Mark did we close our doors or did Judge Jenkins close our doors for us with his COVID19 orders?
Our doors were closed for us, and may be closed again dependent on which way the wind blows and how Abbott responds to it. I don’t think he’ll close down the state again but I didn’t think he’d do a mask mandate either yet here we are.
This video is video is full of outright lies.
Point 1. Mark claims to be a founder. Here is the history of our founding: https://www.dprg.org/founding-of-the-dallas-maker-space/ and here: https://www.dprg.org/dms-insights/
You can see in the notes from DPRG that Mark was “on the steering committee” but he was not the the “Principal Founder” It’s interesting to note that another person on that list is the one and only @AndrewLeCody I am sure he can provide more detail.
Point 2. Mark says he isn’t going into specific details, there is a reason for that, this video isn’t a “case study” its a gaslighting.
Point 3. The chart is based on public data, mark holds no copyright on it in any way shape or form.
Point 4. In the data you can see how even though he presents it like we are in dire trouble we have actually improved our position through sound financial management.
Our net income is up even with a decline in membership.
Our liabilities are down even with expansion:
Point 5. Mark is including red herrings in the data to try and make the makerspace look bad. for example the data point of banned members. He is attempting to imply that the board has been mean and this is somehow destroying the space, when in fact those bans have all been for legitimate well documented reasons. When directly asked about who he would unban Mark never has an answer. Yes, the current board didn’t ban very many people, and we did. Our reasons were:
- Threats against members
- Physical assaults
- Financial fraud by officers or representatives of the space
- Theft of assets from the space
Do any of those sound acceptable to any of you?
Another piece of garbage data Mark includes to try and make us look bad is the number of board meetings. Minutes are published for all of our meetings, no meeting is “secret” many are unscheduled. The reason for so many unscheduled meetings is twofold. First, due to the severity of the very first ban we had to handle it was necessary to hold the meeting in private to protect the victim. After that we moved all discipline meetings private to protect all parties involved. The second part is Expansion. It is not in the interest of the membership to create unnecessary delays by waiting for the scheduled board meeting to approve every expenditure. These meetings are documented, and we will probably have to have another one soon to approve the AC repair estimate. I am sure we would all agree that’s OK and we shouldn’t wait for the next board to schedule the August meeting to vote on if we should fix the AC.
In summary, what Mark is doing here is offensive, harmful to the makerspace and dishonest. He is misrepresenting himself and the data. He is gaslighting the entire membership and he’s doing it publicly to try and con his way on to the board.
Please feel free to look through the data that he is talking about and consider it without his spin: https://makerspacedata.com/Dallas-Makerspace/
If you want to get a clean copy of the data let @ESmith know and access will be provided.
Don’t fall for Mark and the Blue Tape groups attempt at gaslighting.
Just curious what is the meaning of Blue Tape group?
It’s the website a slate of candidates have put together: https://www.morebluetape.org/
I’ve publicly posted my thoughts here:
https://talk.dallasmakerspace.org/t/what-is-blue-tape-and-why-are-some-candidates-running-as-more-blue-tape/72424
Mark is a very charismatic and well spoken person. I don’t trust a single word he says and I wouldn’t vote for him to be a director of anything. Watch this guy like a hawk.
I think you and I have watched the wrong person. His display on the call the meet the candidates the other night does not show that he is well spoken and charismatic. At least from my perspective.
Does he ever mention that the start of the decline was due to a membership cost increase from $50 to $60. While there was an initial bump in increased memberships, that was people trying to get in on the old rate before it went up.
This video also highlights lots of metrics. Some are good indicators of financial health, others not so much. Permanent bans while high do not show anything other than as we grow we will have more people that do not follow the rules. Also why exclude the temporary bans?
Regarding honorarium, the level of growth was unsustainable and getting close to a third of our income. Whomever prepared this graph does not count the cost of honorariums as a liability.
There is a lot of cherry picking going on in these numbers.
It’s unlikely that Mark will provide any real data or explanation, that’s not his intent. His intent is to gaslight the membership and scare them into voting for him and his crew.
I don’t think the phrase “Case Study” means what he thinks it does. “Hey everyone…blah blah blah…I’m an important person in my own opinion…blah blah blah…look, a chart! But be careful because it’s fake copyrighted!..blah blah blah…check out some website…blah blah blah” is NOT a case study.
I’ll also note: it is a real talent, IMO, to be able to talk for that long and still actually say nothing. Not one piece of real information or meaningful insight or logic-based conclusion. Just a bunch of paltering, disingenuousness (possibly not a real word), and slander-by-implication.
Man, the “founder” thing has finally gotten under my skin. Good job, Mark, it took you like 8 years, but you did it.
DMS is a spinoff of the Dallas Personal Robotics Group. The DPRG started the Dallas Makerspace as a SIG to bring in a wider group of people to support a shared workspace, with the ultimate goal of budding DMS off into its own independent entity. Mark was one of those early additions, and volunteered to be the treasurer on the steering committee to establish DMS. I was there too; I put my volunteer hours into a group art project to earn DMS a grant.
When I joined, the “space” was ~20 people meeting weekly at the CCG tournament tables in a game store. We were there because we wanted to cultivate something, together. It’s silly to call any one person the founder of DMS; it’s always been a group project.
Thanks for that link… There was one person I was thinking of voting for, but after seeing him on that website, there’s no way in hell.
I don’t know if it’s the same person but I am right there with you. Damn, I wanted to like this other person too.
Ugh, that about page is nothing but attacking the board. They neglect to mention that people mostly leave due to cost, moving, and other reasons nor that the decline in membership started with the last board after they jacked up the price of membership; neglect to mention that the banned members stole from the space, assaulted other members, or committed fraud. Seriously, their bar is set so low I bet I couldn’t trust them as far as I could throw all 5 of them.
I’ll just leave this here for folks considering voting for Mark.
https://talk.dallasmakerspace.org/t/mark-haven-statement-of-intent-bod-2020-2021/70313/106?u=raymond
https://dallasmakerspace.org/wiki/Board_of_Directors_Meeting_20140618
He filed for a 501c3, fraudulently listed DMS (and other members) on it, and DMS had to file paperwork to get the name off his BS. Mark then filed suit to try and get the membership list from DMS - for what fraud, only he knows.
Do you want that kind of person on the board with access to your personal information?
Why he hasn’t been permanently banned for that fraud, I do not know.
I’ve been asked to allow this thread to go public. I personally have no objections, so if the mods believe it’s appropriate I have no issues with that.
Is there any meaning for the position of the banned members red dot in the y-axis?
I dont agree, I think the position of the dots spells out a message in Braille or perhaps Morse Code