Since the @Team_Metal_Shop leadership won’t talk about it here, I’m starting this.
During the meetings with un-posted minutes, there was a vote to purchase another MIG welder at a significant expense. It was pointed out at the October metal shop meeting this was wildly inappropriate to hold a vote on a several thousand dollar expense without consulting either the teachers nor informing the committee with an agenda item in advance. It is being re-voted on at the November monthly meeting as a result.
The only instructor I have found to have been present at that meeting when asking around is @rlisbona
Having chatted with other instructors, no one can understand why we supposedly need another for MIG classes.
Students should only be welding with the attention of the instructor; there has been no discussion amongst the teachers otherwise as of late. Considering most of the time is the process, the machine, good vs bad welding, etc where does the second machine provide actual value for the significant cost presented?
@malcolmputer has been lighter on classes with pandemic and I’ve been busy house hunting the past few months, so whilst I appreciate some stepping up to teach this is a significant purchase for something that was not discussed amonst the welding teachers as a whole nor fits with the model of our MIG classes being an introduction, not a welding practice class.
Not likely, especially since others are aware and this was discussed at length in a meeting you did not attend. This meeting was well attended. More that 10 people if I recall.
Why are we having this discussion? The committee discussed it over two meetings.
A one-off idea on a repair versus replace conversation for the hobart, as compared to the committee seriously discussing it as a class necessity, are two very different things.
Funny how you provide a screenshot out of context like that.
No minutes posted for months, no agendas for these votes posted, this is not a “well attended meeting.” This is ballot stuffing knowing that people have obligations and trying to discourage attendance by not informing members of important decisions.
Furthermore, none of the welding instructors I’ve talked with were either aware of the vote happening nor at the meetings because they were not aware of it, save one who was already tagged in the opening post.
It’s actually our DMS policy regarding actual committee business (per Rules and Policies - Dallas Makerspace ; emphasis mine). This was brought up during the last meeting, and a vote was scheduled with it listed as an agenda item.
Committee meetings must be posted on the calendar and announced on the forums. Meetings to select a chair recommendation shall be published a minimum of 13 days and 12 hours in advance.
Committees shall make a good faith effort to publicly post meeting agenda items in advance of each meeting so that committee members may review and discuss them.
Committee meeting minutes must be posted in a timely fashion on the wiki following the conclusion of each meeting and shall adhere to standards established by the Secretary.
It’s not Charles’ business to hide major business from the committee members. He’s been warned about trying to fly things under the radar on multiple occasions including the rest of that post you conveniently omitted in your screenshot, and even the instructors have no idea what’s going on for a vote allegedly because of instructor needs
But you already knew all of this; how about you actually bring something up that’s based in evidence. We all already know about your personal views about me and your willful attempts to dodge any evidence that counters your personal opinion I must be making things up like the written request the machine shop put in to close their door per the plans we’ve always had.
Furthermore, below is the entire post I replied to that PM thread for context rather than an out-of-context screenshot. Emphasis added in a number of places. For those not on the Metal Shop Committee talk list, Charles had silently removed multiple members in an attempt to prevent discussion from the list, and attempted to evade our requirements in our rules about public discussion. This has already been talked about ad-nauseum so I will not go into further detail about the rest of that ordeal
the out of context message
Agree with Freddy here [regarding the vapor hone]; it’s a prep used for various treatments and before welding, and the only material you would use it on is metal. As for the stink, that’s due to a lack of service at the prior meeting.
The other committees have already stated they don’t want it, and with no other committee to take it we can’t shove it out regardless of what we vote on.
Most importantly, this discussion cannot happen in private. All votes of major changes and elections have to happen at a normally scheduled meeting (this is not) and be on the agenda. For items that are considered “emergency” the membership at large has to be notified at least 5 days in advance with public posts and signage
With a completely blank meeting page, a meeting happening at not only a different day but a non-standard time, and lack of notice for major changes like this it’s not going to be an acceptable vote.
Furthermore, having this discussion in private is completely inappropriate at all especially given the attempted gatekeeping of this committee list (as two of the most active members in the committee, Freddy and myself were removed in the dead of night without notice). Preventing this kind of manipulation in major changes is exactly why public announcements are required and committee memberships are required to be open.
[this was related to the vapor hone, but it shows the behavior of attempting to dissuade people from voting against the proposals]
This is flat out voter intimidation and would potentially qualify under our anti-retaliation rules. I would encourage you to strike it before taking a vote as it would more than likely cause a fuss later that the committee has to deal with, without actually generating any value for the committee. We cannot “voluntell” members in that fashion.
Metal shop has not operated under a cash accounting system for months now; almost no committee has. We operate under a 6 month rolling budget. [as a note, I failed to be clear here that this does exist as a surplus but one must be careful in presenting the budget without factoring in the allocations]
Repainting is wise, but we should check with logistics if there is any leftover paint from prior projects first as it would be a good cost savings; additionally Sherwin is going to be a higher cost out the gate. We can likely get a better price from another brand since we’re not colour critical.
As another matter, we should probably discuss the scotchbrite going forward. I love it, but the belts get toasted too quickly by members who do not understand it. We have some options to consider such as more signage, update the grinder training and include that machine on it, and possibly some others I’m not thinking of. It’s a great resource but we’ve had to swap that belt out far faster than we should.
Hoping this is soon; I do have an update here that we’re working on the changes requested during a recent inspection. Some of the system as installed by contractors was not done right and had to be fixed which has delayed the move. Assuming no more problems come up I expect the next couple weeks.
I’d like to see a second working MIG, but historically I’m not sure we have the volume of usage at the moment for the investment. It could end up being those “if you build it, they will come” situations but I’m unsure. if we do pursue it, I’d like to see a new machine mostly due to the likelihood of it moving around as the MIG does and voltage wouldn’t exist in other places without the transformer. Additionally if we could get our hands on another Miller unit users would be more comfortable.
However that’s just my 2¢ on that matter; I teach people all on one machine regardless as I want to give whomever is welding complete focus and if we get a second I’m going to continue teaching with small classes that way.
[this is the only part that Freddy screenshotted; it is in the context of a repair / replace discussion, but again this isn’t a conversation with the teachers about do we need it for classes nor is it a public discussion that the rules require for agendas within a committee]
I believe discussion of a large purchase like this should be held in the general makerspaces view so I approve of having discussion that involves every committee member not just those that have made the meetings recently.
I haven’t been able to make the meetings lately due to a combination of my busy schedule and the fact that the times have moved or been erratic and not announced in my opinion far enough in advance.
I would love to read the minutes from these meetings to catch up on what was said/done and when large purchases like this are planned as I believe I have some input on the purchase that would be useful to the committee to hear. I haven’t seen any minutes posted.
With respect to whether we need another MIG welder, it’s been my opinion that since we have two welding tables we should have two full welding setups, one for MIG and one for TIG at each of the two tables. I would much prefer that we try to be vendor agnostic, and I’m noticing a whole lot of blue in the room, I would suggest that we investigate purchasing a different vendor’s welder as opposed to getting another Miller. Lincoln, ESab, Hobart, etc would all be valid choices, but since we’re purchasing something we already have we should probably investigate if we can improve our feature set at the same time.
As far as specific to classes goes, I would suggest that if an instructor is going to be teaching two tables at the same time they have an instructor in training or an assistant who can make sure the students are not going to hurt themselves while learning the machine basics. It was my plan to perform this with the TIG classes, allowing me to both train a new instructor who is comfortable with TIG welding but not ready to teach yet, and double the class throughput. This idea has been put on hold by the apparent removal of the larger Miller TIG unit from service even though it was operational at a reduced amperage capacity. This change, again, was without notifying the instructors who teach the classes or with any minutes/notes to the committee members at large.
