Board Meeting 2020-09-17

AGENDA

Roll Call

Board Members

• JaiPal Chauhan, President
• Paula Pankratz, Vice-President
• Patrick Hutchison, Secretary
• Scott Sullivan, At Large
• Terrence Laurendine, At Large
• Kate Goad, Treasurer
• Tom Bloom, At Large
• Doug Wilson, At Large
• David Springs, Immediate Past President

Members

• Angel Mejia
• Joe Pajor
• Ken Steadman
• Mike Barushok
• Roy Lyon
• Gary Titus
• Daniel Johnson
• Malissa Long

Standing Items

• Thanks & Recognition
  • All of our amazing volunteers who have been working to get the building where it is in the last month, thank you.
  • Everyone who showed up to the committee meeting about committees.
  • All of our active members who have stuck with us through this. Your membership dues are what keep us running and it’s going to be worth it!
  • Jai and the bookkeeper getting all of our financial records updated.

Old Business

• Update on Request to City About Ham Radio Tower Permissions
  • Joe sent the letter to the city on August 22nd but has not had a response yet from the city.

New Business

• Treasurer’s Report
  • Profit & Loss for August
    • Gross Profit: $4,483.94
      • Donations - $3,658
    • Expenses: $11,739.96
    • Net Income: -$7,256.02
  • Profit & Loss YTD
    • Gross Profit: $36,482.10
    • Expenses: $74,200.03
    • YTD Loss $52,234.27

• Subscriptions
  • There are a couple we still need to get switched over: Digital Ocean and Smart Waiver.
  • Issue with Cox cable plan. They won’t talk to David. They have been double billing us since April for both buildings. Kate should contact Jens since his name is on the account to get that changed.

• Access to all accounts?
  • Kate believes she has access to everything now.

• Credit Card for Paying Bills
  • Jai has the forms. Prefer we move as many things as possible to ACH before going this route. Kate will work with Jai.

• Bento Cards Permissions Move
  • Kate, David, and Jai need to get together at the same time to get everything switched. Will work on after Member Meeting on Sunday.

• Southwest Bank Account
  • Need David or Rustin the Board Resolution to put Kate and Jai on the account. Needs signatures and hand delivery.

• Membership
  • Currently at 291 active members.
  • 302 at the August meeting.

• Would like to prepare and send a newsletter to members perhaps by the end of next week, to include some FAQs from the member meeting, update on the building, soft opening, and tax deductibility of member dues during COVID/shutdown, ways to donate to the building, committees that need staffing.

• Ideas for recognition of members who have stuck with us through this time for discussion:
  • Locking in membership dues for these folks until 2023.
  • Having a phased soft opening and letting active members get back into the space first as a reward for sticking with us, time period to be determined.
  • Bulk membership. Pay for three years in advance, discount the time from April 1 - opening date as a discount on the bulk membership.
  • Bulk membership. Pay for three years in advance, discount by any dues paid April 1 onward as a discount on the bulk membership if they stopped paying for a while prior to opening.
  • Active members can be first invited to sign up for re-orientation.
  • Finance committee is evaluating these options and will run some projections on feasibility.
  • Badges or other possible recognition on the forum, name badges, etc..

• Building Renovation Update
  • Heating - Jai met with Brad Ward / mechanical engineer. Will have a set of drawings for bid this weekend. Will post the final document to the forum if it’s ok with Brad to post there. Will be sending directly to HVAC installers. Soliciting suggestions for companies to include in those we send to. Bidding process will be open until September 29th. Need to be licensed, insured, and bonded. Have two names so far, as well the engineering firm has several they will recommend as well. Email contact info to president@makeict.org. Final cost and timeline are part of the bidding process, as well as a surety bond of completion, and then we should have a hard date for having the heating installed. We are moving forward with 80% efficient natural gas fired ‘garage’ heaters as the option we can afford.
  • Plumbing - We need another plumbing push, this time for the west hall. We have 95% of the south hall plumbing completed. Left to do out west is: ceramics, screen printing, hot water, cold water checks, and the fountains and sinks in the west hall. Maybe 6 days of work with the ‘normal’ number of volunteers who have been participating in prior plumbing pushes. Jai will reach out to Rick this week and check on what we have done so far and fine tune the south hall so we can start on the west hall.
  • Electrical - Friday we will have a 95% electrical plan. Jai will print out a large copy and the area leads are all coming in this weekend to give final approval for their areas. There is no construction administration on this for bids. Will go out to bid, and soliciting ideas for companies to include in the bid process. Jai has already reached out to Shelly Electric. Send other ideas to president@makeict.org.

• Much discussion about planning and communicating clearly and fully to members
  • We need to be clear and thoughtful with the new onboarding process / materials to manage expectations about the space, and about what it means to be a member of our community.
  • We should prepare a 5 year plan that gives us a roadmap so everyone can understand where we are, and where we want to go.

• Report from Area Leads Meeting
  • Had a good meeting this Monday evening to start working towards having areas set up for the soft opening.

• Looking for folks to be responsible for the lounge, break room (kitchen), and welcome center.
  • Paula does have someone lined up to head up the break room (kitchen).
  • Angel Mejia has volunteered to head up the welcome center.

• Program Director Discussion
  • Some discussion of the Program Director position was had. Need to be sure and include that in the five year plan. Mike B reminds us that we need to conscious as a non-profit that we are doing non-profit things and providing those sorts of community services that are expected.

• Report from ‘Committee’ Meeting
  • Paula and Jai report a good turnout and positive results from the meeting. Working on staffing 14 committees with volunteers. Paula is going to work with each of them and get them moving. People were excited, and that’s really encouraging.

• Fundraising Brainstorming
  • Bulk membership. Pay for three years in advance, discount the time from April 1 - opening date as a discount.
  • Get pledges for one year memberships, perhaps for a couple years at a time, but paid annually instead of all at once to insure future income.
  • Credited classes (the MakeICT portion, not instructor portion?)? 1 to 2 classes per month of "donated" monthly memberships.
  • I wouldn't be able to pre pay 3 years. But if you give me 2mo discount each of the next three years that may be possible.
  • Class "gift cards" as a nice person.

• Agenda Items for Upcoming Quarterly Member Meeting
  • Looking for ideas on how members should be / want to be rewarded for sticking with us through all of this
  • Update on the building and progress towards opening
  • Need more volunteers / schedule of opportunities
  • Committee opportunity
  • Re-Orientation - there will be a new process, committee will be coming up with new stuff, everyone will need to do it, work in progress, volunteers to help with it are wanted
  • How to donate funds to help keep us moving forward

• Looking ahead to the next few months what needs to be addressed?
  • Onboarding
  • Bylaws
  • Orientation
  • Automation of transition between boards to insure new board is ready to roll
  • Roof
  • Fire access road
  • Paved parking lot
  • Member engagement in the work of running MakeICT
    • A lot of discussion was had about this, about volunteer burnout, and about members not being engaged in what is happening and getting frustrated and leaving, etc., and bringing people back. Everyone needs to take an active role in doing this work and getting engaged with other members.

• Discussion of members requesting refunds.
  • Jai has had several members who have quit and have requested to have their dues returned to them for the period that we were not open. There isn’t anything in the rules that says we have to do this, and it would be a financial burden at this point in time to do so.

• Excess items to sell, construction leftovers, etc.
  • Task the inventory / procurement committee with this task after we are open.

Upcoming Events

• ReMakeICT Tuesdays work nights at booth, every Tuesday from 6:00PM - 9:00PM
  • The list of tasks to work on getting our CO is long and there are lots of tasks that need to be completed.

• Quarterly Membership Meeting, Sunday 20th, 3 - 5 on Zoom.
  • Want all board members, area leads, and committee folks to attend.

Committee Reports

Awards Committee - Kim Burton

• No report.

Scholarships - Kim Burton

• No report.

Communications (and Wikibrarian)

• Going to try and do two Facebook live videos a week.
• Had really good response to last set of posts on Instagram
• Applied for a Facebook advertising training grant

Facilities Committee

• No report.

Finance Committee - Kate Goad

• Committee met! Marty, Dan, Kate on the committee. Have started work on modeling / projections, etc..

Fundraising - Kate Goad

• Steve Thornton sent Jai the name Jan Mavee to reach out to. Steve says she is interested in helping us. Malissa knows her and will call her.
• Patrick has reached out to a contact at the Wichita Community Foundation and asked them if there are any funds available to help us on our immediate opening needs towards our CO.

IT - Tom Bloom

• Working on redundancy for the door reader system, working on an update to Wild Apricot and the piece that interfaces with that system to improve access for approvals.

Membership (and Community outreach)

• No report.

Classroom Management Committee - LaDean Dockery (interim)

• Have one online class on the schedule. John Nicholas is going to be teaching a class.
• If anyone has any ideas or interest in doing some online classes, please get in touch with LaDeana to get on the schedule.

Security (and Safety) - Ken Steadman

• Working on building a new DVR server to increase capacity for the Blue Iris server.
• Jimmy and Steve O have a plan in the works for lighting in the parking lot.
• Roy built a new frame for the missing window in Fab Lab, which had extension cords for some of the temporary exterior lighting.
• Be sure and get in touch with Security if there are key building volunteers that need access during construction.

Special Projects (and Makerfaire) - Nicole Kirkhart

• No report.