Without confirming or denying anything, clients/projects past or present, I stand by my statement as it pertains to G Suite customers.
Need to stop pushing this. I have my own Google account. NOT thru DMS.
You donāt have to use your DMS email as a non-chair or officer, unless itās for Google Education exams or something like that since itās how we track what member gets signed off. The chair or a vice chair should be setting up the meetings anyway, and teachers using it when they are teaching. With Google meer
But for teachers it has to be for setting up the meeting. We have licensed copies that donāt have the restrictions of attendance that the free version has, and allows attendees to use non-google emails for the video calls, etc.
The free version of Google Meet does not do this
so current rules do actually require committee chairs and officers to use their DMS email. There is a proposal to require a Google Meet option for all committee meetings as well.
Again, these only matter for chairs and officers i.e. the people whom are generating records of the organization. Weāre at 1300+ members, and when members decide to step away and have all their records in personal emails we canāt continue the work they had going on. Itās also how we were able to do things like prove the fraud of Kris Anderson and others.
This rule was approved back in August at a regularly scheduled board meeting: https://dallasmakerspace.org/wiki/Board_of_Directors_Meeting_20190825#Require_Chairs_use_DMS_Email_.28Erik_Smith_on_behalf_of_Jim_Hartnett.29
As for you calling it āheavy-handed,ā Find one org our size that is manageable without requiring those running it to use business systems for record keeping. Find one I dare you.
We have a hard enough time getting committees to document things for incoming members, subsequent committee leaders, and the membership as a whole with current practices. Having complete loss of records because someone decides to step down from a committee and we canāt pull records is a serious problem and weāve had to dig through these DMS systems to pull them. Just this past day I had to pull records regarding the Felder for the woodshop when that chair has been gone for years.
No one is making you use that email for personal things, no one is making members not doing business on behalf of the space using that email. You have to login when you take exams using Google Education since it ties into AD for signoffs as that gets deployed.
So Iām guessing your boss is too? How large of a company do you work for that you can operate with just your personal email and not use one of theirs? 10? 100? 1000 employees? Youāll be hard pressed to find a business that operates electronically that allows those things by people charged with responsiblities.
Just a some more cases where use of common systems of record rather than personal emails and dropboxes within DMS have caught malfeasance, averted disaster, or enabled committees to pickup pieces left by chairs that didnāt document things:
- the time someone deleted the entirety the cloud share drive of expansion data to prevent a board member from doing due diligence (G Suite allows us to restore data lost in team drives due to accidents or malfeasance)
- the time that Kris Anderson & co tried to ban Andrew LeCody for investigating fraud (having the email evidence on our systems made it auditable, and we were able to track the trail of hard proof)
- the ongoing COVID crisis which lead to a significant need for online-enabled meetings. Having a common platform makes things easier on members not having to use a different system for every committee, and ensures meetings have records available where applicable so members can stay informed
- new members can look on the wiki for information related to a committee such as rules, who to contact, what the process for things are, where to find things. Not having these on the books with stagnant committee pages, or not taking minutes or having unwritten rules, makes thing challenging for members old and new whom do not have that specific ātribal knowledgeā case in point the recent Printmaking debacle where they teach one thing in classes, but have no posted rule on the wiki regarding restricted ink types
- the use of common platforms by chairs for committee resources enables collaboration without every volunteer needing to learn a new system, or chairs purchasing licenses for personal items where we would exceed the limits of whatās offered in free tiers
- when Social Security Numbers are handled by our bookkeeper and finance group for honorarium W-9s, these arenāt ending up scattered in personal emails, dropboxes, and God knows where we canāt secure them and destroy when no longer needed.
- when a new or prospective member needs to ask a chair something there is a known inbox they are (supposed to be) checking.
I could keep going on
2 Likes
This thread has been completely hijacked from itās original intent. it should be forked.
1 Like
Youāre not wrongā¦
Since the meeting info was hijacked off the original thread by this action, I re-added it.
1 Like
Thank you for doing that; I was unclear whether that was āa done dealā.
I used GoToMeeting for the Blacksmithing meetings for the same reason. Of the four who regulars attended, only one used google Meet before and two used GoToMeeting regularly (including myself). If I was going to need to debug connection issues in real time, Iād rather be using something familar.
GoToMeeting, WebEx, and Google Meet all allow attending without special s/w install. Only The last one requires that you have an account just to attend a meeting.
2 Likes
This is not accurate for us; the free version of Google meet that anyone can setup with their personal gmail requires that every participant have a google account. The professional version we have does not require participants to have an account.
I also donāt ever recall seeing a blacksmithing meeting posted for teleconference, though I havenāt been looking at blacksmithing specifically in a while. When did that start?
1 Like
Just another reason I love being Chair.
Considering using WebX for this mtng. 
Just cuz.
Before another effing restricting āruleā gets passed.
Just to poke the bear with long pointy stickā¦ 
Hmmā¦need to make long pointy stickā¦ 
See yāall down at the Space. 
3 Likes
Someone needs to make a wood/paint cartoon cutout of Ranger Smith āholdingā a sharpened stick with a speech bubble saying āHere, use this to poke the bear.ā
It could be left in the common area.
If tazer / stungun components are added - does it qualify as an Electronics project?
3 Likes
How about wiring it as a cattle prod instead?
prod on end of long stickā¦
Steve - send the phone spidersā¦
1 Like
Thereās always āOlāWallyā, the electric chair.