I think last times hands up system worked well for those in person - perhaps there’s a hybrid approach? And yes I think it’s important we have specific wordings for votes
Could we add to the agenda a question to the directors?
There was quite an extensive thread regarding the possibility of purchasing a property to move to.
Could we have an update on the following points.
Has there been a directors meeting to discuss this?
Has any of the directors taken financial advice on the feasibility of this, ie. Costings, deposit required , likelihood of approval.
Has there been any enquiries made to look at the properties mentioned in this thread.
4 Likes
Can we leave the number of directors vote out of the agenda this time?
I am
Not sure the members meeting is the right place to have this discussion.
I will be putting a post up with concerns I have of the current situation later where hopefully we can have an honest calm and frank discussion about this and have a vote either online or at the following meeting
1 Like
@Clive there is a conversation that I’d like to share in the member meeting HR/People volunteer role — Survey closes Monday 4 May at midday
1 Like
Definitely appreciate that @lewisss , and I agree it probably is a longer discussion than we have time for. That said, I feel since we had a motion ready to vote on but decided ran out of time to actually vote in the last meeting, we should at least discuss it briefly. If folks disagree give us a 
or something and we can get a bit of a sense
Think we should finally discuss and hopefully sort out the logisitical nightmare that is 1 week bin 2 week bin 3 week bin. As I’m chair, I wont be able to bring it up myself, but would you @danielbenton be able to give us a run down?
3 Likes
Sure. People have always treated those bins as a dumping ground/donations. It’s safer to go that route than enforcing it as a lost and found where they’re likely to be mistaken as donations. This has caused problems in the past. The idea was to shift lost and found to somewhere in the snug where valueables are less visible. I took on too many things at once and didn’t get around to making the signage for it.
1 Like
This may be last-minute, but could I float the idea of discussing project storage in the snug?
The racks have been full pretty much the whole time I’ve been a member (since around last October) and a lot of the projects there aren’t being worked on - people are using it as storage and updating the tags every month. I’ve seen a couple of people’s projects get damaged because it’s too crowded (someone made a beautiful paper lantern that was squished a few months ago).
Since this is last-minute, rather than settling on a specific policy, could I propose that we get a read of the temperature, and aim to implement a tracking system so we can get a record of how many of the projects aren’t changing? Even if that’s just taking a photo of the racks and project tags every couple of weeks. Then if we find it’s mostly the same static projects, we can decide on a policy to mitigate the problem.
1 Like
I think we decided to not vote on a motion and I think this needs to be left out of the agenda. For the reasons I have outlined above. This is not a discussion that can be done briefly.
There are many issues that need to be addressed and without the full membership having time to fully understand every aspect of this matter over a discourse thread.
Also @unknowndomain who put forward the motion is unable to attend due to getting married. I think it is unfair to vote on a motion when the proposer will not be present to state his position and explain the reasons for the vote.
I’m attending online, but I’m happy to hold off again, I suspect with or without me this will pass, so for me this is more out of respect to ensure the directors are in a position where they can comfortably comment on this and give feedback as 2/3rds are new.
The issue isn’t pressing, but does need resolving.
Ok, lets hold off for now
I think this was removed…? @stefanoromano
it sounds that the only thing we will vote is chemical in the space, am i correct?
I don’t think it’s for vote, and I’m not really pushing for this, but theres been a few instances of people saying can we check the CCTV for X and we don’t have CCTV internally, and might want to discuss this topic.
2 Likes
Yeah I requested to add this to the agenda about a week ago, it’s been voted on in the past but I think it bears another vote since people have strong feelings on it
Do you have a record of the previous vote? Would be good to know when it was, wording, surrounding discussion.
(E.g. I would be comfortable with internal CCTV if it couldn’t record sound, but this may have been covered previously.)
This was the members vote (before we had members meeting we did things on Discourse):
https://discourse.southlondonmakerspace.org/t/cctv-system-fixed-debate-about-additional-cameras/960/66
Note: The cameras we have already have their microphones disabled.
1 Like
Nice, thanks.
I notice the way that vote is structured will split the vote - e.g. 45% of people wanted an access policy that was more restrictive than the one that passed (with 39%).
In that vote I don’t think it mattered since the median won in both cases, but if the vote is run again this could be a problem.
Unfortunately the way members debated back then and in particular around this topic was not the greatest, and was a major motivator for me stepping down as director and leaving as a member for several years.
The vote options were created to try and capture various options various groups were pushing for, but you are right in retrospect that meant splitting the vote.
In this case, we have established that Makerspace has CCTV cameras outside and on the doors, with restrictive access that is documented every time it’s used and with no microphones.
The only real question here is about extension or not of that system, and if extended to what extent, baring in mind that there are time and financial costs to more, and we should consider what we’re aiming to achieve.
Is it personal security, property protection, etc… and are these reasonable things to expect to achieve from this.
2 Likes
This is on the agenda at the moment.
As of now all new items will be added to the agenda in Any Other Business, to be discussed at the end of the meeting. Please continue to add as comments
Cheers,
I’m currently on a train but will be coming in for just after 7 - can I ask that we don’t make this the first thing on the agenda?
For clarity on what we’re discussing I’ll put it into a proper motion:
• Given that we’ve had a ~£400 piece of equipment stolen from the space recently (the janome sewing machine, maybe the heat gun as well?), @sean moves that we install internal CCTV covering all major areas of the space, and adopt clear rules governing who can access footage and how this can be made transparent to the membership
Proposed rules for access:
• Footage accessible at directors discretion
• Announced via discourse at time of access, along with who viewed it and for what time period, along with a reason for access
1 Like