Minutes:Board Meeting Minutes 20170509
Contents
Agenda for 05-09-2017
Chair: Chairlie
Officer Reports
Treasury and Budget Report for April 2017
- Financial Grade: A
- Emergency: $14K Checking : $2K BNektar: $3K Paypal: $0K Total: $19K
- # Members Debt >$50: 34
Mike W: Some of this is people whose payments have failed and Amazon doesn't send a notification to either end when this happens.
Evan: Some of this is also people who are perpetually 1+ months behind but still pay once a month
Tony: Can we automate the CRM to send out emails so terry doesn't have to send them manually?
Evan: There are too many special cases to send automatic emails, they wouldn't be useful
Matt G: It is automated to do what Terry asked for
Tony: That's still a lot of people behind
Evan: Notifications only happen at 2 months behind
- Financial analysis of expansion given to Board.
- We should freeze new zone expenditures until we decide on B. Nektar and tell the ZCs. We also need to reassure people that all reimbursements will be paid promptly. There is NOT a freeze on reimbursements, just new spending.
Evan: The wording here is unclear whether that means adding new items to the budget or freezing expenditures from the existing budget.
Evan: The safer way is to halt all spending and ask Terry for clarification
Alec: I believe he intended the latter
- Terry is adding one new metric to track each month. Members Overdue >$50. This is the number of members who have a balance of more than $50 at the time of writing this Report, which allows for people who pay later in the month to be excluded. The >$50 list has all people who exited the month of the report and have not paid their balance down yet. Some of this number are quiet resignations and others are just people who have some issue as yet unresolved. All have been sent an email on this matter.
Secretary
- Nothign to Report
President
- See Old Business
Senior Vice President
- Vivian is volunteering to help coordinate setting up classes and activities
VP of Activities & Classes
- VPA&C position is vacant
VP of Membership-Onboarding
- Matt C is travelling
VP of Membership-Retention
- N/A
VP of Membership-Member Advocate
- Matt A. and Alec are planning to directly contact all coordinators and officers to see if they currently need help with anything.
Old Business
Maker Faire Planning
- Dana is doing the internal coordinating
- Charlie will be coordinating with The Henry Ford
- THF has also asked us to put up a display at Eastern Market the weekend of (June 11) as part of promoting for Maker Faire to market-goers
- We need someone to at least host a table with some projects from members on
- We need to check with Terry regarding Maker Faire budget (see new business)
Vision Survey Part 2
Leora has some of the preliminary results to discuss from the survey...
A Partial Summary of Part II of the i3Detroit Vision Survey
Administered September and October of 2016
Number of Respondents in Part Two = 37
Envisioning the Future
When asked what they would want to do with a $30,000 grant, most members responding to the survey said they would be interested in either expanding our current space or finding a new, larger space. Next was an interest in new and/or improved equipment with the favorites being 3D printers, paint booth/finishing capacity, auto repair area and a desire to better maintain current equipment (particularly the laser cutters). Also popular was improvements to the space including remodeling the large bathroom, better HVAC (including AC, filtration, and general and local ventilation), larger and cleaner areas for the arts (sewing/textiles, leatherwork, painting, etc). Also, there were comments suggesting that we hire staff for everything from administration to maintenance and cleaning.
If the grant was only $3000, respondents said that they would like to see that money used to purchase new tools and equipment in a variety of zones. There was a lot of interest in improving the tool crib - both the organization and the quality and availability of tools and consumables. Also popular was using the funds to keep our current equipment in good repair, improve our current space by making it cleaner and more organized (with a lot of interest in cleaning and improving the bathrooms). Other suggestions included improving seating in the space, doing a better job of marketing to potential members, and increasing the number of classes that we offer.
Membership
When asked to fill in the blank of “I would would like i3Detroit to _______ the overall number of members.”, 68% chose “increase”, 2% chose “decrease” and 30% chose “stay the same”.
The Space
When asked to fill in the blank “I would like the size (square footage) of our space to…”, 92% chose “increase”, 0% chose “decrease” and 8% chose “stay about the same”.
Respondents were asked “If tomorrow, i3Detroit was suddenly given enough space to double our current square footage, I would want use that additional space in the following ways (list as many ideas as come to mind)…” The top responses included expanding current zones, adding additional member storage space (for rent to members), making particulate free space available (including quiet workspace and expanded lounge space), expanding/adding arts and crafts in a clean area, creating more open workspace (including large project) and putting in a paintbooth/finishing area. Also mentioned was creating an area for automotive work, adding a kitchen and putting in a hot metals area (foundry/forge/blacksmithing).
Rental Space
- When asked to fill in the blank of “Imagine that we had additional space and rented part of it to members (at an additional charge) to use as their own personal storage and/or workspace. I would be ___________ in renting personal space for myself.”, 35% chose “very Interested”, 22% chose “somewhat interested”, 11% chose “not sure”, 22% chose “somewhat uninterested” and 24% chose “very uninterested”.
- When asked “I know people (friends, family, acquaintances) who would be more likely to join i3Detroit if they could also rent a personal workspace and/or storage space.” 19% responded “yes”, 19% responded “no” and 62% responded “I don't know”.
- Respondents were asked, “If you are interested, how much would you be willing to pay for a 5 foot by 10 foot personal workspace (per month on top of membership dues) $ ________ Please enter number in dollars below. Cost per month in addition to membership rates for 5 ft. by 10 ft floor space.” The answers ranged from $0 to $100, the average was $44, the middle answer (median) was $50 and the most frequent answer (mode) was $100.
- Respondents were asked, “If you are interested, how much would you be willing to pay for one 3ft by 6ft shelf (3 feet high) shelf on a pallet rack for your own personal storage (per month on top of membership dues) $ ________ Please enter number in dollars below.” The answers ranged from $0 to $80, the average was $20, the middle answer (median) was $15 and the most frequent answer (mode) was $5.
General Demographics
This survey was administered in September and October of 2016. Of the respondents who answered the survey:
- 76% are male and 16% are female
- 12% are 18 - 24 years old, 24% are 25 - 30 years old, 19% are 31 - 40 years old, 27% are 41 - 55 years old, 16% are 56 - 65 years old and 3% are 66 and above
- 16% have been members for less than 6 months, 14% for about a year, 24% between one and two years, 27% somewhere between 2 and 4 years and 16% over 4 years
The difference from a total of 100% is explained by rounding and the fact that some respondents selected that they preferred to not answer certain questions.
NOTE: This is a partial summary. Additional questions from this survey on how respondents see the future of i3 are being analyzed and the rest of the results will be available in the next few weeks. If you would like to volunteer to help with sorting and summarizing the results, please contact Leora at LeoraCreates@gmail.com
Charlie: So about $1/sq. ft.
NateB: In other local spaces 200 sq.ft. rents for ~$490
Charlie: That depends a lot on what features are provided
Jan: A hobbyist or tiny business wouldn't or couldn't pay market though....
MattG: I don't see much point in offering up our square feet for less than what we pay for it
Evan: I see no harm in doing this in the short term. I see rollout/move over taking quite a long time, with lower short term buildout costs and make some money on the new space we have
Charlie: The landlord is concerned about parking and would like us not to have people running businesses/working 40 horus/week out of rented plots
Action Item Review
- No action items from April
Summary of Board List/Slack Discussions since last meeting
- Expansion (see above)
- Preliminary mural funding approval
New Business
Motion to claw back discretionary budget for the rest of the year
Tony: We should ask zones not to spend anything for now and try to find ways to drive revenue
Evan: We should vote now whether to tell everyone with budget items not to purchase them and discuss with Terry to figure out what exising budget items to allow through with preference for Maker Faire, the Media Zone and space consumables.
Mike W: We should freeze everything and make all purchases require pre-approval from Terry.
Evan moves...
Freeze all budget that is unspent and defer to Terry on what we can and can't spend short term
Moved by Evan, Seconded by Tony
7 Ayes / 0 Nays
Result: PASS
Motion for Approval of Budget to Rent Ste. B
Evan: before we agree to anything, Evan would like to visit the space to see what we are getting and see what space the landlord will be keeping.
Charlie: The landlord's space is physically walled off from the rest of the building internally and there is no internal door. It's the far west portion of the building, including the west-most garage door.
Leora: suggests we ask B. Nektar if they've had any issues with infrastructure on that side of the building.
Evan: what utilities would we end up covering in the landlord's space?
Charlie: Just Lighting. It's just storage.
Mike F: Does the landlord's side have an external door? Yes.
Mike F: What parking areas would we be getting with the space?
Charlie: In front of the building near the road, not sure about the side lot.
Evan: Would like to get any stipulations from the landlord in writing because there has been a lot of word of mouth over the years. David agrees.
Evan: can we set up a tour of the space with B. Nektar so we know what we are getting?
Jan and Alec would also like a tour.
Charlie: Are we going to complain about paint colors?
Jan: It's not the paint color.... it's being able to look at it and have a visual of what we could do with it, to present such to the members.... as ideas of what we can do.
Tony: It's not like we're likely to not take it..
Mike W: Everyone seems to want to expand, right? Is there any reason we would not take the offer?
Charlie: would like permission from the board to get the contract asap.
Evan: Wants to get answers to our questions, in writing, not just in text messages or verbally or whatever.
Mike: We don't not want to lease the space, but we have questions that need to be answered to get important stipulations in writing beforehand.
James: Just to be clear, if nothing else changes, are we able to afford this?
Evan: If membership stays the same, with spending frozen, we can afford it.
Space & Zone Discussions
- n/a
Floor Plan
- n/a
Member Storage
- n/a
Committee Reports
Moderation Committee
- n/a
Lost & Found Party
Meeting Metrics
- Time completed: 9:00 pm
- Funds appropriated:-$∞?
- Attendees: 13
Action Item Summary
| Action Item | POC |
|---|---|
| Coordinate with the landlord and/or B. Nektar for a tour of the space | Charlie |
| Notify zone coordinators/mailing list about this | Mike |
Proposal Summary
| Proposal | Moved By | Seconded By | Aye | Nay | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freeze all budget that is unspent and defer to Terry on what we can and can't spend short term | Evan | Tony | 7 | 0 | PASS |
Attendance
- Charlie R
- Mike F
- Alec B
- David H
- Jan H
- Matt G
- Nate B
- Leora D
- Vivian S
- Evan A
- James O
- Mike W
- Tony S
| Previous Meeting | Next Meeting |
|---|---|
| Board Meeting Minutes 20170411 | Board Meeting Minutes 20170620 |
