Exit Recommendations for AHA

[Alexander Honkala]

Hello,

As you are already aware, I am leaving the board of directors so that I can focus my time on other endeavors. I do, however, have a handful of changes that I think AHA should undertake to become a more effective organization. It is my intention that we discuss these items at the next board meeting.

Overview:

The primary change that AHA needs to make to continue its forward momentum is this: do away with the board of directors in its current incarnation. This will require amendment of the bylaws and ratification thereof by all members. The board of directors (BoD) as a council worked very well when AHA was smaller and all members were highly invested in the organization, but now AHA has grown and members have extremely varied levels of investment in organizational outcomes and as such the lack of any centralized authority is now damaging. At the time of bylaws being written, authority was spread to a council out of the fear of someone making a power grab if they were elected to authority--but I assert that the last 2 years' experience has amply demonstrated that those with the passion to give their time to AHA possess far more altruism than cynicism and that this amassed experience renders above fear invalid.

Specific Recommended Implementation:

Officerships

In lieu of 5 equal directors, AHA should instead create officerships with clearly mandated roles and responsibilities. To wit, these should include:

President

The primary responsibility of the president of AHA should be to ensure that it remains compliant with all legal and tax requirements. The secondary responsibility would be to represent AHA in public outreach.

Vice President

The vice president should serve in an auxiliary capacity to the President, assisting in legal and tax compliance issues and helping to document what goes on within AHA.

Treasurer

The treasurer's primary responsibility should be to ensure that AHA remains fungible. Beyond that, he or she should formulate a yearly budget taking into account expected expenditures and projected revenues as well as generate a monthly profit and loss statement to be reviewed at each board meeting.

Secretary

The secretary should be the organizational master of all the officerships' proceedings. This includes but is not limited to: taking meeting minutes, keeping minutes and official documents in an organized central repository, and sending out any relevant notifications to AHA's membership and community. Secretary should also keep track of membership currency payments and space access restrictions.

Historian

The historian should work closely with the secretary in organizing AHA's documentation, while also striving to document, publish, and promote what goes on within AHA.

Shogun

The Shogun is tasked with weekly shop maintenance, shift register volunteer cat herding, and monthly space improvements. Shogun is encouraged to delegate shop maintenance areas to sub-Shoguns and track their effectiveness.

Board of Directors

In addition, AHA should seek the formal formation of an outside board of directors in the traditional sense, made up of members of the local community who are willing to advise and help AHA as needed (with funding, legality, equipment, outreach, etc.). It has thus far been to our detriment that we have not yet done this. For this board, I recommend: Dug Song, David Bloom, Eli Nieburger, Bob Stack, George Albercook, Amy Sumerton, and Vault of Midnight.

Grants

Furthermore, it would serve AHA's interests well to create a grant-seeking commission with regular meeting dates and notes. I view this is the most likely way to get AHA to a place at which it can pay Josh anything approaching a decent salary, and would also allow AHA to expand its influence beyond its current borders.

Goals

Make them as a community, write them down, paint them on the walls, be loud about them and continue to do audacious things. Two years ago at the time of formulating bylaws, AHA asked itself what its 5-year goals were, and they included: expand, more tools, more classes, more outreach, become a vital part of the Ann Arbor nerd ecosystem, encourage and document innovation, lower barriers to entry into tech and entrepreneurship, and others. AHA is doing well on many of these, but please keep in mind that longer-term goals are a unifying force in all communities.

I hope that you will take the above recommendations into due consideration. Please begin discussing any concerns or misgivings you have about them in this thread; we will also visit them at the upcoming board meeting.

Thank you,

Alexander

[Josh Williams]

Awesome Xander, thanks a ton for writing this up. 

Lundy, Senkow, Yost, Dotz, are you guys available this Wednesday at 7pm?

For those who are confused about what a traditional Non Profit structure might look like, what a Board is typically responsible for, etc. Check out:

 - Governing Board vs. Working Board: http://www.compasspoint.org/board-cafe/working-board-vs-governing-board 

 - Very basic structure of a non profit organization: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/nonprofit-basics-29948.html

 - A whole pile of good "Non Profit" basics: http://www.compasspoint.org/board-cafe

In regards to some of the positions:

Historian: I'm talking with John Spiher about documenting & promoting the shop on a regular basis with the help of some of the staff

Finances: For weekly data entry and monthly reports, Jess is on it. We're about 85% done, we will have a report for this Wednesday's meeting.

Shogun: I'm happy to continue improving my involvement in this position.

 And finally, SLEEP!

 - Josh W.

[Michael S]

Reading, ah, one more week and I'm done out here and will have a few weeks of free time. I probably can't make the meeting, I'd still be at work and even if my internship has turned sorta crappy I can't just skip out of work.

Michael

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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

[Nathan Dotz]

83.3333333% sure I will be there.

[Ech0aha]

Where will we be meeting this after noon ?

Jamison "The Silent Ech0" Lundy 

[Josh Williams]

7:00pm tonight. We'll plan to meet at Cafe Ambrosia. If it's too loud
/ crazy / maddening, we can move over to Espresso Royal.

- Josh W.

[Michael Shvartsman]

1. Roles and responsibilities good! Yay! 

2. I always find veep positions to be sort of nebulous on the responsibility front, including to some extent this one -- everyone should be assisting everyone to the extent needed, and the historian is already documenting. In its place I propose: the teaching / outreach chair. AHA prides itself on its involvement in the community and the teaching of awesome things to awesome people, so let's have a point person whose job is to do that. Dana is one candidate, though you might be already full-plate with AHAkids stuff. Terence is another, unless he is also too busy. 

Mike.