As our makerspace grows in size, resources, and membership, we need a mechanism for recognizing and serving the interests of our members in ways we may never have considered in the past. By proposing the adoption of the following committee system, we would be empowering our maker-members to pursue things that interest them. In a nutshell, ANY group of members can get together to form a Committee. Providing they meet the minimum requirements, they may choose a recommended Chairman (AKA Area Lead) to present to the Board of Directors. The Board may then establish this new Committee (Area) by appointing a Chairman and allocating resources as they see fit. Resources may be funding, space, or equipment, or any combination of these. I feel it is important that our members be the ones who guide MakeICT into new areas, and this process helps to eliminate the Gatekeeper Effect (I’m not personally interested in that thing you want to do, therefore you cannot do it because I don’t want to deal with it).
I am proposing the information below be included in our Standing Rules, and have submitted this for discussion and voting at the upcoming September Board Meeting.
Respectfully submitted,
David Springs
President
Committees
Committees are voluntary groups, formed in order to operate and maintain an area of the Makerspace, foster growth of a community of interested persons, or accomplish certain needs, subject to the oversight of the Board of Directors.
Formation
At least 5 members are required to form a committee.
There is no limit to the number of committees a member can serve on.
If the number of committee members drops below 5, the committee will have a grace period of 30 days in order to recruit enough members to remain active. Committees initially established by the Board of Directors can only be dissolved by vote of the Board.
Committees shall hold meetings each calendar month at minimum. Committee meetings shall be regularly scheduled on either a specific day of the month (for example, the 13th) or a specified day of the week (for example, the second Monday of each month.)
Committee Leadership
Each Committee shall select by vote a recommended Committee Chairperson, and shall vote for a Committee Chairperson prior to the September Board Meeting each year, so that the recommendation may be presented to the Board. The Board shall appoint the Chairperson for each Committee, taking into consideration the recommendation of the Committee.
The Committee Chair, once appointed by the board, shall appoint a Vice Chair.
Duties of the Committee Chair:
The principal duty of the Chair is the recruitment of Committee members, and organization of volunteer activities needed to operate and maintain the Committee resources.
Responsible for operations of the Committee, providing reports on the status and activities of the committee at the monthly Board of Directors meeting, and managing the finances of the committee. This will include reviewing financial transactions attributed to their committee and working with the Treasurer or Accountant to correct any errors.
Maintaining the safety of the Committee area, including ensuring the safe operation of all tooling.
Maintaining good order of committee area and resources, ensuring adequate supplies of consumable items are maintained.
Enforcing the rules established by the committee, and of MakeICT within their area.
Maintain an accurate inventory of all tools and equipment, in the format provided by the Board.
Duties of the Vice-Chair
Assist the Chair, as determined by the Chair or by the Committee at large
Provide oversight and supervision of the Committee area when Chair is not present
Serve as Interim Chair when:
The Chair is not available due to vacation or illness
Has resigned or been removed by the Board
Committee Responsibilities and Rules
Purchasing
The Committee Chair may make purchases of supplies and/or tooling without Committee vote, for purchases in amounts less than $500, or 1/3 of the Committees total fund balance, whichever is smaller.
Purchases for items exceeding $500 require a majority vote of the Committee at the next regularly scheduled Committee meeting, or at a duly called emergency meeting, or by a vote of the Board of Directors.
Committees are responsible for establishing the rules of the Committee area.
The Chair/Vice-Chair shall be empowered to enforce the rules of the Committee, and of MakeICT within the Committee area, and may limit access to the Committee area for a time not to exceed the last day of the subsequent month. The Chair may petition the Security Lead to enforce a longer or more stringent consequence.
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 5 days in advance.
The Chair may hold an emergency Committee meeting with 5 days notice on the forums of MakeICT, and on signs conspicuously posted in the committee area, provided a good faith effort to notify all current committee members is performed, and that the time of the meeting is not unreasonably restrictive on the members.
Committees may establish other positions as needed to ensure the effective operation of the committee, or to accomplish Committee goals. Ad Hoc positions with spending authority, or administrative access to MakeICT resources, require the approval of the Board.
Each committee will need to maintain a page on the wiki with at least the following information:
The name of the committee chair
A list of all active members
A brief statement listing the goals or tasks assigned to the committee.
Links to any available owner’s manuals or technical information for all committee equipment.
All rules made by the committee for committee areas or covering all committee equipment.
Any new rules made by the committee for specific committee equipment.
I think we need a section on dissolution of committees that deals with how any remaining funds are dealt with and the disposition of committee equipment. It seems there’s a 30 day window before a committee auto-destructs, but I would like that to be more clearly defined. Otherwise, so long as the bits about required notice jive with other similar rules to reduce confusion, I think this sounds pretty reasonable.
My big question is… any committee about anything? Certainly we can’t think of everything our members want to do, but should there be some limited guidance that committees need to somehow contribute to the mission of the organization? Otherwise, I’m forming the Buy Patrick a Margarita Machine committee just as soon as this thing passes. Just sayin.
You would have to get 4 others on your committee. But this does raise the question of how committees are funded. I assume its by bringing a proposal to the board for funding?
Edit: never mind I just read that the first paragraph again, which explains that the committee will send a lead to the board with a proposal for resources. Which are provided at the board’s discretion. I like it. Probably won’t get your margarita machine Patrick!
What about current areas would we get rid of Area Leads and they get run by committee? If this is the case, I propose we change the month to December when our current area leads terms are up and we do this conversion all at once. That way we have time to get all committees in place and vote on new committee leads this gives 6 month between board election as well. Instead of putting this standing rule in place almost a year before we can enact it.
I made this public for just this purpose…discussion. I’m not married to the month we do things, nor against more wording to clarify some things. But as to the question about what types of things, the answer is YES. If we have enough members that want it, why not? As long as it doesn’t conflict with our mission, let’s make it available. The safeguards are that we have to have a number of members willing to serve on that committee, and that the Board of Directors has oversight.
The committees should have the power to fundraise, including grants. But funds should all be processed through the board and treasurer for committee use. And the board should have the power to remove leads or entire committees who abuse their position. The ceramics area seems to have a developed an excellent model in posting their balance sheet regularly and forming a “committee” approach with the folks who are interested.
5 actually. Not trying to take over this discussion, sorry if I’m too vocal about it. Ive been encouraging this for a while.
I wouldn’t want to be benevolent dictator of an area if I were asked. Im not an expert in any area makeict currently has. I would however join a committee if asked. Especially a committee for an area that i have a particular interest in shaping. As an example Dallas’s creative arts committee or digital media committee. I have a strong suspicion that others might feel the same.
How will we address committees such as Membership, Volunteers, Financial Audit, Fundraising, Communications, Scholarship,etc. that we know the space needs and we don’t want to dissolve if they fall below 5 members? There should be a defined group of committees that are standing committees that do not have to have 5 members to operate and a way for the board to create and dissolve temporary committees like what we are doing for the Booth Project.
Maybe we should have 3 classes of committees and have those defined?
Standing Committees are formed by the Board and are on-going
Ad Hoc Committees are formed by the board to do a specific task and serve for a defined amount of time
Specialized Committees are formed by the membership and approved by the Board
change committee to Specialized Committees and add the following …by adding the request to the next monthly Board agenda, that included a name of the committee, description of what it does, names all committee members and recommended chair.
I would change to October or leave at September to help facilitate budgeting and have that set in stone before Christmas
add When a committee is dissolved by a vote of the Board all monetary assets will return to the general fund of the makerspace. Any physical assets of the committee can be claimed for use in other areas of the makerspace, any physical assets not claimed by another committee can be disposed of using the 3 nerd rule.
I’d set the minimum meeting requirement to be 6-8 weeks, not monthly.
I would add some qualification about membership actually having to attend meetings to be called a member. If each member has to attend say 75% of the last three meetings, Patrick’s margarita machine will have a harder time finding members than if they just have to sign up, right?
I think the board can still use its best judgement when approving committees to begin with. Further, if theres already an electronics committee, it might be prudent for the board not to approve a robotics committee and instead encourage the robotics folks to get involved with electronics as a special interest group (SIG). The same might go for a group who wants to create an “oil based clay sculpting committee”… they might be encouraged to join with the creative arts committee instead as a SIG.
Edit: Not that those committees couldn’t exist, but they would not necessarily be allocated resources directly from the board, but rather from the closest existing committee that already had resources allocated.
@Erik, I think the robotics group/committee/sig is a case where the robotics might not be a total slam dunk to put it under electronics. Members working on building robots would use many areas for construction. and be more about reserving space, and resources to build sumo tracks, or reserve a room for battle bot style area, ect.
I would assume there would be a self limiting factor by requiring 5+ member engagement and activity and clear. I assume something as niche as Oil clay sculpting would be a tough sell to get enough members to be involved.
If there were minimal resource requirements, and no safety issues then I would hate to the board monkey with the intent too much. The main resource the board would be allocating is space/storage and possibly $$, but I would think that would be tied to number of members involved and make them fund raise or self capitalize.
There is a supply and demand structure here, that I think could be beneficial to allow creative engagement by the membership. It also puts it open the general membership as a whole to go in different directions.
We have in the past had the top down, if you build it they will come approach that has lacked energy/activity in certain areas, because it was not tied to activity, and they either took off or they don’t.
Absolutely. Everything is done/discussed/backed up by reason. Same as in business in general. Your reasoning for the robotics is exactly the q&a that should be done for all committees and decisions in general.
“We have in the past had the top down, if you build it they will come approach”
The areas were started because there was intrest in that type of making. Ceramics is a great example, so is jewelry. Our actual shortcomings (just my opinion) have to do with engagement of the membership. The makerspace originally was more of an electronics lab with some simple construction tools. Over the years we have added stuff that people show an intrest in. This has been a fundamental brick in our system and part of what makes us.
It did! Jewelry was prototyped in the ERP lab. There was enough intrest in it that it earned it’s own room. The area lead changed hands a few times, a few balls may have been dropped, but it certainly wasn’t something the board implemented hoping people would use it.
