BOTLab Quarterly Members' meeting Q3 2025

Bristol Open Technology Lab C.I.C general meeting

Date/time: 8th July 2025, 19:00.

Location: Bristol Hackspace, with online option.

• Finance update

• Finance update
• Incidents and complaints review

There are two separate proposals here:

• Should we stop using Meta services (Facebook and Instagram).
• What alternatives should we use (if any). Examples include Mastodon, Pixelfed, Bluesky etc.

There are 3 seats up for election this time with the following titles available:

• Health and Safety. Keeping risk assessments up to date, responding to incidents and other H&S related tasks.
• Social Media. Managing our online presence.
• Community. Communicating internally with members, organising events, and other community oriented tasks.

We will also be requesting that new applicants write a short piece about themselves and what they can contribute so that members know who they are voting for at the meeting.

Update on what new areas have been created and what's to come.

Update on the Scrapstore membership. We now have a digital card on the Wiki.

An issue has been raised about the number of vans occupying the space in front of the roller shutter for extended amounts of time doing conversions etc. This will be an open discussion about any potential solutions to help people better share this limited space.

With increasing membership there is a question about whether we would benefit from a reservation system. This will be a discussion about whether such a system would be a good idea, and if so how it would function. There may be some overlap between this and the roller shutter parking discussion.

There is a proposal on the forum to replace some of our 3D printers with Core Ones due to reliability issues. As well as the initial proposal, there will be an option to replace just a single printer (or none at all) if that's what people prefer.

16 in the room, 11 proxy, 6 online

Thankyou for everyone who has helped with upstairs.

Directors have asked directors in waiting to become proper directors. That will be actioned soon, going from 3 to 5.

Still working on charity stuff.

We are affording rent upstairs quite happily.

Slight dip in membership numbers. We limit tours to manage volunteer workload. We would appreciate more help with this.

Committee have been much more on top of spending. Spent a lot less than previous quarters.

Welding budget is now closed. Anything extra can be maintenance or proposal.

Engine oil abandoned in welding area. Insanely stupid and inconsiderate. Many people including directors, committee and members are upset about it. There has been a post, probably needs a dedicated announcement.

We finally have a welding area and have interest for more inductors!

A: we need to do what is best for the organisation. Is for the widest spectrum of society to see what we have to offer. If we're on niche platforms we'll have niche nerdy people joining.

M: If we take ourselves off FB/Insta we may have someone impersonating us.

C: We need to be present on these to maintain diversity

N: How much interest do we get through FB?

• M confirmed 2
• F came via there

M: Don't want it just as a mechanism to gain members. We want it as a persona we want to upkeep to show the cool stuff we are doing. Bluesky is a no-brainer.

K: Bluesky is coming up in a lot of community grassroots projects.

N: Is the theory we move entirely or leave a placeholder page? M: Probably placeholder, maybe occasional page.

K: Would not want their stuff on Meta platforms. Meta is not a safe place for trans/queer people so we can't post on all equally.

C1: Forum is the main place for comms. Is social media to signpost our existence? C2: It's for promotion etc. Forum is for comms.

A: If we don't post of facebook then sadly we lose larger sections of life e.g. older people.

Members should have the choice where their projects etc. get posted.

F: we should delete all social platforms until we can commit to actually posting to it on the regular.

C: How does a member know which platforms the Hackspace has and where their content will be posted? M: Every member should be approached and given the opportunity to consent.

K: It's quite common to have badges/labels to opt out of photos. Makes it easy to manage.

C: Surely being on a platform but not using it is still an issue of being on the platform/helping them. K: It stops people from impersonating us/using the Hackspace name A: Does having 3 options end up splitting the vote?

N: Two votes, one for if we keep it, second if we keep for how we use it.

Do we keep meta: mostly in favour, 2 abstain, 1 against

M: We should be posting on all of them as often as each other but the content should be different for each of them. For example room pictures could be Meta, but faces could be fediverse.

C: Are we looking to grow our membership numbers? We already had a backlog why are we wanting to reach out to grow? N: Not urgently M: It's not just a tool for growing members, it's for showing the cool stuff we're doing and building community. K: It could help to grow our community, encouraging members to join in with events etc.

Many: Word of mouth is still the strongest way of bringing in new people.

Do we continue actively posting (actual level TBD) on Meta platforms or not? 16 for, 7 against, rest abstain. (TODO count abstain)

M: Do we want to rephrase the question to give the committee discretion to expand to other platforms?

Vote, do we want to allow the committee to use their discretion to open other social media accounts: majority for, 1 against, 2 abstain

Summarized speeches:

Marsh: I absolutely love this place, want to get more involved again. Kit: I've been helping out with H&S and are part of the reason we have more risk assessments. Plan to continue doing that. Roxy: Been really enjoying using the space and this sounds like a fantastic opportunity.

We have sub-committees if more people want to help out with the roles.

Block vote: unanimous.

S: Great that we have more space, but concerns about temperature and air quality. K: H&S implications. Temperature has been above 30C on occasaions.

N: We still have move budget. We may be able to stretch the budget to accomodate this. Huge thanks to everyone who has helped out. It's not

N: The Scrapstore will only communicate through official Hackspace contact. The solution is to have a barcode on the Wiki which you can show. You can only access if you are logged in with your forum account. The barcode will change annually so don't just screenshot it. Scrapstore fully on board. Everyone happy.

N: Bit of a heated debate. Overall POV from the committee is we are not keen to implement a booking system. S: Some members are adament that they can park for whatever reason. N: The rule has been that there is no official parking. It is for loading/unloading and short durations to work on your vehicle.

A: We could just put a sign up on the forecourt wall. N: We could add to the signage that we already plan to put up regarding sweeping etc.

N: If anyone tries to argue, do best to find out their name and committee can investigate.

M: We need to instill community spirit from both sides. Ask if you need to use the space, offer if you're using it for an extended time.

K: From an increasing communication, is it worth adding another chat on the forum so people can say when they're using the space.

S: Currently policy is members can work on a vehicle. We need clarification on what actually is fair use in this scenario.

N: Committee to take the initiative to clarify fair use and make the chat on the forum.

C: It's fine with a small group who talk to each other, but it becomes more difficult as the space grows.

C: Do we need this? How do we manage the use of stuff when there's more people than stuff. Use the forum but that only works when everybody uses the forum.

M: We have tool use heads up which has been used….. never. K: Suggested we have it for the laser cutter. We should give the chats a go instead of enforcing things through a reservation system as that could cause other burdens. M: It's something we want to be aware of as we grow. We are going to quickly outgrow our current procedures and may have to reconsider in the future.

F: We are moving to a reservation system for material storage. We can look at this in the future if it goes well.

S: Printer A is regularly failing. Heatbed keeps giving an overcurrent error. Not sure whether it's the bed, power supply, or other cause. F: Printer A is very old and has had a few upgrades.

N1: Does having mismatched printers make it harder to switch designs? N2: They're all in the same ecosystem so not an issue.

K: Printer B is on-loan so questions about ownership.

C: Where's the money coming from? N: Coming from large proposal which is under director control.

Vote to replace printer A: unanimous Vote to replace printer B: Yes 22. Rest abstain.

Issues with temperature, humidity and ventilation upstairs. Room leads to look at solutions.