James Henningson, @mrjimmy
Here are the questions collected on-line.
Currently, 50 questions are posted. You can reference the #1 or copy the question before your answer. Feel free to answer others questions as you wish.
Thanks John!
To the membership, this will take a little time. I’ll commit to having my answers posted tomorrow.
Thanks to everyone who submitted questions.
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Question: If we either choose not to or are not able to increase our members with social distancing requirements, what fundraising or sponsorships would you be amenable to accept in order to maintain pre-Covid-19 revenues, and under what conditions?
Answers: As discussed on the meet the candidates meeting I am in favor of material sponsorships that reduce our operating cost. I am also in favor of looking at different revenue streams such as online classes.
Question: How will committees be funded while we have in-person class restrictions due to social distancing? Fewer classes means fewer honorarium dollars to the committees.
Answer: As discussed during the meeting, DMS needs to move to a more structured budget model. We need a way to reward committees for having an active maker community regardless of the number of classes that they can conduct during these restrictions.
Question: What is your vision for the MakerSpace next year? And in 5 years?
Answer: I believe the makerspace is currently on a good growth path, I would like to continue it. Prior to the Covid-19 restrictions we were seeing good results with recruiting efforts and were adding valuable members to the community.
Over the next 5 years I see DMS continuing its growth but not exclusively in the current building. I think we will hit a point of market saturation and will need to look at opening satellite locations.
Question: We lost 950 members in the last year. 500 before the pandemic.
What do you believe the factors were for the dramatic decline?
As as director for 2020-21, what would you do to help grow the members? (or do you think we are at the right level of members?)
Answer: The charts provided by @Brandon_Green show the membership trends. Interestingly our membership starts to decline closely matches when economists are now saying the 2020 recession began. We see the decline trending that way in the late January early February time period. For the loss of membership prior to the beginning of the recession I think you can attribute that to two factors. 1. The time it took to recover from the previous boards mismanagement of the finances and the expansion project. 2. natural attrition due to the average member tenure in relation to the active recruiting activities taking place. Thankfully the expansion is now back on track and our finances corrected from the previous mismanagement.
Question: We are a volunteer organization. How do/would you promote volunteerism?
Answer: Promoting volunteerism has grown increasingly easier within the space. The Covid-19 crisis has brought out the best in even more volunteers. We clearly have a base of people that love and care about the space and show it by being there for the space. The question is how to we recognize and reward these people for their effort? In the past we would hold events like the potluck and picnic, that can’t happen right now. To that end I try to recognize those volunteers early and often on our social channels. Volunteer recognition is something we will have to dig deep on the longer this Covid-19 crisis lasts.
Question: What are you passionate about making? About learning? About teaching?
Answer: My making passion changes fairly often, I think machine shop is the only committee I haven’t done work in at this point, but I’ve already got a project in mind. I have taught a few classes but have not done it extensively because of my board duties. Recently I’ve taught some online classes for Software on how to prototype with Dialog Flow, when we can start doing in person classes again I will be teaching some lamp work glass classes.
Question: There are a number of people who have been expelled from the makerspace in the past year. Do you intend to let any of them back into the space? If so which ones, and why?
Answer: Let me be 100% clear, I have no intention of bringing back anyone who was permanently expelled by this board or any other unless there is compelling evidence that they did not commit the offence they were charged with.
I do not believe the same is true for any of the candidates running on the “more blue tape” ticket. They are campaigning under a slogan that was the catch phrase of Kris Anderson, who was banned for theft of thousands of dollars from the makerspace and abuse of power for banning members who tried to investigate her fraud.
There was not a single ban that I voted on that was easy, in every case these people were people that I had met, I’d taken classes from many, and in the case of Stan, someone I considered a friend. But they committed real crimes. In some cases they hurt other members, or threatened violence against other members, and in a few cases stole from the membership. Much of this is a result of the culture that was in place with the previous board, a culture that benefited Kris’s friends but didn’t benefit the broader membership. The makerspace does not need to return to those days. We don’t need to bring back Vodka Tuesday and all the problems created by that culture.
Question: What did you do to help the space during the shutdown and reopening?
Answer: I continued to fulfill my duties as a board member and kept the bills paid and the expansion proceeding. I also helped with the moves of Glass, Ceramics and Jewelry, Additionally I assisted on the community PPE production effort with a number of involved members to produce face shields free of charge for Parkland Hospital, UT Southwestern and Scottish Rite hospital. Finally I worked with all of the committee chairs that were participating in managing the space to develop the rule set for Covid-19, procured sanitization supplies for public use, disinfected the space prior to opening and set up all of the common areas and classrooms for social distancing.
Question: In what ways have you volunteered for the space outside of your committee in the past year?
Answer: Aside from the recent stuff listed above, I have rebuilt the washroom, painted classrooms, helped fix the floor in CA, attended events as a representative of DMS, lead tours on thursday nights and weekends, run cables, fixed ceiling tiles and hung security cameras.
Question: What qualities do you think are important in a leader? What do you think leaders should NOT do?
Answer: I think a leader needs to be a good listener, but also needs to be firm. Not all opinions are equal. A leader needs to be active and present and a leader needs to be consistent. A leader needs to have a strong sense of duty.
A leader should not:
- Lie
- Cheat
- Steal
- Make threats against members
- Encourage threats against members
- Be all about themselves and what they can get out of the space.
Question: Do you believe all members have a moral duty to report fraud/theft/violence to the leadership and/or the authorities?
Answer: Yes, absolutely. I commend our membership on this point, they have been very good during our term about contacting us when real issues arise.
Question: How do you intend to help people get along better, be less adversarial and bridge the divide between people?
Answer: I intend to continue with the open office hours policy that has proven effective. On a whole the community isn’t actually adversarial, there is a select group that is intent on gaslighting and concern trolling that stirs up trouble often. I would like to empower the moderators on talk to take more significant actions to address these issues.
Question: Is it OK to mass campaign email the membership?
Answer: Yes, all candidates are entitled to a list of voting members for the purposes of campaigning. We are also entitled to mailing addresses, but I have yet to receive any snail mail from any candidates.
Question: How many people have you gotten to sign up and join DMS since Jan 1st 2020?
Answer: I have no idea, but it’s a lot. I lead tours every weekend right up until the week we closed for Covid-19. I personally lead a number of off hours tours private group as well that I know lead to a number of joins. Additionally I represented DMS at several recruiting events in the early part of the year that drove membership as well.
Question: Is the board responsible for keeping DMS doors open whenever leagally possible?
Answer: The board has a legal responsibility to protect the organization. The membership base of the organization is large and diverse, with many of them falling into the higher risk categories. Additionally we have no paid staff to monitor the facility. It would have been irresponsible to the organization and the membership to seek an exemption to reopen. We took the most prudent path and loaned our equipment to a facility that was capable of producing PPE for the community without risking our members lives.
Question: What did personal storage have to do with covid response?
Answer: Our logistics team is all volunteers. We could not reasonably ask volunteers to risk exposure when handling other peoples property. When a ticket expires volunteers need to move the material to purgatory, this is an exposure point. When the person comes to get it from purgatory this is a person to person exposure point. We will not risk volunteers lives for convenience.
Question: Would you reinstate Stan Simmons’ membership?
Answer: No. Stan stole from the organization, he confessed to it and chose not to make an appeal at his hearing. This instance was not even his first, there were others that Kris Anderson swept under the carpet. Based on the action he was caught doing and the past history Stan is not a value to this community.
Question: Many instructors stopped teaching last summer for many reason. What is your plan getting the classrooms full of interesting classes once again? Will you restore honorariums to what they once were before last summer?
Answer: My plan is to continue on the financially responsible path that has kept us in business through this shut down. Prior to Covid-19 we were already on the path to raising honorariums and seeing an increase in classes, when restrictions are lifted I hope to continue on that path.
Question: Do you support 3rd party monitoring of surveillance and moderation of forums to curtail miss use
Answer: Yes, we looked into it early in our term, the quotes for social moderation came back extremely expensive. It is something worth looking into again to see if the costs have changed due to the current business market.
Question: How would you handle a conflict of interest for a director or officer during elections
Answer: By following the clearly defined rules the state has for charities and the rules in our financial policy.
Question: Do you believe in giving the board taking more power from committees or giving more lee way
Answer: The committees should be the managers of their areas. The board should be the managers of the business. We have too many committees with too many specific technical needs for the board to manage all of them. If a chair is failing a committee the board should remove the chair and the committee should elect a new chair from their participants.
Question: Should there be a timeout for people who get around hidden, community-flagged posts by editing them and changing one small thing?
Answer: That seems fair, but that’s the moderators call not the board.
Question: Do you plan on having your board meetings open to the membership with few exceptions?
Answer: I plan to continue to do this. Only disciplinary meetings (for HR reasons) and emergency budget meetings will be private (who wants to wait for a scheduled meeting to approve the AC repair estimate) . All minutes will continue to be posted.
Question: How do you feel about the proposed by-law changes removing the right for members to even propose amendments even with 10% of voting member signatures
Answer: I think there is some confusion, that is a misreading of the proposal. here is what it says;
“a petition submitted to and certified by the Secretary signed by not less than
ten (10%) of the full voting membership or ten voting members (whichever is
greater).”
I support this, petitioning is the standard way of creating a community driven ballot measure in this country. It’s best that the membership be made aware of the proposed change rather than having them snuck for a vote without knowledge.
That’s the first 25. I’ll get to the second 25 later today.
Thanks, again for the questions.
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Round 2:
Question: Non profits generally exist in society to provide benefit to the public. How would you further that mission?
Answer: Continued outreach to the community through our public classes when restrictions lift is a great way to be involved with the broader community. Working with other charities is also a great way. Things like the 3d printing I did for Dallas Dog RRR help us and help the community.
If we can being to produce our own how to videos that will also increase our community outreach.
Question: Do you agree with the proposed by-law changes to remove the requirement to notify members of a vote to change the by-laws.
Answer: There is no such change proposed. Here is the exact wording of the proposed change.
Section 4.6.2.2 Notification Requirements
- Unless otherwise provided by the Articles of Incorporation, these Bylaws, or
provisions of law, notice stating the place, date, time and purpose or purposes for
which the special Membership Meeting is called, shall be delivered not less than
ten (10) days before the date of the meeting. This notice shall be given to each
member entitled to vote at such meeting by the Secretary, and only matters that
are contained in this notification shall be considered. - A notice of any membership meeting in which the Board of Directors are to be
elected must also state the names of each nominee or candidate for election. - Voting members may be notified of Member Meetings via means allowed under
Texas law following procedures determined by resolution of the Board of
Directors. - The Secretary may require members in good standing calling for Member
Meetings via petition to pay the costs of notification prior to scheduling such a
meeting.
As you can see it has explicit details on exactly how notification is required.
Question: How would you fix the fact that committees have not been receiving monthly committee end reporting and generally no one really knows what their balances are?
Answer: Committee’s have been receiving their financial information. All balance information is published and quickbooks access has always been provided to anyone who requests it.
Question: Do you believe in banning people for failure to report misconduct or just because without due process and currently outlined in the Financial Policy
Answer: This is a loaded question. To the first part, yes members have an obligation to report misconduct that is detrimental or damaging to the makerspace. As members of the organization everyone had a duty to look out for the interests of the whole community. To the second part, no one has been banned “Just because” all infractions that have lead to banning are fully documented.
Question: There is a general belief that the personality of many members at DMS is hostile and mean, How do you plan on getting people back together and healing old wounds
Answer: The fact of the matter is the vast majority of our members are kind and helpful. Any organization will have it’s share of different personalities, due to our nature we attract an extremely varied group of people. This leads to great creative, but it also leads to conflict. One way we have addressed this has been to be consistent with issuing discipline. Many of the bans that have been issued have been for conflicts that the previous board ignored or brushed over. This allowed the bullies and the offenders free reign and cost us many good members. By treating conflict between members with a professional and consistent rule set we have made the space safer and more welcoming to the general membership.
Question: How would you have handled this election process differently
Answer: I don’t know that I would have. The timing of the election was such that we had no option but to postpone it. Due to the covid-19 restrictions I believe online voting is the best solution we have to give the membership their vote without risking exposure or violating the rules for gathering size.
Question: The last board spent too many man hours investigating, discussing, and holding hearings about disciplinary issues. I think they were surprised at the amount of criminal and uncivil behavior that required addressing. I would prefer my board spend their limited time on business issues. How would you reduce the number of man-hours the board spends on discipline, without ignoring the infractions?
Answer: I think a big part of the issues we addressed this year stemmed from a culture of abuse and favoritism that the previous board created. The further we got into the year the less we had to deal with discipline issues. Hopefully we will not need to spend as much time on HR issues this year. Introduction of the substance policy was a big step in reducing problems at the space. Adoption of the financial policies was another. Both of those should over time serve to reduce the amount of HR problems the board has to deal with.
Question: What have you been up to during COVID
Answer: Loads, much of it mentioned above, but to recap:
- Helping keep the business operations of the space running during the closure
- Helping with expansion and committee moves during the closure
- Leading the creation of the Covid-19 operating rules
- Setting up free online learning for the members while we were closed
- Helping with the makerspaces contribution to the community PPE effort
- My day job
- A lot of home improvement projects
- Cooking loads of cool things and then forgetting to take a picture and put it on the culinary thread…
Question: The current board has permanently banned 15 members and suspended many more, far greater than any other board. Should permanently banning be used more or less? Why?
Answer: There is no quota for bans. The severity of a ban is based on the violation that occurred. Bans should be used as necessary, no more no less.
Question: What do you believe strong characteristics of leadership are and how do you think you embody them?
Answer: This is answered above. I believe my track record of expanding the space and of helping establish a new base of volunteers is evidence of my leadership.
Question: Do you believe in removing committee budgets & or repossessing their assets? How do you feel about reducing their autonomy in general?
Answer: We may change the committee budgeting structure, but it would not remove the committee’s ability to run and procure assets and materials. As to repossessing their assets, the committee doesn’t actually own any assets, all assets belong to the makerspace as a corporation. Committee’s exist to manage the assets for the members and corp. So it would make sense that if a committee was misusing assets the thing to do would be replace the committee chair, not take on responsibility for managing the assets for them.
Question: As a board member, do you think its appropriate to use DMS as a signaturory on a personal LLC or other entity registered with the state? What about naming members of DMS for such things without their involvement?
Answer: Absolutely not. DMS should never be involved in private corporations that are owned by a member. As to adding people without their consent, absolutely not. For those that are curious about this question it relates to the actions of Mark Havens. Here are the minutes from the board meeting where he was disciplined for this: BoD_2016-04-24_minutes (1).docx - Google Drive
Question: What are your actions to make DMS a community and encourage members to come back?
Answer: This question is answered above.
Question: how do you feel about using the DMS address for personal legal paperwork and address filing
Answer: Our lease forbids us from subletting without approval of the landlord, therefor any business paperwork would be a violation of the lease and is unacceptable. Personal paperwork is a similar violation as no one is allowed to reside at the location. In short if it’s not makerspace business it should not be addressed to the makerspace.
Question: what is more important to the makerspace? higher numbers of strangers as members, or lower numbers of members with better community
Answer: Both have their value, and it’s unfair to describe any member as a stranger and not a value to the community. Look at Curt Baker @BobTheMad few people knew who he was prior to his candidacy, and yet he’s shown to be a long term member who adds great value to the space. Just because you don’t know someone personally doesn’t mean they don’t contribute to the community at the space.
Question: Do you think it’s appropriate for a committee chair or chair-elect to be able to grant themselves exemptions to committee rules?
Answer: No that is inappropriate, a chair should be a steward for the community all rules should apply equally
Question: Our formal complaint system has gotten a lot of use lately. On May 14th, 8 complaints were dismissed. What should be the driving goals behind the design of the complaint system, and how can the system be improved to reflect those goals?
Answer: This has been discussed heavily, the answer is the same. The complaints were dismissed because discipline was handled by the Talk Moderators. No additional action was required from the board.
Question: Do you think it’s appropriate for committees to conceal their discussions or have “proprietary” information they can hide from other committees or the board? I’ve attended a meeting where the chair said not to talk about the committee plans and future because it was secret.
Answer: No this is very inappropriate. All committee meetings are required to be documented in the minutes and publicly available.
Question: Do you think committees are being asked to document too much? What about the difficulty new members have due to tribal knowledge?
Answer: This has been a concern. Recently a guide for chairs was published to help them simplify their processes. So far it’s gotten good feedback. Hopefully this helps
Question: One of a Chairpersons’ responsibilities is overseeing the financial health of DMS. From your current understanding, how much will it cost to complete the expansion?
Answer: We are preparing the bid packet now for the final phase. We should have an exact number soon. The total expenses so far can be seen in quickbooks. Based on current finances we are in good shape so far.
Question: Is DMS leadership accountable to the membership?
Answer: They are accountable to the state of Texas first, then the membership.
Question Would you prefer funds go to DMS in one account. Or to keep the funds being split by what each committee brings in.
Answer: I am in favor of whatever best serves our current needs as long as it follows GAP, Is legal, and is supportable by our current scope with the accounting firm and volunteer staff.
Question: There was at one point only 8 of 68 people that were female on the meet the candidates call. How have you increased and supported ethnic and gender diversity at DMS
Answer: Great question! As a board we strived to have diversity in our positions but it’s been more difficult with the space as a whole. One thing I implemented shortly before the Covid-19 restrictions was a change to our marketing on facebook to include more diversity in our targeting and a narrower target area to be more representative of the town we live in. We saw immediate improvement. It will be more difficult without being able to give tours but I think our digital platforms are the easiest way to introduce ourselves to a more diverse audience.
Question: I’ve noticed that the current membership is a group that is not very diverse. Diversity helps drive innovation. And any organization can benefit from multiple points of view. What would you do as part of outreach measures to diversify the space. Women and minorities are very underrepresented, in my opinion.
Answer: Somewhat answered above, but this is a personal topic for me, so I’ve got more to say. I think we have great potential to reach a more diverse audience through both attendance at diversity events and through digital outreach with how to videos and other content that can highlight our inclusivity. A lot of people don’t know that our tradition of diversity and inclusion goes back to our founding, Some of that has been lost in our rapid growth, we have an opportunity now to refocus and bring in a more diverse more dynamic membership.
Question: Do you feel that being a good leader means attacking another candidate in your response here?
Answer: Ad hominem attacks are never called for. I don’t believe I said anything false in these written answers or during meet the candidates.
Question: What’s your favorite personal project of the past year?
Answer: # 1 would have to be the stamped copper bracelet I made for my dad in @JBluJkt class. It’s damn near impossible to find a gift for my dad, and he actually loved it!
#2 is Expansion. I am really proud of the work that has been completed on that project so far. So many volunteers are working so hard to get this done and it’s an honor to be a part of it.
Thanks for all the questions!
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