Board Meeting Notes 2024-09-17

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Board Meeting Minutes
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Meeting Start:

Attendance

  • Board Members
    • Joe (Remote)
    • James
    • Eric (Remote)
    • V
    • Peter
    • Donzell
    • Lindsay
    • Uwe
  • Other Members
    • Andrew W.
    • Sky
    • Carl
    • Lydia
    • Ron
    • Jennie
    • Jim L.

Agenda

  • Consent Agenda
  • Committee Reports
  • Read mail
  • Financial/membership report
  • Member leaving reason reports
  • Check Freshdesk queue
  • New business
  • Old business

Minutes

Discussion on previous minutes

  • None

Consent Agenda

  • Yes

Committee Reports

Reports from Committees

  • GenOps
  • CTO
    • Wild apricot is fixed, but the data is gone
      • We did send an email out to ~84 members who may have been effected.
        • Gained 13 back
      • We also sent an email to the last 3 months of departing members offering them a discount to come bakc
        • Gained 7 back
      • Going to continue trying to get some of these 200 some people lost
      • Sky asks about offering the 50% discount to all former members
        • about 1800 people
      • Books suggests a social tier
        • A smaller fee to be a part of the community
        • James suggests that he likes the idea, but also wants building access
          • Sky express concerns with this idea
    • Ron is working about some stripe things.
  • PR

Mail

Financial Report

  • Chase Checking:
  • Chase Savings:
  • PEX:
  • PayPal:

Membership Report

  • Number of Members:
  • Quorum:

Member Leaving Reason Reports

  • None

Freshdesk

Login link: https://pumpingstationone.freshdesk.com

New Business

  • Next steps for discussions with the landlord
    • Andrew asks what the deal looks like, so we can raise funds for it.
      • Eric says we are in a holding pattern until we decide what to do.
      • He suggests we can go back to the landlord with our intentions to buy the building, as long as we are confident we have all of the needed funds in time
    • James points out we don't necessarily understand what "All of the needed funds" means
    • We will need to figure out what the structure of the "owner financing" deal will be
    • Eric asks Carl about a real estate attorney he had mentioned
      • Carl Affirms
    • This won'f be a typical mortgage process
      • Does the property transfer immediately or does Dan hold the title until later?
    • Uwe asks Eric:
      • What is our risk exposure? Can someone try to purchase it first?
        • We don't believe the building is not currently being marketed.
          • Eric doesn't think Dan has any interest in re-listing it right now
          • We aren't the most marketable tenants for Dan to have
        • We definitely do have that risk until we enter into an agreement.
          • It would probably be more attractive to keep us.
    • Andrew W.
      • We are aiming to raise $300,000 in 18 months.
        • And believe we have a realistic plan to do so
    • Uwe: At what point do we sign a contract? What is the timeframe
      • Eric: this depends on the structure, this is where we need the real estate attorney
    • Someone: What would the cost of the attorney be
      • Eric estimates $500-$1000
    • Carl asks about the timeframe:
      • Could we get something in a month if everyone has their shit together?
      • Eric says maybe, he will go back to Dan to begin discussing an agreement and meet with the attorney next week.
        • We may put some good faith money down ahead of time
    • James asks what the action item is:
      • Eric will have a conversation with Dan
        • We will be interested in moving forward
        • We think we can put this money together under this timeframe
        • Dan has done a similar deal already, Eric expects his attorneys will present the first agreement.
    • Joe asks how long to have the conversation?
      • It is Dan, so it is hard to say. Eric will try calling tomorrow.
      • Eric expects Dan won't be too hard to wrangle
    • Next Tuesday Kevin Conway who is a real estate attorney to come see what PS:1 is all about, Carl brings in.
      • Carl has used him before for residential real estate, he has expressed that he could potentially help with commercial to.
    • V asks if Eric has any attorney contacts
      • Eric does but they are mostly residential.
    • Uwe asks about making payments out of the rent payments?
      • Eric points out there isn't much incentive for Dan to agree to this, but it will all come down to what we negotiate.
    • More conversation about hypothetical agreements was had.
    • Eric suggests that before we make an actual agreement we should get the building appraised for our own due diligence.
      • Not having the appraisal line up with the purchase price we could end up with a problem with funding later
      • Uwe asks if we should do this now?
        • Eric suggests that we should get the framework of the agreement in place first.
      • V asks about the cost
        • Eric estimates a few thousand dollars
        • Traditionally this is wrapped up in the bank closing costs
    • James summarizes: Hopefully we will have some more details by next board meeting
  • Discord Channel for Board?
    • We don't have one yet, we are working on it.
    • Board and DRC are hanging back on slack for the moment
  • Every Tuesday there are off Tuesday meetings happening at 7PM on the second, fourth, and fifth Tuesdays. These are not formal meetings, but are being used to help plan space things that aren't directly board meeting relavent
  • Donzell wants to bring up red ticketing
    • He feels like it has gotten to the point where it is boiling over to harrassment.
    • Donzell had a personal situation where he left a log on a table without a green ticket at 10PM. First thing in the morning he came back and the logs had been moved to a top shelf.
      • He was livid about this
      • He moved the ladder over, and could only get one down
      • He was complaining about this to another member, who had to help get the log down.
      • He then saw a note that said "not allowed on table, could have thrown it away, please don't do it again"
      • Jennie had written the note. Donzell asked her to call him. He proceeded to yell at her. She asked him to stop yelling. They then debated that none of this should have happened.
      • Eric asks about the note about throwing things away, we should probably be following the protocols appropriately.
      • Eric suggests that we should all be following policies.
      • Jennie and Donzell bickered for a bit.
      • Eric asks about Jennie having a recent interaction with red tickets and the friidge incident?
      • V and Jennie bickered for a bit.
      • Lindsay suggests that the real problem here is unclear policies
      • Donzell accuses Jennie of red ticketing maliciously
      • James says the real problem is a lack of self awareness from Donzell, and that he is doubling down on anger about being called out for having a lot of stuff in the space.
      • Donzell tries to argue that his stuff is out of the way.
      • Peter pointed out that he was blocked on a project by logs in the way.
      • Eric suggests that it doesn't look good when we are having feuds. If they read caustic notes and messages from "the assholes from neverland" they may not feel like it is a good place to be.
        • This all seems very passive agressive with each other, and Eric has the problem with what that reflects.
      • V says that people have complained about being shamed on slack, and that is unprofessional. He suggests we shouldn't call people out on Slack
        • James and V go back and forth about needing to be respectful
      • Lindsay: We are trying to be in a space where we are all trying to be happy and friendly with each other, and it is important to not assume malice.
      • We have moved in a toxic direction with bad ways of handling issues, we should aim for a higher level of respect to exhibit that behavior to all members.
      • Donzell was defensive for a bit about accusations of him coming across as abrasive.
      • Lindsay asks who can red ticket?
        • Joe reads the policy.
      • Eric mentions his interpretation of the policy: basically that green tickets need to be signed to last longer, and the red ticket is only for things in the way or things that aren't making progress
      • Joe mentions his interpretation of the policy: basically that red tickets are not punitive
      • Peter mentions that intent matters, and that sometimes people want to just know more about the items being ticketed
      • Jennie says she has been trying to write notes to help people understand the tidy space policy, but she admits she has started skipping words which may have led to the feeling of passive aggressionm
      • Andrew W. points out that a lot of this is covered in tidy space
      • Uwe expresses surprise that anybody still is issuing red tickets, given that they seem to make themselves a lightning rod for anger
        • Andrew. W. agrees
      • Uwe suggests we should try to make the policy a little easier to follow and clearer so we can enable the people who are writing the tickets to do it in a more neutral manner.
        • A link to the rules on the red ticket would be a great start
      • A red ticket that has some easier checkboxes to make it clear why it is being red tickets would be a great start.
      • As a basic premise, you need to be respectful of the space.
      • Joe suggests tabling this conversation for later
    • Members coming in to use tools who are not actually members
      • Andrew W. has seen some people do this.
      • Joe asks him to email the board.

Old Business

Votes