Julie Harris, @Julie-Harris
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.
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Thank you! This week is a very busy week for me at work closing June and getting client financials out but I will answer these ASAP.
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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?
First of all, due to the hard work by many to reverse our negative cash flow, we are in good shape to survive COVID even with current membership numbers. I would be willing to accept any grants or sponsorships as long as we can comply with the requirements. I would also be happy to support fundraising efforts.
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.
I support paying honorarium for online classes. We were working toward a budget model for committees during my term on the board and I would like to have the opportunity to help with this process during the next term. Finally, chairs can request money if needed. I would like to mention that we need to be careful about spending during this time.
What is your vision for the MakerSpace next year? And in 5 years?
This is from my SOI - for the next year I would like to decrease reliance on volunteers for critical business functions, continue to support expansion, continue the growth that we saw pre-COVID and improve communication with chairs. In the next five years, I think we will need to consider opening satellite locations.
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?)
We receive an email with the reason every time someone cancels and we read all of them. Most of the time the reasons are things like moving, no longer able to afford or not using DMS. I would like to have the opportunity to support PR efforts given any limitations imposed by COVID. We had some pretty significant PR wins during our term thanks to the efforts of @mrjimmy, @apparently_weird and other volunteers. I think we would have seen a greater benefit from these efforts if we didn’t have to close due to COVID.
We are a volunteer organization. How do/would you promote volunteerism?
I try not to micromanage volunteers and try to encourage people who take on volunteer or leadership roles whenever I can. I think that improved communication between the board and chairs as well as the board and the membership would be helpful. Office hours were a great start but I would like to continue to improve for the next term. @patrickpleez1 worked to communicate volunteer opportunities to the membership and I think that his efforts were helpful as well.
What are you passionate about making? About learning? About teaching?
I am passionate about teaching and promoting slip casting. I would like to teach slip casting again once COVID restrictions have been lifted.
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?
No, the expulsions were thoroughly documented and the people who were expelled were often given multiple chances.
What did you do to help the space during the shutdown and reopening?
I was at DMS helping the night that we shut down and continued to carry out board duties during the shut down. I supported various PPE efforts. I was at DMS helping for the reopening, primarily helping logistics.
In what ways have you volunteered for the space outside of your committee in the past year?
Most of my volunteer work has been on the board. I attended most of the expansion and finance meetings and all of the weekly board work sessions. I maintained the agenda for work sessions and helped to research, organize and document disciplinary issues. I helped provide financial information to the rest of the board until @brsims became treasurer. I helped clear out storage and helped with logistics work days whenever possible. When necessary, I created and helped organize work groups. I helped install cameras.
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How do you intend to help people get along better, be less adversarial and bridge the divide between people?
We have scheduled office hours, offered mediation in the past and have had some success with mediation by trusted volunteers. I think that third party moderation would be helpful but it is expensive. I support some effort in this area but the board should be focused on making business decisions that benefit DMS and shouldn’t have to spend a significant amount of time managing people’s feelings for them.
Is it OK to mass campaign email the membership?
I don’t want to send or receive campaign emails. There are plenty of opportunities for members to find out about candidates if they are interested.
Would you reinstate Stan Simmons’ membership?
No
Do you support 3rd party monitoring of surveillance and moderation of forums to curtail miss use
Yes, but it is too expensive. It’s not a good use of our funds right now and even before COVID, I would rather spend the money on tools. I appreciate our volunteer moderators and think that they do a great job.
Do you believe in giving the board taking more power from committees or giving more lee way
I’m not interested in micromanaging committees unless there is a risk to DMS as a whole. I think there is room for improvement when communicating with chairs.
Do you plan on having your board meetings open to the membership with few exceptions?
Board meetings have been open to the public and minutes have been posted timely. We read member comments about agenda items posted on Talk and tried to schedule office hours before board meetings to allow additional time to listen to members in person. We also listen to comments during board meetings. The exceptions have generally been emergency items, disciplinary issues and meetings to approve expansion quotes. I’m not willing to consider bringing disciplinary issues back into regular board meetings. All members have been given the opportunity to defend themselves. The accused is welcome to bring whoever they like into a disciplinary hearing. Board meetings should be a professional environment to conduct business.
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?
I have been to most of the finance meetings and helped anyone who has asked. If a chair doesn’t know their committee balances they should contact the treasurer and if that doesn’t work they can email [email protected].
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?
I was surprised by the amount of disciplinary issues that we had and I spent a lot of time on these issues during my term. I would like to have a group that is separate from the board for disciplinary issues but we would need to find volunteers. One benefit of this would be increased oversight.
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?
No
how do you feel about using the DMS address for personal legal paperwork and address filing
I don’t think that people should use the DMS address for personal mail.
Do you think it’s appropriate for a committee chair or chair-elect to be able to grant themselves exemptions to committee rules?
No
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?
I think a ticket system for formal complaints could be helpful. I would also be interested in separating research and documentation of formal complaints from the board for increased oversight. A group of trusted volunteers independent of the board could research and document formal complaints and perhaps even send a recommendation to the board. The board could then review the documentation and vote on it.
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.
Anyone can have secret conversations and meetings but committees must be governed in accordance with published rules in order for decisions to be valid.
Rules and Policies - Dallas Makerspace
What’s your favorite personal project of the past year?
It’s been a little bit longer than a year but my favorite project was sculpting the cake topper for my sister’s wedding. I have also enjoyed going to raku events and entering ceramics in the state fair.
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