Bristol Open Technology Lab C.I.C general meeting

Date/time: 9th April 19:00

Location: Bristol Hackspace, with online option.

• Directors report
• Committee report
• Incidents and complaints review
• Major project updates
• Open proposals

The next open day will be taking place on the 3rd of May, we’ll need some volunteers for the day! (Also feel free to reach out beforehand if you’d like more information).

I would like to propose a Bambu Lab H2D with some accessories for members to print high temperature engineering materials with.

I would also separately like to discuss some things I think would be good for the 3D printing space, mainly filament storage for members. I can’t make it a proposal because I don’t know most of the logistics of it and how much it would cost but I think it’s worth discussing.

H&S updates

Currently our expectations of members are scattered across lots of places: the 'rules' list, the wiki manual, various policies, the onboarding text, and just hearsay too. As are are now bringing in bigger batches of new members at a time via the new Open Day form, I think it's important that we make sure we are clearly communicating our expectations of member behaviour in one easy-to-read place, so these waves of new members start out on the right footing.

For this purpose we have drafted a new 'Membership Agreement', designed to supersede our current rules document. The document is designed to both be an easy-to-read introduction to behaviour at the hackspace for new members, and also a clearly enumerated list of expectations for use when handling complaints.

You can read the draft here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1igUGhlbSEcRab44al7GVAZBSKKUlQ5I6Aap71mAuh3s/edit?usp=sharing

The above link is broadly final draft, but please note we may still make minor tweaks before the meeting.

We will hopefully soon have budget to assign to buying new equipment again. At the moment there is now considerable pent up demand for new equipment, and relatively little surplus income by comparison. If we simply assign a modest quarterly budget to the old proposal system again, we risk a situation where our purchases for the foreseeable future will be dictated by whoever gets their proposals in first, rather where there is the most need for investment, or what equipment is in the greatest demand.

This agenda item is a vote is to retire the current proposals system, at least for now while our budgets are tight, and instead introduce a new committee responsibility to facilitate an ongoing group discussion about how best to spend our new equipment budget each quarter, taking into consideration what is most popular, and what is most needed, then at each quarterly meeting put forward option(s) for purchace to vote on.

Discussion on the metalshop move. Several of us met up today and we discussed a few issues that might be of interest to others. I’m fine if it’s too late for voting on anything.

Matt G chairing

== Nick ==
  "Money is good." - Latest budget was under by £2k, latest proposals budget was £790 over a budget of 0
  Closed the Move Budget tracker which was £208.pennies under budget
  Nnot changing Directors budget for Q2
  Adding £1000 for proposals
  Income looking good, £7k income from DD

  Still under budget even with new rooms but we have not received a business rates bill yet

== Felix ==
  Charity stuff same as last meeting - waiting on legal advice. Exploring cheap/free legal advice.
  ETA on legal advice = "soonish?".
  Matt would like to mention that we have taken on 2 more rooms since the last meeting, decommissioned the old Tech Centre room. 3D printing and Electronics room are up and running.
  Plan is still to take on all rooms in Unit B. 
  If we lease every unit individually then we don't pay business rates on the corridor or any other "communal" area.

== Questions for Directors? ==
N/A

== Finances ==
  We spent just about the budget amount, putting a bit back into savings

== incidents ==
  = Laser cutter =
    Hinges failed on laser and someone tried to use laser with broken door
    Stu did not drop kick the perpetrator

  = Strong smell of petrol/gas/solvent in downstairs corridor =
    Not gas, turned gas supply off and smell remained
    Kit "went round sniffing" to try to figure out where the smell was coming from
    There is a spill kit on door by metal lathe area but ideally we get more spill kits
    Idea for a one-stop-shop for H&S items of the same sort

  = Complaints =
    One complaint from the last quarter
      Person having personal post delivered to the space repeatedly - annoying our landlord for various reasons on top of mail delivery issues
      Email sent to member with recommendations of changing behaviour
      Mail delivery item comes with significant legal complications around mail redelivery
        Components for projects are fine to be delivered as long as you're here to receive it

  == Major Project updates ==
    Space reshuffle - ongoing, skipped

  == Open proposals ==
    Skipped, addressed

 open day on 3rd May - Volunteers needed for tidy up and run tours 
 Induction day - week or 2 after the open day- create group chat with "top inductors" to talk about induction day to find date
 used to rain up inductors at same time

Proposed Prusa Packages for upgrades - Tiff running through proposal on Forum.
important and easy upgrades that could be done in an evening by one person.
Hardened Nozzles will insure we don't ruin nozzles by accidentally sending through a filled/abraisive filament. No downside, it is a pure upgrade.
Filters - Will let us print ABS/ASA in the space without poisoning the air with VOCs. Filters added to consumables list.
Core One+ upgrades - collection of Nice To Haves that automate vent opening, disabling of the side filament detector, spool holders upgraded.
= Questions =
  Filters are a safety perspective? - Yes
  Potential for COSSH inspection? - Potentially related to LEV items in the space.
    Filters conversation about falling into inspection context - potential we may not need them?
  Conversation/argument about 0.6 nozzles. 

  Vote on nozzle size
  0.4 - 9 - Winner Winner
  0.6 - 2
  mix - 3

  Vote for tiffs proposal for upgrades
  yes - 21 - Winner Winner
  no - n/a

== Proposed Bambu Lab proposal ==
  £1800 - H2D with AMS HT and AMS 2.0 and hardened nozzles
  Likely too much right now
  Pre-proposal discussion indicated this could be a good idea due to insurance imposed restrictions on unattended printing
  Nick is nostalgic for his RepRap
  
  vote on Bambu Lab H2D
  yes - 2 Marsh and Roxie
  no - Everyone else - Winner Winner not passed

= 3D printing space thoughts =
  Tiff believes the new space not currently great for 3D printing and would like ideas from people
  Tiff happy to be Room Champion (with help)
  Table vibrations need to be sorted as matter of priority
  Bookable filament storage is a large want
  Matt making strange faces as he was waiting to interrupt
  Working group of Sammy C, Marsh, and Tiff to be set up 

= H&S updates from Kit =
  Sorby risk assessment completed
  We now have H&S walks regularly for the space (2 weeks before members meeting each quarter)
  Other Risk Assessments are in progress which will then in turn update induction quizzes 
  Posting on forum to signal for help/guinea pigs for induction quizzes to test them

  No first aid ktis upstairs, burn kit in consumables cupboard not on wall

== Membership agreement - Matt ==
  Matt proposing new membership agreement. Historically bringing in 2-4 members per open evening, now bringing in up to 100 in an open day.
  Adds lots of new members to learn how the space works.
  Expectations of behaviour are scattered between several documents.
  Plans to more clearly dictate the rules to members, aiding in dealing with issues and rule breakages
  Matt as written a new membership agreement to collate all rules.

  If vote passed then all members will be emailed with the new terms and conditions, continued membership implies agreement
  Date of review - already accounted for

  Ollie told to put silly face away

  vote on new Membership agreement
  yes - Unanimous
  no - 

== Better Proposals - Matt ==
  Proposing change to proposals to propose a new method of proposals and proposing.
  We have a new budget (which has already reduced by ~£600) which will cause the first proposals to be made to be the only ones considered

  Proposal to retire the proposals system as it stands. Introduction of facilitated discussions to see where the demand for proposals sits and prioritise those.

  Question from Nick S - Will this add up to a 3 month delay to proposals? Potentially, but this is not meaningfully different to the current status quo with a limited budget.

  Small proposals - Committee has discretionary fund on top of maintenance and consumables. Small proposals can be recommended to the committee to buy on the committee budget instead of a potentially lengthy proposals process.
  Money is budgeted and tracked with oversight

  Nick G is not on board with the money being handled by committee and would rather it be budgeted seperately. 

  Would be a committee role.
  Would need area champions to being proposal ideas to the front
  
  This would start leading up to Q3 meeting.

  Previously - Large amount of money compared to our ambition
  Now - Large amount of ambition compared to our money

  Marsh is losing steam on minuting...

  Votes
  yes - Unanimous
  no - 0
  abstained - Matt G

=== AOB ===
  Discussion of metal shop work
    Paused over the winter, got going again recently.
    Floor painted in Machine Shop portion (old wood shop)
    Fabrication area will be the existing space
    Plan to move the metal lathe 
    Lots to discuss including which metal mill to buy. Old british or newer import mill. Both plausible
    Lots of support for smaller machines like smaller lathes. Not easy decisions, lots of opinions on all the things
    3-phase options
    Heavy duty grinding in hot works area, conversations to be had on light grinding
    Workbench planned for centre
    Wiki page for Metalshop move being kept up to date as much as possible
    Conversation about consumables to happen outside of meeting

  == Table saw ==
    Sammy C to fix current saw for around £100