The intent was to understand how a candidate sees the board evolving. Currently it seems to be more mired in the day-to-day operations aspects without much visible strategy for long term planning. What can you do as a candidate to influence the changes necessary to make the board a true executive group instead of a management group?
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What are your thoughts on the Freebie Shelf and are you for or against it?
I like, use, and helped maintain the Freebie Shelf. There are issues. I can see those issues being resolved with a committee specifically managing the Freebie Shelf. The Freebie Shelf was a positive community sharing experience for me. I brought my extra stuff and took home other people’s extra stuff. I support the return of the Freebie Shelf.
How do you see the board moving above the day-to-day operations and more into strategy for the future?
I do not perceive it can be an either/or circumstance. The Board of Directors has to maintain the space as well as plan for future income, additional space, and membership growth.
I think the current system runs the Board pretty ragged. What worked 7 years ago needs to be tuned to what will work today. We can look to other makerspaces and other 501©3 organizations and borrow their best choices. Our Board needs to be more “executive” in structure.
I think there are discussions that can be shifted to the membership meetings and disciplinary actions shifted away from the Board, except for final “executive” approval.
I look forward to serving on the Board, if elected. I would prefer that it not be 40 hours a week.
Candidates, what is your position on protecting personal information (names, email, access times, messages, metadata, etc) of members and guests? If elected do you plan to request access to raw or non-anonymized data, and if so, for what purpose?
I want strong data privacy.
DMS does not need to be leaking data or be a source for external data mining.
Full data access should be limited and monitored.
With current events, this might need to formally visited and have additional by laws added.
We need an initiative to keep our members anonymous while using the internet.
For internal DMS data analysis, it should be stripped of all personal identifying information. Counting how many people attended different training classes is fine. Knowing the date and time a specific individual attended is not necessary. Any requests like that would be declined.
Any DMS member caught selling or giving away membership information would be up for disciplinary action with the possibility of criminal charges if warranted.
What makes you stand out above and beyond the other candidates?
I have a strong work ethic. I will work with due diligence on any tasks I am responsible for. Also, my work background, I have been involved with several non-profits and I have owned and run a small business since 1987.
Regarding our Class/Event and Honorarium approval processes, do you feel we are currently balancing our Mission Statement (https://dallasmakerspace.org/wiki/Mission_Statement) with what membership and the outlying community are interested in learning? If not, do you feel that our processes are currently too restrictive or not restrictive enough?
I think the current system works pretty well.
There are always opportunities to streamline the system. Easier class creation and faster payment to instructors are two areas.
I would like to see more outside instructors teaching more diverse topics. This takes a team recruiting and managing those instructors.
As a Board Member - between the following two items - Would your focus be on saving money for a future move and/or unexpected expenses, or would it be focused on purchasing newer/bigger/better tools in the near future?
I am someone who is fiscally conservative.
I want to save for the future (5-15%), and once that is covered, buy what the members want and need & those items should be purchased at the best price. I know some of what we buy is unique and other items are purchased at the lowest price. I would like to ensure that the lowest price practice is used as often as possible.
Management of Dallas Makerspace is always a “hot topic”. In your idea of a perfect solution, how would the “power” distribution of our community be handled ("Who has ‘final say’ on what items, etc…). The “players” in the solution include: “The Board”, “Committee Chairs” (or committees as a whole…), “The Membership” (via member votes, etc…), and possibly an “On Site Manager”. NOTE: If your plans include an “On Site Manager”, please elaborate with additional details such as expected duties, hours on site, etc…
Members as a group, always have final say.
The Board of Directors is next.
Then Committee Chairs.
Finally, individual DMS members.
If you had to choose one of the following, do you feel that we should focus on “being the biggest and best” or “inter committee projects and hackathons”?
This is a cart and horse question. If DMS brings out the best in our members, ie projects and hackathons. What will follow is a space that people want to be at, that will grow our membership and that means we will need more space. This is accomplished by fostering community, personal excellence, and amazing educational experiences.
In your opinion, which types of agenda items should be included on Regular Member Meetings, and which should be included on Board of Directors Meetings?
The biggest change would be to have Membership Meetings be for discussion and Board Meetings be for approval.
We are nearing 1500 members. What do you think the optimum number of members should be for our community?
I would like to see us grow more in membership and overall space size. There is a limit to how many people can be at the current address. We experienced the same issue at Ladybird. There are moments, now, it is starting to feel crowded and moments that our current space is plenty.
I do not want more members or additional space for bragging rights. I want more members to join because they like what our community is doing.and want to be part of it.
What will You do personally to encourage and ensure better new member experiences?
This is referenced in my Statement of Intent. I would like to see new members have a 90-day plan of activities at DMS. This would help them “fit in” and give them a place to start. It would also help set their expectations on what they can accomplish. Do they want to sample lots of different classes or deep dive into 1 machine? If we checked in with them once a month we would have a temperature check on how they were doing.
What is one of your major pet peeves about Dallas Makerspace?
As a community, some days we are absolutely stunningly brilliant and the next day we cannot seem to tie our shoe.
Finally: Paint Booth or Not? Why or Why Not? If so, then where do you suggest it be located? Do you plan on sacrificing existing committee space(s)? What about the government regulations? And, since our lease does not allow storage of paint, how would that be handled?
No to a Paint Booth, in this space. It takes too much room, which we are running short of. There is the nasty overspray issue. The post spraying fumes give killer headaches. As well as regulations issues and lease issues.
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I’m not a candidate for BoD this round but let me share some perspective:
I know each of the current board members and I can tell you they work very hard for you. We are far from perfect but doing the greatest good with the time and effort we have. DMS has been built on great ideas and work of many people starting way back with DPRG and our founding members.
Choose the candidates that represent what you want in a makerspace. There is a nice slate of people wanting to commit their time and energy to DMS. Good luck to all the candidates, look forward to working with you from the other side.
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Can you please elaborate on your ideas to make class creation easier than it is today?
My biggest complaint about the previous system has been fixed. The end time is initialized to be one hour after the start time instead of the time you are submitting the class. Who ever thought the old way was a good idea?
True that quite a bit of information is requested, but it is needed so that the admins and auditors can decide whether the class or event is acceptable and to make payment to you and a committee if honorarium is requested. If you teach a class for a subsequent time, you may opt to copy the information from the previous class instead of having to enter it all again.
I grew up surrounded by educators. My Mom was a teacher and my Dad was a principal. One of my sister’s is a teacher. Cousins galore are or were in education. Most of my parent’s friends were educators. I was a computer classroom instructor for 6 years. I have participated in many conversations about education.
The classroom scheduling software has been in transition since I became a member. It has had many challenges. If you and your committee are satisfied with it, I am good.
What I want, for DMS, is a reputation in DFW as a place to receive high quality and amazing training. A destination for a great training experience.
What I want, for instructors, is to have a great experience teaching at DMS. That means having their courses approved, their classroom ready, courses scheduled, great students, and them being paid on time.
Saying this is in no way negative commentary on how things are working today. It is a commitment to educational excellence at DMS.
Finally, teaching classes is core to DMS and meeting our 501©3 charter.
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We are not satisfied with it yet. https://talk.dallasmakerspace.org/t/calendar-system-enhancements-discussion/19444
We are always looking for ideas to improve it further. Just that some requests are too complicated to be implemented in a reasonable time or are contrary to the current design of the system, so may never be done unless we are somehow forced to scrap it and start over again.
The class and event creation part is about as streamlined as I think it can. If there is something we may have missed…
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Do we need an employee is the question. Many of you know I am at the space almost daily in both day hours and night. We have such an amazing core group of people volunteering their time to this place from running this forum to touring on Thursday nights to designing and implementing us new storage system in the kitchen. Space repairs are handled by volunteers as well for a good part. If there was a employable person whose skill set included fixing the bay door, plumbing, copy repair skills and was a licensed CPA that would make the ideal employee for the needs I have seen. However, since that sort of person is not likely to exist then I believe at this juncture we are handling ourselves quite well without an employee. Kudos to the current board that keeps the day to day maintenance up and timely if we are in need of repairs that go beyond volunteer skills.
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What I really want to ask (but I don’t want to put that energy out into the universe) is “who is your dream team of DMS board members? and why?” But I don’t think that’s helpful nor do I believe it will begin a forward moving conversation. It will not work out this way…and that’s a good thing.
What I would like to ask you to do is to speak of the management-related strengths (in concerns to DMS) you see in each candidate who is running. To make it fair and not labor intensive you can only say ONLY three words about that persons strength. That’s right people, I want to see what you to recognize as the strengths of each person running and thus I can piece together the puzzle of strengths I believe it will take to steer this ship called paradise. 9 people 3 words. You can do this.
Each of you copy this into your response and write in what comes naturally. This is not a time for taking shots at someone. Failure to be civil won’t be received positively by me.
David:
Alex:
Kris:
Luke:
Mitch:
Robert:
Walter:
Steve:
Brian:
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I have used the freebie shelf many times and it definitely is something I was proud that we did for freecycling but I realize it has been a chore for voluneteers to constantly clean out and dump every time. I agree we need to consider how we handle e-waste as responsible makers we generate a lot of e-waste. I would like to promote more members get involved in swap meets or other recycling methods. I understand why logistics move to remove the freebie shelf as making logistic’s job more efficient but it could have been handled better (giving notice at least). If a committee wants to form to take over another free shelf I would approve it but we have to make sure it’s maintained and has guidelines so we don’t use it as a glorified trash can.
I think the board takes on day-to-day operations because no-one else will. We have a selective volunteerism at the space and it’s definitely a tough job managing volunteers that pay to be here. I think we can work to incentivize volunteering more, I’m glad we have a group of people during the day that do meet with contractors and stuff, I don’t think it necessarily falls on the board to do. I’m looking for a job now to be more flexible so I can step up when I need to get stuff done, but I really think the board should have time to make appropriate short and long term decisions for the space and not unclogging toilets. It will be a slow progression but I see there will be need for an organizational change before we can truely have a solely director role.
Certainly wouldn’t be cheap either. I could do everything except the license CPA, but I am not cheap.
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I added David G to the list
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Given the growth of DMS, I see the need for a “division and separation of powers” to handle the growing pains. This would serve 2 purposes.
- Limit the power, authority, influence of any one person or group.
- Limit the burden of responsibility and accountability that any one person or group can take on.
As DMS grows, the BoD takes on a growing burden of things to deal with that keeps DMS up and running. Spreading that burden can be accomplished in 2 ways:
- Increase the number of members on the BoD
and/or - Delegate/ assign authority (along w/ responsibility/ accountability) downward through the rank and file of the membership.
I’d like to hear comments and opinions from each candidate.
Note: I was not asked to post this by any of the candidates.
Big questions
-
do you support a revision of our by laws?
-
if so, how would do it? a)Board
b) Board and committee chairmen
c) member committee
d) something else
I want to start with a point of clarification above because I am not sure if people realize it but we do have a CPA firm on contract that reviews every transaction.
David K: Wise, Personable, Retired
Alex: Personable, Heart, Committed
Kris: New, Passionate, Personable
Luke: Dedicated, Feisty, Strong
Mitch: Passionate, Careful, friendly
Robert: N/A
Walter: Unrelenting, Dedicated, Retired
Steve: Passionate, Friendly, Focused
Brian: Experienced, Reliable, Committed
David C: Focused, independent, resourceful
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I would like to make some changes but I would not do one change. I would carefully consider any and all changes and discuss it with everyone that wants to be involved before making any brash changes.
I would follow Article 13 Amendments to the Bylaws.
https://dallasmakerspace.org/wiki/Bylaws#Article_13_-_Amendments_to_Bylaws
The buck stops with the board of directors, I think there is this idea that everything runs super smoothly in the front end so it must work smoothly in the backend (It Does Not!). I have been on the board for multiple years and I have accepted that responsibility that sometimes a decision just needs to be made to move forward. That is a challenge it takes strong leadership to know that you will not have 100% agreement. So ultimately whoever those volunteers are that are trying to push forward it is the boards job and ultimately the membership to assist them in every way possible. In conclusion I would never use the word “limit” I would ask the question what can I do to “assist”.
This is a question for the other candidates.
What are you willing to sacrifice to be on the board of directors?
I can speak for myself that I have missed work on countless occasions, I have missed family/friend events and trips, I have been threatened with lawsuits almost constantly, there are some days you don’t sleep cause you are working on proposals. It’s not an easy job you need to have the heart for the organization you must believe you are doing something greater. You will need to be prepared to answer Emails, IM’s, phone calls on a daily basis. I would estimate over the course of a day I receive 100/200 messages a day.
Robert, thank you for all that you do. I must say though that this amount of dedication and sacrifice seems extreme. I think the way around this level of commitment is to attract, train and delegate some of these tasks to other members. It sounds more like a full time job than I would hope it has to be.
In an organization of our size it is surely too burdensome for the bod to carry alone.
Having said this I know it is difficult to delegate and there are some things only a board member can handle. Regardless, I am very impressed with your sacrifice.
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I absolutely agree with you. I know that is going to be my focus in 2017. Is to empower more volunteers and on that note I would love someone to take ownership of comparing the electrical quotes we have so far and providing a recommendation at the next board meeting it has the capability to save 10’s of thousands of dollars. .
I feel like I have been a part of many different groups at the space and I would hope to have fair understanding of the needs of the members. I understand that not every committee functions the same way and I feel like there can be compromise. I’m not sure I stand out beyond the other candidates besides that I would happily work with any of the candidates elected.
We have a wide variety of committees and SIG’s that balance out our learning interest. While there are some caveats to our honorarium process, I think we have a less restrictive learning/teaching opportunity than many other organizations. We have plenty of free classes and really no vetting process yet, because it seems to vet itself. I do think we should be a little more critical on core classes (Moodle, tool basics that are required). If you want to have a Reiki I welcome it as long as you’re not using it to sell something.
I feel like with our membership growth we have been doing a great job with the floor space we have. I would like to see us move but I don’t think it should be soon. It gives us plenty of time to plan but we need to start doing that now since building leases are a big thing and a move would not go nearly as smoothly as the last move because we basically quadrupled in size. We should save money and be conservative in our tool spending but I don’t like seeing auction item tools sit and take up the floor space we have if nobody is volunteering to fix them, if we could buy a new one that’s maintained. Our current building is fine, but the board needs to have a realistic outlook for the 3-5 year plan.
There’s no one good answer. Having an employee would change our whole dynamic and is another liability for us so it hasn’t happened yet. I think our organization has grown organically and we are becoming so big that having about 20-30 people in charge of it puts a ton of work on those officers. I think we could get advice from those who have managed other organizations to see how we could better train our leaders (committee chairs, etc) to work. Right now there’s not much guidance to step up as a leader other than passing the torch from the last volunteer, I think that’s intimidating and causes a lot of people to not want to run for the positions.
“inter-committee projects and hackathons”. While I welcome new members and PR has done a great job so far, we need to focus the members we have that stay and are committed rather than the weekend warrior members that come only for personal projects. Maybe inter-committee projects and hackathons would get those weekend warrior makers better acclimated in the space and we could get a lot of volunteer effort for things needed at the space (eg. RFID interlock projects, classroom kiosks, LMS system)
Member meetings should be to vote on policies, and agenda items that affect the membership (eg. unisex bathrooms, honorariums, banning) and board meetings should be financial approvals for tools and agenda items that affect the committees, tools, safety and facilities.
There’s no “optimal” number of members, I think we need to look at out of 1500 members, which ones utilize and contribute the most back to the space, teaching and helping others, or even show up at all. I’d like to make the people that show up to work on projects feel comfortable using the space as a learning and collaboration space, than getting people in for their $50/mo
So far I have met new members that haven’t taken basic classes and can’t do much because they’re waiting for regular classes to start using tools. I would like to stream line this process so people can jump in right away and work on their projects. I’ve noticed new members have some sort of project when they join so helping them figure out the right tools for the job would be a great thing to start with. @Kriskat30 hosted a new member orientation class and I feel like those classes can really help our new members than just “take-a-tour-now-what?” experiences.
We have information overload, the talk forum has 100+ posts about an issue and a million different opinions. People talk constantly about issues in the common room and we go into law and political discussions over stuff like what color to paint the walls. There’s a lot of trivial stuff that we make a big deal of, yet we have a lot of talk and not saying anything at all - I think that’s a lot to do with our culture and there’s nothing wrong with it, but at some point I just wonder, “so what project are you actively working on?”
I would love to have a paint booth but I don’t want to sacrifice our committees to do so. I occasionally have to spray paint something and I hate spraying outside, so I understand the issue. I think we don’t need a massive car sized paint booth for everyone, something smaller where the beer fridge went would be fine. I don’t see the issue with a small booth like this https://marathonspraybooths.com/applications/small-parts-booths/small-parts-booth-spb-30/ it would be about the size of one current pallet storage space.
TL;DR: Whatever board you elect, think about how you will interact with them on a day-to-day basis and whether they are approachable about problems and would offer solutions.
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