[sudoroom] Meeting Notes

[Jenny Ryan]

~Greetings Sudoers~

Notes from tonight's meeting to follow - we are trying to pin down our
community model over the next two weeks, culminating in an unconference
style workshop on consensus decision-making on May 30th. If you haven't yet
joined this conversation, now's the time! You can participate through this
email list, or join in the wiki pages on
decision-making<http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Sudo_room/decisions>and
income
models <http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Sudo_room/income> - and of course,
come to the next meeting!

--------
Notes taken during the meeting using etherpad on riseup,net by all willing
participants wit laptops :)

*In attendance:*
Jenny, Timon, Rachel, Eddie, Victoria, Marina, Michael, Greg, Eddan, Matt,
Anthony (late)

*Agenda*

0. Introductions
1. Decision Making
2. Finding a Space

   - + Community Bank of the Bay


*Notes**:*

*1.**1**  Decision Making*

*Topics*:

   - *Membership.* Do we have it? If so, what are the levels/ benefits/
   rules of engagement & expectations?


   - Membership and Governance are related.


   - Governance is a superstructure of Membership


   - Paying Membership get voting rights? Or setup a timebank system?


   - Lets define a what a member is


   - Qualitifations


   - Rite of Passage


   - technoshamanic rituals :P


   - Financial Contribution


   - Time bank


   - Anthony Di Franco BACE.org [who serendipitously showed up shortly
   after his name was mentioned!]


   - Honorary membership?


   - Representative Do-ocracy?


   - https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Do-ocracy



   - *Project Endorsement.* When does SudoRoom attach its name and
   "backing" to a project, if ever?



   - *Governance.* How do we make decisions on behalf of  SudoRoom? Are
   financially-concerned decisions different or do they  involve a different
   group of people vs. other kinds?


   - Is it more important to setup governance first?


   - Heuristics: make only neccessary decisions


   - Are we going to register as non-profit (501(c)3)? This will  determine
   legal structure


   - Examples: How do you pay rent? Insurance?


   - What are the possible legal structures? Pros and Cons


   - 501 (c) 3


   - LLC


   - Corporation


   - B-Corporation: http://bcorp.com



   - *Activities* (non-hacking). Will SudoRoom have speakers/  events/
   classes? What system or structure do we put in place to  facilitate this?
   Do others need to agree on any aspects of these  "extracurricular"
   activities?


   - What is the culture?


   - How do you establish  a culture?


   - How do you regulate the flow of new people to ensure the establishment
   of culture


   - Vision/Goods/Culture



   -  *META and BUSINESS decisions*


   -  Rent? Utilities? Insurance? Liabilities? Changes to group structure?
   Dissolution?


*1.2. Who makes these decisions?*
Qualifications:

   - Application: can range from asking how to be a member or a project
   proposal or rite of passage (below)


   - Rite of Passage: demonstrates commitment / reliability /
   follow-through (consistency)


   - Alternative currencies:


   - Time Bank (contact Anthony Di Franco)


   - OurVolts (Anca & James, Drupal)


   - Recommendation (trust-based referall network)


   - Honorary Membership


   - Agreement - opportunity for accountability


   - Assessing whether people are "being Sudo or not" (Rachel)


   - Representative Do-ocracy


*1.3 How are these decisions made?*

   - Consensus


   - Representative Do-ocracy


*1.**4** **Where and when are these decisions made?**

**Options**:*

   - Online (proposals and concerns?)
   - Weekly meetings (agenda and discussion?)
   - delay/schedule for introduction & decision making, allowing for
   asynchronous discussion & predictable decision making cycle


*2.** Money Making*

Three broad categories of income-generation:

2.1. membership
2.2. goods/services
2.3. fundraising/crowdsourcing

2.1. membership

what are the advantages, if any to membership? to what extent should
financial contribution be separate from 1) governance privileges 2) access
to the space

   - if there is agreement on separating financial membership from
   access/votes, how do you solve the perception of the "usual" definition of
   member (ie, many people understand membership as paying x for y privileges).


   - can an alternate term be more useful to avoid the "usual" perception
   of membership? here are some alternate terms!: participant, affiliate,
   joiner, building block, supporter, sudo-agent (this term got a lot of
   support)


   - instead of defining benefits of membership, define responsibilities of
   membership?


   - logistics


   - membership amount ($50-100, sliding scale?)


   - in-kind options vs just cash; is there a need for this; a list of
   trades? (services exist that allow management of this kind of setup:
   timebank, ourvolts)


2.2 goods/services

   - examples: classes, events, conferences, speakers, skillshares,
   workshops, movie nights, etc.


   - sudoers have a lot of talent and can offer many possible
   services/events/goods that can be used to raise money.


   - membership and fundraising interacts with this type of income


   - selling goods/services can fuel and support membership (ie, members
   can provide goods/host events/teach classes/act as speakers + these
   activities can bring new members)


   - maybe members are ones who can initiate classes, speakers, and other
   group projects


   - goods/services provided can inform viability of grants/crowdfunding


   - **does charging for these opportunities run counter to the sudo open +
   accessible principle?


2.3 fundraising

   - examples: grants (foundation, city/state/govt), crowd-funding,
   corporate, investment, donations


   - kickstarter-esque campaigns have been discussed in meetings in the
   past and have received support


   - fundraising is time-consuming and difficult and will be more likely if
   membership is solid (also, goods/services provided by the community can
   inform the viability of grants/crowdfunding)


   - "donate" button on the site is a good minimum option


   - crowdfunding vs funding portal (eg; Sudo Room as Kickstarter Project
   vs. Sudo Room as Kickstarter :)


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Key points tabled:*

   - How do we demonstrate transparency, the moment of
   decision-making/consensus? (Eddan)


   - We should discuss our autodocumentation meta-strategy :) (Jenny)


   - Talked to Anthony Di Franco about democratizing tax model and
   cooperative voluntary equity/revenue share (Jenny)


*---------------------------ACTION ITEMS---------------------------*

*"**What's on the Wiki Counts**"*

1. Model + Budget + Income investigations (e.g Noisebridge, other) - Jenny
2. Tax Structure Options: Eddan, Matt, Eddie

   - Timon - Zoning

3. Distilling Decision Maker/Community Options (Matt, Marina, Rachel,
Jenny, Timon)

Will work on tonight (May 16)
4. Most transparent process [#3]
5. Determining important deadlines
6. Clean up listing of table  of properties (Eddie, Matt)

Eddan spoke to Debra Acosta about realstate and had a place that he was
interested in and it fell through. it's important to keep track of contacts


-------------

We are keeping track of space possibilities on this wiki page.

Be well,
Jenny
http://jennyryan.net
http://thepyre.org
http://thevirtualcampfire.org
http://technomadic.tumblr.com

`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
 "Technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories."
-Laurie Anderson

"Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it."
 -Hannah Arendt

"To define is to kill. To suggest is to create."
-Stéphane Mallarmé
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
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