11/16/20. Struggle to find someone to fit in role permanently. Rachel – perhaps we can come up with an alternative solution. Rachel suggesting stipend payable to someone to get critical secretarial tasks done. Sabrina – but we’ll still have a secretarial issue to resolve. Steven – we need someone – takes a minimum of 90 days to get them up to speed on tasks that need to get done. $1500/month is what is expected to take to dedicate to this. Previous budgeting for the role was $300/month – proposal to improve to $1500 for a permanent person hat would take over secretarial role + other things Rachel is taking on.
• Rachel taking over in interim is not going to provide total coverage – we should just hire someone because asking for volunteers is not working
• Sabrina – if we are adding roles/responsibilities can we call it something different than “secretarial”. Rachel – includes a legal obligation of “secretary” in a California benefit organization so must include that. But can call something other than secretary (title vs. role). Sabrina – must review and revise JD. To ensure role is clear among the board and the person we are trying to hire – must have accurate JD.
• Action item: – revise JD and hire someone into the position permanently – starting as soon as possible front loading hours 5-7 hours/week through end of year so RS can offload duties.
• Patrick – agree Rachel cannot do it all. Agree it’s good idea.
• Sabrina – would love to help on a JD and would love to push it out on social media. Want to know what’s in it to be sure everything we need is captured. Will defer to Steven to assess long term financial impact.
• Steven – membership not meeting November budget target. But not totally unexpected. However, member demand is there that this role will help meet; hopefully this will act as front loading of costs. If this costs 3-5K prior to end of year, will end up with reserves in $60Ks not $70K. Although not having a secretary is technically saving funds every month, since revenue targets are not being hit, not a net savings.
• Cela – this person would be an employee? (yes) Do we have anyone who is currently an employee in this manner? (no, everyone is exempt at a fixed stipend rate). Steven – this person will be set up as an hourly employee and track their hours through gusto. Rachel – Must remember that this person will be a true employee and must adhere to labor laws, etc. Sabrina – person must be managed. Rachel – managing easier than herding volunteers
• Does board agree it’s a good idea (Rachel just needs advice) – Patrick -yes. Cela-yes.

3. Board SOO analysis and Q&A from SOO October SOO

Board takeaways: antiracism workshops wrapped up. Good feedback from participants; mostly women, mostly white. Trailblazing programming for makerspaces to hold this type of educational opportunity.

• Rachel – lessons were learned. Interested in taking key learnings from this first series and holding it again without professional facilitator. May have a teach the facilitator so other maker spaces can access this learning and take to their spaces
• Cela – should officers/those with significant roles be required to take DEI training. Should show that Ace, the originating makerspace, is walking the walk. Rachel – yes, I think it makes sense and aligns with Ace BLM promise. Shouldn’t just be performative.
• Cela – should not sequester the board into a single training or retreat; best to include diverse audience with actual members of Ace.

Launched indigenous maker residency. Thin on resources for marketing for the residency. Rachel crafting a press release through Fiverr.

• Sabrina – any community partners? Yes, Steven did outreach to community outreach (Sogorea Land Trust replied and helped)
  • Got demographic info for scholarship and “starving” members. Demographic info for other groups is unavailable – it is not asked during member sign up. Sabrina – what if we put out a survey; Rachel – data integrity requires finessing – need a carrot for people to offer in exchange. Sabrina – Best dataset is through “required” workflows. Patrick – what about incentives like a prize? Rachel – not always successful

Sabrina – did outreach. Spoke with Jeremy Crandall – founding board of the Crucible (510 crane). He is interested in joining board conversation on crafting usefulness and sustainability of Ace board. Cela – he would probably have a number of ideas on board operates and best ways for governance vs. advising. Hopeful he would have good participation and help direct growth of the board. Next steps: deeper conversation; him visiting the space; send him a calendar invite for things we’d like him to attend. Action item: Board will discuss in Slack the best way to draw him in.

State of the money: Cela – one question about member revenue – below budget, but only lost two members in the last month? Steven- Due to the way money comes in versus membership is tracked. Rachel – You are still on the books as a member even after you cancelled for the next 30 days. Rachel – doing 300% more tours than in October; usually indicative of increasing membership. Hopefully they will convert into long term members. Steven – $10K unrestricted grant awarded to Ace as a passthrough of CARES funds from the City of Oakland (Center for Cultural Innovation).

Local dreamer (DACA) artist commissioned to make a piece for the space. Working on getting the artists social media and artist plaque created.

• Matt – version 2 occupancy tracking started. New laser user interface being created.

Board cultivation and outreach – as discussed above.

Old Business

1. Continue business model discussion – Skipped
   1. (if time, can do an income stream rubric exercise for any proposed model)

Comments and Announcements

None.

Meetings to Schedule before Adjournment:

• Next Board Meeting date and contact person (responsible for calendar, agenda) >> ASSIGN to temporary volunteer. Next meeting December 8^th 7-9pm
• Next Board check-in/working meeting (meet at midpoint between Board meetings)
  • Check in – Action item: Cela will reach out on Slack for a midway meeting.
• Adjourn – 8:28pm