OrganisersMeetingMinutes20131022

Tuesday 22nd October - 6:30 - 7:30pm

Agenda: ["DoESMeetingAgenda20131022"]

• Apologies from Hakim. MarkHolmes also in attendance.

• Review of/actions from the last meeting

  • new action: AndyGoodwin is writing the DoES guidebook. First draft done. Will share before end of October
  • RJ (ideally) to contact our friendly lawyer to see what would be best for a contract to arrange for permanent deskers. Decided to drop.
  • Membership - We should review workshop membership, find out how we could get people to come in more often. Offer a cheaper option for out of hours access so that more people come in evenings and weekends. - Much discussion, no clear options. JR main person who's expressed an interest. Maybe do 1/4d charge for evening access. Mention it to JR, and get him to email us when he uses it. JR has used it once, and there've been a few accidental instances. Trial okay so far, roll out to next person who's interested.
  • Technician-in-Residence - Still need to announce!
  • As the technician role is fairly stable, and PatrickFenner is set to run interns, should the position be extended to finish at a later date, instead of announcing for another applicant?
  • Postpone until Jan 2014. Still postponed.
  • Patrick to summarize his paid technician idea in an email to organisers.
  • HakimCassimally to take photos of PatrickFenner and arrange writing of blog post to introduce Patrick. Carried over.
  • ALL test noise levels, investigate upstairs neighbours. Carried over. Noone upstairs at the moment, should still test noise levels. Moot point now space has gone.
  • SteveSparrow to show more evidence of desire for messy space. Moot point.
  • AG to set up bigger picture conversation, in a drinking establishment. Done.
  • SteveSparrow to arrange first "lunch in the meeting room". Done.

• Financials

  • About usual rates. Accidentally paid next month's rent. Owed about £3k for assorted invoices. Next month's rent isn't much of a problem.
  • Monthly profit is £-30. FACT's membership hasn't gone out because Freeagent's recurring billing isn't much good.
  • Nothing much else to report.

• Administrator role

  • Admin workload makes it hard for us to take more strategic view of things, so an office manager or administrator of some form could help matters.
  • In ideal world it would be a role that might grow into office manager, etc.
  • There's been some to-and-fro to work out possible requirements/pay/etc. Cost to DoES, inc. NIC, etc. is £331/month.
  • Also wary of JohnMcKerrell's impending fatherhood.
  • Would need a computer for them too.
  • Discussion around it. Need to define the priority list for the administrator, so it's clear to them what they need to be doing. One person needs to be line manager and be ultimately responsible for working out what they'll be doing. The administrator could have a hand in defining what the role is, but it needs to be defined.
  • See the online spec for details of what they do.
  • Need to be careful with advert, as we're trying to appeal to people. Maybe ask GarySmailes if he'd copy edit it for us?
  • PaulFreeman to set up ticketing system for emails
  • Suggestion of 1 year contract to give option for clean break.
  • Discussion of remote vs in the space, tending towards the space as then we can "infect" ;-) them with the DoES ethos.
  • However, not sure we can afford it at the moment. Would last 5 months at existing rates, with current bank balance. If all debts paid we'd last 13 months.
  • We would like an admin person as soon as we can afford it.
  • We could try to rent out Dinky more
  • JohnMcKerrell to find a way to account (in the prediction spreadsheet) for renting out Dinky
  • Steve to announce to announce to community about taking on an administrator about plans and needing two desks to cover the cost

• Confirm time and date of next meeting

  • 10th Jan, 5:30pm then pub

• AOB

• End of Jelly. Last one will be in December. Do we want to do anything about it? If it does stop, we should run the first next Jelly and see what happens.

• JohnMcKerrell to talk to Neil to find out more.

• Doors should not be left open when room unoccupied. Main room not to be open during events.