Board election details

[N Y]

Hello all,

As Dana mentioned earlier, elections for the Board of Directors are
coming up. Today is the day when we will start the nomination process
for prospective board members. If you feel you have the time and
ambition to perhaps do a bit of quick learning, help organize AHA as it
moves toward 501c3 status, help oversee the creation of more mature
educational programs, guide the acquisition of better tools and
workspaces for happy hackers, and create a weightier presence around
town, please consider running for the board! The board term is six
months long, and you must remain a member in good standing during this
period.

Here's the breakdown of important dates for elections:

- Today - October 18: People can start nominating themselves or others
over this mailing list.

- October 18: NOMINATIONS: If you nominate *yourself* or wish to accept
someone else's nomination, send an email explicitly stating that you are
running to bo...@allhandsactive.com *by this date!* Any confirmed
nominees might also want to send a note to this list so that people know
they are running. I will also send out periodical reminders of
confirmed nominees as I collect them.

- October 19 - October 25 ABSENTEE VOTING: If you know that you are
unable to make it to the voting party at AHA on the evening of the 25th,
you will be able to submit your absentee ballot at the front desk during
this period. We will send along more info on this as the date approaches.

- October 25: ELECTIONS: We host a themed Build Night in which the goal
is to build a board! Converge on AHA at 7:00PM, eat potluck-style foods,
and cast your ballot. We will tally votes at 10:00PM.

- October 26: New board is put in place.

We will be using an instant-runoff-style vote. You will assign each
nominee a number from 1 to N (N being the number of nominees we have by
the 19th). Higher numbers represent the nominees you favor most, with 1
being your least-favored. We will add up all of your ranking values and
pick the five highest-scoring nominees, who will become the next board.

If you are a fully-paid Standard Member ($50), or Student or Starving
Hacker Member ($20) in October, you are entitled to one vote. You may
become a paying member at any time up until the 25th if you would like
to be counted for this election.

And here's the current board:
Dana Nelson
Jamison Lundy
Michael Senkow
Nathan Dotz
Nathan Yost

Please post any election-related questions to this thread. If you have
matters of a sensitive nature, you may also email the board directly at
bo...@allhandsactive.com .

Thank you, and see you for elections on October 25th!

-- Nate Y.

[Dana Nelson]

Thanks for sending the reminder out, Nate. You're awesome!

So who's excited for running for board? I'm surprised there's no comments on either thread.

--
Dana Nelson

All Hands Active

AHAkids Class Coordinator

[Michael S]

I'm interested in running just unsure if I should nominate myself or ?....

Michael Oxxy

--
-----------------------------------------------------

M.S. in Information '13

Human-Computer Interaction

M.S. Arch. in Digital Technology '13

Partial M.Arch.

University of Michigan 

Mech. Eng. and Tech. Comm. dual B.S.
Michigan Technological University

Alumni of Mu Beta Psi
General Technics Member

Michael H. Senkow | 906.281.4672

[Dana Nelson]

I nominate Ox, there, solved :D

[N Y]

For anyone else who might not be clear on the matter: yes, you are
allowed to nominate yourself!

-- Nate Y.

>> *All Hands Active*
>> *AHAkids Class Coordinator*
>>
>>
>

[Alexander Honkala]

Michael, what are you bringing to your election campaign this time? Last time it was a smouldering couch, so what amazing stunt will you find this time!?

Personally, I'm hoping for kittens that burp glitter.

-X

[Dana Nelson]

Also, I'm in construction of a page on the website for nominees. Write a paragraph or so of why you would be awesome on the board/what you got to bring to the table :) or not, you're choice.

[Alexander Honkala]

I nominate JBeard.

-X

[nathan dotz]

seconded.

-- 

nathan dotz

Sent with Sparrow

[Dana Nelson]

I nominate Tom Hunter for the board. He has been helpful in putting us in contact with people, finding info we may need, and basically just doing what he can to help us out. Will you run, Tom?

[Thomas Hunter]

Yes, run I shall.

[Tyler Worman]

I nominate Dana, Josh and Ox for their continued awesomeness in making the space a better place.

[N Y]

Hello again,

Just a quick reminder that there is a bit under a week remaining for
board nominations, which will wrap up at 11:59PM on October 18th. We
are looking for at least five upstanding folks to help organize and
oversee the operation of AHA.

So far, Michael Senkow and Thomas Hunter are both confirmed nominees.

If you have the desire and time to help AHA grow, please consider
running for board. You may nominate yourself, and/or someone else who
you would like to see run. If you decide to accept a nomination, or
nominate yourself, please let us know here, and CC
bo...@allhandsactive.com so we can easily keep track of who is running.

-- Nate Y.

[N Y]

Hello,

I am nominating myself to run for The Board again.  I cannot, with clear conscience, stop working now toward AHA's stability.  I cannot stop when now, more than ever, we crucially need a group of driven leaders to make time in their busy schedules to do some dirty work for the next six months -- and beyond.

Given AHA's current financial situation, I resolve to try to raise money.  We need to build strong alliances in our community: forming ties with sympathetic organizations and our membership is critical.  We must do some real legwork to accomplish this.

I hope that *at least two* other brave individuals will find it in themselves to join Ox, Thomas, and myself...

*The nomination deadline is tonight by midnight!* Let's work together and make this happen.

-- Nate Y.

[nathan dotz]

tldr; no, stfu, read it anyways. all of it.


I find it rather unfortunate that that we have such a strong community of folk who are interested in using the resources the hackerspace provides, yet we have so few willing to step up and serve an organizational need, or even help pay for providing those services.

We have folks who come down and use the free wifi.
We have folks who come down and get free coffee.
We have folks who use our microwaves, our toilets, our lights, our warmth.
We have folks who use our computers, our soldering irons, our printers and our hand tools.
There are folks in all of these categories, no doubt many on this very mailing list, who have never given a dollar or an hour to AHA.

That is fine and well, I suppose, but there's only so much fodder before someone needs to start planting crops.

I'm usually one to ask nicely and put forth the effort to make sure we can keep providing these kinds of services to the community without asking for anything in return and without asking our members and contributors to dig so deep as to disrupt their daily lives or pocketbooks. Sadly, I couldn't afford to keep all of my life within 15 miles of AHA any longer and (as many of you know) have had to move to a day job that requires quite the commute. After several terms on the board, and 3 years of being a member (since before a "Member" was a thing you could be), I quite literally would be of more harm than good in service to our organization in a position of responsibility again. The most I can offer at this point is my prepaid membership and best wishes.

The point of this is not to boast, but rather to mandate (Yes, you heard me). Since 2009 I've hopefully touched all of your lives and helped you (if not directly) to learn, create, explore and occasionally explode. For years we've run an organization by the skin of its teeth and the sweat on our brows to make sure we could give everything we had, but sometimes we hit financial or staffing bumps that are hindered by the fact that we don't have space in our schedule or budget for slack. This is one of those times.

I am telling you that it's time for you to help. We're under-budget and under-staffed, and that means folks to serve on the board, as well as any number of other positions. I know we've been particularly interested in having board members from outside our community help to guide us, so if you've got a friend with any kind of grown-up, real-world experience, even one who only has enough time to help us vote on decisions, please send them our way.

We could also really use the membership dues from those of you who have promised to pay (and forgotten.. for months), from those of you who come down to the space regularly to use our electricity, wifi and good humor but "don't have any money", or just from you folk who think having a free workshop downtown that you can stop in at 24/7 is a cool idea, but who just haven't taken that step over into sending us 5 bucks.

We've been dealing with the money issue as best we can for forever, but our board needs leaders to serve. If I've helped or inspired you, step up to the plate and serve for me. Help keep the dream I've been working on for years alive.

</stump>

With that said, as a current director, in the case of there not being enough nominees by the close of the nomination period tonight, I move to we extend the nomination period through Sunday, October 21st at 11:59PM to allow our community members to perhaps reach out to their friends and relatives who could serve as fantastic board members.

Should there still not be enough nominees by 5pm on Sunday, I propose an emergency meeting to be held Sunday at 7pm to amend the bylaws to allow for a smaller board that meets less frequently.

I love you all (even if I do not often show it) and I think with our hard work and dedication, we can all continue to foster a thriving and vibrant community of makers, doers, thinkers and leaders for many years.

--

nathan dotz

[Dana Nelson]

I will also be running, officially this time.

[Dana Nelson]

Also, in case you tldr-ed nate dotz's post, don't. Read it, you wankers. Your hackerspace relies on you. And you. But mostly you.

And I would agree on delaying the election and amending bylaws and so on if that's what it came down to. Great idea, nate.

[Alexander Honkala]

Own it, my friends. You're hackers. You've looked at the world and found the gaps in between whimsy and reality and have decided that sitting idly and wishing them to be filled with beauty isn't enough. So you've set out to re-make reality itself, and the community and space of All Hands Active became a touchstone around which to orbit in that endeavor. AHA has survived on the dedicated effort of some beautiful core people and as such has gracefully accommodated great disparities in commitment levels to making the organization run. But at this point, AHA has grown so much in function and form that those core people are overwhelmed and for AHA to continue it must either cease all aspirations for growth OR become infused with the new enthusiasm of new badasses. I have faith (and this is a super-rare thing for me to evince) that, through the amplifying super-powers that AHA grants you by your participation, you can shake the world happier.

Also, nominating: Starbuck for her grad school engineering perspective, Jonathan Beard simply for his wizened experience, and Josh Williams because he has become the hackerspace mom figure and knows everything going on. I endorse all currently nominated candidates, they're pretty much awesome.

-X

[Jamie Finerman]

I would like to add Mr. Jamison Lundy to the nominations.

[Dana Nelson]

Nominations are now closed according to the dates we agreed upon. The confirmed nominees are Tom Hunter, Ox, Nate Yost, and myself, if I am correct.

There are 3 options I've heard from others that we can do.

1. We can proceed as scheduled and just get one more person to agree to run, not have an election like last time.
2. We can postpone the election dates and give people more time to get the word out to family and friends (in the past month, no one has even replied to nate and i's reminders, don't know why this would work)
3. The board has an emergency meeting to ammend the bylaws and we make the required number of people on the board smaller.

So people, what do you want to do?

[Alexander Honkala]

Bylaws state that bylaws cannot be amended without ratification of said amendments by all current members of All Hands Active. So either way everyone is going to have to vote on something whether they like it or not.

-X

[Michael Grube]

I'm aware that nominations are now closed and there's probably no reason I should expect an exception to the rules. However, if possible, I'd like to nominate myself.

[Alexander Honkala]

I wanna be special, too, even if it is from afar. I give you this picture of a cat: http://i.imgur.com/1FW5F.jpg in exchange for accepting my exception. I may, or may not, be attempting to be nominated just to force you all to vote as a community. Oh http://i.imgur.com/Cxagv.jpg right?

-X

[Michael Grube]

If it might influence a decision to allow me to run, I give you this panting shepherd.

http://www.petsfoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/German-Shepherd11.jpg

[Zach Wick]

I would be willing to support the 2nd option (delaying the deadlines to allow for more nominations).
If that were to happen, I would nominate/volunteer myself.
I have very little experience with the inner-workings of AHA, but have attended quite a few classes, build nights, and just hung out at the shop with people.
What I bring to the table:
    - Enthusiasm
    - Various connections to the local entrepreneurial scene
    - Other things that are escaping me right now.

I have worked with BrainMonkeys, and have taught workshops at the various places that I have worked.
I am willing to do whatever is required of me in order to help AHA grow and prosper.

A little about me:
    Mathematician by education, software developer by employment, and hacker by hobby. I am a huge proponent of free culture (as in freedom, not price) and support/work with many free culture organizations (FSF, Trisquel, EFF, and others). As a corollary  to this, except for my smartphone, I am proud to say that I use only free-as-in-freedom  software in my day-to-day existence.
    I believe that people should own their devices fully by understanding how they work on a low level, and by having the ability to directly impact how the device operates - be that by software/hardware/firmware modification or any other means.

It might be the case that I am not a good fit for the AHA board by virtue of not having enough experience, or by not bringing enough to the table. In that case, what can I do to help AHA? What other (read "non-board") positions are there? How do I go about starting a regularly scheduled class? (I assume that some/all of this information is available on the wiki, but email seems a better option to publicly disseminate this information for others to digest).

I truly believe that local hackerspaces are going to be the driving force behind innovation in the foreseeable future. Even Apple got its start at a hackerspace of sorts - the Homebrew Computer Club. Lets work together to make AHA the catalyst of the next generation of innovation.

(Regarding my late response to this whole thing, I have been "off-the-grid"/"unplugged" on vacation for the last few weeks)

-Zach

-- 
"The evil of the world is made possible only by the sanction you give it."

[Dana Nelson]

Well, nate d. Recommended we push back the nomination period till october 21st, which I agree with, but this decision still needs board approval.

[Zach Wick]

I would be willing to support the 2nd option (delaying the deadlines to allow for more nominations).
If that were to happen, I would nominate/volunteer myself.
I have very little experience with the inner-workings of AHA, but have attended quite a few classes, build nights, and just hung out at the shop with people.
What I bring to the table:
    - Enthusiasm
    - Various connections to the local entrepreneurial scene
    - Other things that are escaping me right now.

I have worked with BrainMonkeys, and have taught workshops at the various places that I have worked.
I am willing to do whatever is required of me in order to help AHA grow and prosper.

A little about me:
    Mathematician by education, software developer by employment, and hacker by hobby. I am a huge proponent of free culture (as in freedom, not price) and support/work with many free culture organizations (FSF, Trisquel, EFF, and others). As a corollary  to this, except for my smartphone, I am proud to say that I use only free-as-in-freedom  software in my day-to-day existence.
    I believe that people should own their devices fully by understanding how they work on a low level, and by having the ability to directly impact how the device operates - be that by software/hardware/firmware modification or any other means.

It might be the case that I am not a good fit for the AHA board by virtue of not having enough experience, or by not bringing enough to the table. In that case, what can I do to help AHA? What other (read "non-board") positions are there? How do I go about starting a regularly scheduled class? (I assume that some/all of this information is available on the wiki, but email seems a better option to publicly disseminate this information for others to digest).

I truly believe that local hackerspaces are going to be the driving force behind innovation in the foreseeable future. Even Apple got its start at a hackerspace of sorts - the Homebrew Computer Club. Lets work together to make AHA the catalyst of the next generation of innovation.

(Regarding my late response to this whole thing, I have been "off-the-grid"/"unplugged" on vacation for the last few weeks)

-Zach

[Michael Shvartsman]

Speaking of other non-board positions and things one could do, here are some (not-at-all-official) ideas: 

- Pick a space-improvement project, clear it with Josh and the board, and go to town. This might involve investigating economical floor covering options (our floor eats epoxy paint for breakfast); working on awesome desks / workspaces that gamers will love but can also be used for classes and maker activities; helping me get the ventilation project going again (less stinky doom!); painting over the graffiti in the bathrooms; doing something about the holey wall between the main space and dogFort; making nicer diffusers / lampshades for our glaring lights; hitting rusty pipes with a wire brush and a fresh coat of rustproof paint; eBaying / craigslisting unwanted purgatory items to make AHA some extra cash; etc etc etc

- Adopt-a-tool! Right now the same ~4 people support, maintain, repair, and upgrade the two 3d printers, the laser cutter and the CNC router. These are not plug-and-chug commercial products, they're fiddle-and-tinker hobbyist projects, and It'd be awesome to have more people who want to learn these fancy tools forwards and backwards and sideways. Talk to me about this. 

- If you are not a paid member, ponder the value that AHA brings to you. How much money would you spend to sit and work at a coffee shop? How much money would you spend buying and maintaining a workbench / tool shed / workshop with all the tools you use at AHA? How much money would you spend taking a class and learning things you pick up from other members who stop what they're doing to help you out? Take some fraction of that money, and give it to AHA. Every little bit helps. 

Mike. 

[Dana Nelson]

Also, another position is helping AHA come up with more classes and curriculum. Even if you have an idea but no time to teach, developing curriculum is the most difficult part and the role we need the most help with. If you are interested, contact me.

[Ech0aha]

I accept the nomination 

Jamison "The Silent Ech0" Lundy 

[Dana Nelson]

The board still needs to approve the push back date before we can formally accept more om nom nominations.

All board members that have not given their aye or nye need to check their email. Thanks

[N Y]

We have a majority already, so the new deadline for nominations will be the end of the 21st.

In my opinion, we could use some candidates who can help AHA raise money. So, if you or anyone you know fits this description, do consider running/bugging them to run!

-- Nate Y.

[Josh Williams]

In support of Nate Yost's awesome comments, our bylaws contain the following statement regarding the Board:

"The mission of the All Hands Active Board of Directors includes but is not limited to fundraising, grant writing, and maintenance of internal data, metrics, and other matters."

 - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lp5_oGZ9V7muIaGploIQY91ZaQd0zjUd73YpLICp9BY/edit?hl=en_US&authkey=CJ2V_b4J

 - Josh W.

[Dana Nelson]

Alrighty, here's the list of confirmed nominees. Anyone else needs to confirm themselves by 11:59pm on October 21st, but feel free to nominate someone and I will bug them tomorrow to see if they want to run.

Dana Nelson
Nate Yost
Micheal Senkow
Tom Hunter
Micheal Grube
Zack Wick
Xander Honkala
Jamison Lundy

The nominee section of the website should also be live by tomorrow morning. If you are a nominee, you should send me a blurb (about a paragraph) about why you should be elected, as to convince our members to vote for you. Also, whatever picture you would like used as your avatar.

If I don't receive them from you, I will insert whatever picture I find and write my own blurb for you. I may not do a good job describing your potential though, so be warned :)

[Alexander Honkala]

I'm going to let Dana write my blurb. It may not be accurate, but it will be definitely awesome.

-X

[Dana Nelson]

Warning: I will write everyone's blurb as if I were writing a sherlock holmes detective novel. This may sounds awesome, but I'll make sure it's displayed in comic sans ;)

[Thomas Hunter]

Can I send you my boring bio then have you rewrite it in Sherlock Holmes format?

Thomas Hunter

programmer

web: thomashunter.name

twitter: @tlhunter

phone: 989-513-5499

[Dana Nelson]

Sure. Its still gonna be in comic sans

[Ech0aha]

Sweet working on a little bio/ blurb. 

Jamison "The Silent Ech0" Lundy 

[Dana Nelson]

LAST CALL FOR NOMINEES!!! Make your intentions for running known before 11:59pm TONIGHT!!!

--
Dana Nelson

All Hands Active

AHAkids Class Coordinator

[N Y]

Hello!

The board nomination period is over and the nominees are:

Alexander Honkala
Dana Nelson
Jamison Lundy
Michael Grube
Michael Senkow
Nate Yost
Tom Hunter
Zack Wick

You can also view the list of candidates, their lovely faces, and a
blurb about them here: http://www.allhandsactive.com/board-nominees/ .

The absentee voting period will be open now until our Election Party on
Thursday, October 25th. *If you need to vote absentee, please contact
bo...@allhandsactive.com to set up a time and most convenient method to
receive your ballot!*

On the 25th, we will start gathering at the space at 7:00PM, and the
vote will be held promptly at 10:00PM. It's been a tradition of sorts
to make this a potluck event, so please bring a dish to pass! We love to
eat food.

Any Starving Hacker or Standard Member may vote. If you are not one of
these types of members and still want to vote, you may pay the dues at
any time before we hold the election.

Thanks to our members for being most excellent, and for helping us to
make AHA The Best Space. Good luck to the nominees!