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 ālimitā I would ask the question what can I do to āassistā.
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 donāt sleep cause you are working on proposals. Itās 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, IMās, 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 10ās 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. Iām 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 SIGās 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 youāre 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 donāt 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 donāt 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 thatās maintained. Our current building is fine, but the board needs to have a realistic outlook for the 3-5 year plan.
Thereās no one good answer. Having an employee would change our whole dynamic and is another liability for us so it hasnāt 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 thereās not much guidance to step up as a leader other than passing the torch from the last volunteer, I think thatās intimidating and causes a lot of people to not want to run for the positions.
āinter-committee projects and hackathonsā. 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.
Thereās no āoptimalā 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. Iād 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 havenāt taken basic classes and canāt do much because theyāre 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. Iāve 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 ātake-a-tour-now-what?ā 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. Thereās 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 thatās a lot to do with our culture and thereās nothing wrong with it, but at some point I just wonder, āso what project are you actively working on?ā
I would love to have a paint booth but I donāt 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 donāt need a massive car sized paint booth for everyone, something smaller where the beer fridge went would be fine. I donāt 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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Iām for it, contingent upon adequate member interest in maintaining it. It never made sense to me for it to be a Logistics responsibility because Logistics already has enough on its plate without it. When DMS was small, that didnāt matter very much. But weāve grown large enough that it should be put in the care of other volunteers.
For that to happen, the board will need to delegate responsibility and authority to other members and power will need to be given back to (or taken back by) the general membership to make decisions. That power can go back to the general membership if we fix the way quorum is calculated so membership meetings are once again worth going to for more than hearing about the status of various things around DMS.
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4 posts were split to a new topic: [Fun āPoliticsā] - Whoever instills a monthly link sammich gathering gets my vote
This is a legitimate complaint on this topic. there is a format that talk uses that could make this thread more useful to everyone. wiki posts that are editable.
i dont have any notifications for being flagged, but the topic was split after and i cant reedit my post to make it show back up. -edit- at the time of writing the message i could not edit the post and did not have a notification.
CANDIDATES - What is your position on the moderation taking place on the talk forum?
https://talk.dallasmakerspace.org/t/wiki-feature-test/8528 heres a link to how the wiki posts work.
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I was dead serious about the link sammich cookout, for PR and cohesive membership relationship building, I just didnt word it professional and sugar coat what i was asking for, straight to the pointā¦
When was the last time we had an outdoor BBQ cookout?
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Pearce, the OP (@Raymond) is aware of your initial suggestion to use the wiki feature. I know because I asked him in a PM at the time that you originally suggested it. He indicated that he would rather new questions be added as responses. So thatās the format of this thread.
Thatās fine, but still off topic and the resulting responses took the thread even more off topic.
Perhaps put the idea in a form of a question.
as an important part of the elections we should try to get the info to people as clearly as possible. you could have made and pinned a new wiki post in the better format and pasted his question into it.
in this format many of the questions/answers will get lost in the mix. its a mess. we have the formatting tools. we should use them.
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What about all the new questions that would be added to the top wiki post, that candidates would almost certainly miss being added?
Example:
The original post had two questions.
Candidate 1 responded and thinks they are done then move on.
Someone adds three more questions to the original post because itās a wiki.
Candidates 2 & 3 notice the thread and both answer all five questions. Candidate 1 has no idea that more questions have been added, so now appears that they made an intentional decision to not answer three of the questions.
Four more questions get added to the top postā¦
Candidate 2 notices a change and edits there response to include answers to the four new questions, but the new answers donāt notify the member who added the four questions to the wiki because there is nothing to trigger an alert. Since the answers are edited into a previous response - not even the most recent response in the thread, itās not easily noticed, so it appears no-one responded to those questions.
I donāt see how this is a better solutionā¦ it may appear cleaner, but also leaves much to be desired.
the candidates could also have a single post that they could edit as needed answering the questions as they go. the thread would only have as many posts as there is candidates +1 for OP.
This isnt hard, real forums do this all the time but rely on the OP doing the editing work.
example? sure why not. my formatting will be off since its all one post.
OPthread (wiki post)
hey guys heres a bunch of questions to ask the candidates. use the wiki feature to add your own to the list
1)how many ducks?
2)what color ducks?
3)why ducks? why not cats?(edit from new user)
4)opinion on cats?
Candidate 1s post
1)how many ducks?
42 seems like a good answer
2)what color ducks?
i like blue
3)why ducks? why not cats?(edit from new user)
because ducks thats why
4)opinion on cats?
ducks thats why
etc from the others
Feel free to create a new thread, then as OP you can keep up with it.
As far as this thread is concerned, if we were to take all of the questions so far and move them into the original post, it would break all of the responses.
Letās get this back on topic now. If you or anyone else wants to discuss how this thread coulda shoulda been, take it to a new thread.
This thread is only for questions to the candidates, and answers from the candidates.
Thank you!
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I have created a more organized version of this thread, using the wiki format feature. Please use that thread: https://talk.dallasmakerspace.org/t/questions-for-candidates-organized/19987/2
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Be advised: if you have a wiki post open, and someone else does, too, it can cause problems. Your changes may be over written if they saveā¦
All changes will show up in the history.
While true, itās not very helpful when I have started a response, and then you do, and then I save, and then you save. Your save will overwrite my save, and my response is then relegated to history, rather than showing up on the post.
Unless this was fixed since the ācommittee colorsā threadā¦