Community Meeting 20190221

Attendees: AL, SG, JP, ZZ, RJ

Review of/actions from last meeting

Ideas to be gathered about workshops that could be run in the first half of 2019

Mother's Day is March 31st, and would be the next big day. We'll decide by next Thursday what/if we're doing. JP said she's be happy to do one around acrylic jewellery at a later date if help was around.

Seán to put a sheet by honesty boxes asking for people to note time they pay for - Done
Mike to rebuild large table - Ongoing
Seán and Mike to organise alcove clearing/Morris moving day - Morris moved, alcove semi-clear?
Mike to measure pipes in laser room and send to Seán to purchase
- No email sent, don't know if measurements have been taken

Recent Events

IoT Liverpool - Gemma May Potter spoke about interesting brain things. There's been quite a bit of interest from university students recently.

Upcoming Events

Epic Trip to Hope University Fab Lab - JP spoke about this, it's gone out to the Google Group. An hour's trip, this Saturday. Looking at about ten people going to have an explore.
Fabric District Arts Festival (Textiles, Sensors, Tensegrities, History Project, anything else) - 7,8,9 June. DoES projects are mostly linked up with Stafford Beer. RJ will be meeting with them in the next week or so. Possible other DoES project is sensor stuff utilising work being done by Mersey Forest, and also bringing back the kinetic drum lights. JP is also liaising with the textiles group to see if there is a possibility of DoES doing something with wearable tech. RJ is going to put resources in a git repository.
Liverpool Makefest - we have a stall, will be running the after party and hosting a Maker Brunch on the Sunday. Sean Jarman and Chris Huffee are working on the fighting robots, which will likely be on the main stage. If anyone wants to run a workshop, there are still places available to do so.
Child Friendly Session - Happening next Tuesday afternoon, there is a shopping list on github for things we will need. SG cleared up how it will run.
Another Hacking the Space session? (Event Space floor) JP suggested the weekend of the 9th/10th for this. SG to push out a call for help.

Finances

https://github.com/DoESLiverpool/somebody-should/wiki/Financials201901

The brief summary would be that we continue to break even just about but continue to have reasonably large "one-off" expenses. This month it was more carpet; and we've got accountants fees, electrical work, and other stuff relating to improving the space on the horizon. We're coping but as ever we need to continue to get more people in to make sure we can cover these expenses.

Discussion was had around Sale Sharks and the amount they are looking to pay. AL suggested we ask them where they are able to rent for the price they're looking to get from us, and see if we can match that.

Promotion

We have cork and backing to create coasters, both for within DoES and to give away as promotional items.

AL asked if we could cheaply create things in wood using the CNC mill rather than 3d printing them? Is the cost lower than the cost of the plastic?

RJ spoke about bringing the District together, and cross promoting. Talked about whether or not there was possibility of promoting things on the street outside to let people know we're here - DoES is the busiest thing in the District right now, but no-one would really know. An outside organisation will be helping with promotion and advertising for the District, so what can we do to help them with that? Any ideas for carbon lowering schemes are being looked for too in order to make a bid with Mersey Forest for improving the green space.

AL spoke about trying to improve the performance and reach of the YouTube channel, and how we might do that. He's gotten in touch with Ethos to see if they would be interested in doing another visit to DoES and talking about the move and new space.

AOB

Sean to organise talking head style interviews

Health and Safety - Adrian said we should be focusing more on H&S, making sure we have wiki pages for each piece of machinery, have a red, amber, green system in place, ensure there are key safety issues noted near to the equipment, etc.