If we didn’t have the rule requiring donor permission (we don’t always know the “donor”, donors may not respond, donors may refuse permission) it might be possible.
However, even so, Garden experienced literal tons of large bulky materials which were ridiculously excessive to expect a lead to just keep working to remove instead of making the person bringing the crap stop. I’ve no interest in kicking someone out over small items or occasional things, but you’d be surprised just how far we had the envelope pushed this year. Two large landscaping boulders, two pallets of stone, an unquantifiable amount of large river rock style stones left around the pavilion and elsewhere (surprising mowing hazard), a plastic storage bench whose lid/seat was held on by badly by paperclips which had to be broken down to fit it in the dumpster, a 20’ wooden bench with unstable legs, the giant steel cable reel I couldn’t even move by rocking it, wheelbarrow with a flat tire…
There’s still the 20’ bench which needs disposed of along the west side of the south wing. Perhaps @SeanReed and @jpalschauhan can get together to dispose of it?
@gemma thank you for including that in orientation!
@Gretchen I like your suggestions for modificaitons of defaulting to “it belongs to us to do as we see fit”
but based upon Garden’s experience, having disciplinary steps available for the persons who might choose to continue to ignore the rules and continue dumping would still be useful.
Regardless, I believe that modifying the current rules to classify items not following policy as our property, and eliminating or modifying the rule requiring donor permission to dispose of an item (so it doesn’t become a dead end), would have broad appeal.
It’s a little off topic for the discussion here, but is that an official request from the Chair of Garden to have me dispose of the donated item? Has the donor been notified and refused to pick up the item?
I’d be happy to help remove any large items if it prevents a member from being removed. I can even store it temporarily if they need. I have heavy equipment and large trailers available. I can almost always come on short notice.
Any cool boulders are going in my yard though.
Yes and no. I think that the Area Lead still has the ultimate control and reponsibility to say no.
ERP is a great example. @james.a.seymour is adamant and vocal about not receiving any donations of monitors or televisions and to the best a my knowledge the donation of those items is a trickle rather than a flood.
I don’t want us to get into the business of being member storage, tool disposal or tool re-seller.
I also don’t want to see every policy at MakeICT have a consequence ladder that ends with permanent expulsion from the organization. I’m sure that we can walk a line somewhere in between.
Piggybacking off of @jpalschauhan , if something shows up in the ERP with out prior conversation with a lead-type person, lately it’s been dealt with swiftly and decisively. No name, no problem.
Area lead agrees and gets an Equipment Loan Agreement form.
Both sign. The current policy says two board members must also sign, presumably because the ELA says MakeICT is responsible.
If the member wants the item back, they can come and get it back.
Member is responsible for ensuring that the contact info on the ELA is up to date.
If the lead wants it gone, they can use the info from the ELA to contact the member and give them 30 days to come and remove the item.
If a new lead takes over and wants it gone, they can use the info from the ELA to contact the member and give them 30 days to come and remove the item.
If there’s some reason that the item should be removed but the lead doesn’t agree, the Board can vote on removal and give 30 days’ notice to remove the item.
If the 30 day notice is given and the member doesn’t come to pick up the item within that time, it’s considered the property of MakeICT.
I can see grounds for permanent expulsion if someone persists in dumping items at MakeICT without getting consent and filling out either an ELA or a donation form as described above, but hopefully that would never happen.
Yeah. This seems reasonable to me.
Though I wouldn’t give more than 14 days on all the timelines. If a person doesn’t obey the Area Leads request to stop bringing items to the area then that violates the COC right? It would escalate through that channel then. I do however like when a policy lists the escalation of punitive measures, maybe the offense warrants a keyed access revocation.
Unauthorized dumping of junk at Makeict without prior authorization is the same as unauthorized dumping on any premises. We don’t need a rule for it we just call the sheriff.
We don’t have to come up with a rule for everything. What we need are processes. We need a process for dealing with tool loans. Or a process to replace an area lead. We don’t have a process to replace the space manager position do we? We’ve been without one for so long.
Lets put down our rulemaking tools for a minute and focus on processes the support our current ruleset. A big part of the “transparency” problem is that people don’t always know the process used to attain the results. The other part is emotional response but I don’t deal with that.
This tread has enough people for a committee, so be the tool loan committee. Decide if we are going to keep loaned tools for the FORESEEABLE future, then build the processes to support that decision. Based on those processes, form a plan then a timeline. Then execute that timeline. Keep the board informed of how it’s going and voila. You’ve created a system that people can argue about on the forum for years to come.
Because the committee is part of the process. What I’m saying is, you are already a committee working on this problem. Your just not working within the framework that exists. You are being the change you want to see in the world. So own it. This is great discussion. You can solve this. You are most of the way there. I’m just encouraging you all to solidify this into a plan for the board to execute on.
There are a ton of problems to solve and if you can solve a few more power to you.
I think it’s very concerning, discouraging, and disheartening that the answer to all problems lately seems to be permanent expulsion.
What happened to being a community of makers supporting each other? What happened to conversations and dialogue?
Peeps, there should be conversations, documented mediation, and remediation steps attempted before permanent expulsion is ever considered in any situation.
Let’s remember that the cases from the last year that keep being referenced no longer matter. Congrats, they were expelled. Y’all got two permanent expulsions.
Now that that’s out of your system, let’s move on and be better, so that never needs to happen again.
Nobody has advocated for permanent expulsion in this thread. I said I could possibly see it in the event of someone persisting in leaving items on MakeICT property without consent. Literally as a last resort.
I dont have an opinion towards the policy but I do have some confusion. Can someone please help? Ive seen multiple post referring to getting the donors permission to remove or sell something. If it was donated it is no longer the donors property so why is their permission needed?
Just a quick note…I want to apologize if my posts “sounded” impatient or aggressive. I didn’t mean to disparage anyone or their ideas. But rather bring to consciousness the fact that increasing membership should be our collective goal and our efforts should be aligned with that.
It does seem like the discourse on this forum isn’t as courteous as it once was.
I agree with a lot of what has been said as I would like to see a cleaner, more organized space. I just think it’s unreasonable to include revoking membership as a remedy.
No name, no problem.