Big Meeting Minutes

When: 7:15 pm, Weds Aug. 22
Place: Free Geek Big Room
Facilitator: Richard
Scribe: Laurel and Ebeth
Attendance: Taken on a sheet: more than 40 people!
Agenda: Big meeting agenda

Introduction

Who's here?

Too many people for introductions so we passed around a sign up sheet. Here's what it said when done: Ali Briggs, Elizabeth Swager (scribe 1 of 2), Luiz Sudbrack, Aaron Burt, Michael Westwind, Leo Westwind, Marie Deatherage, Blaine Deatherage-Newsom, Richard Seymour (facilitator), Maurice L. Pellett, Mark Burns, Patrick Golden, Oso Martin, Jake Schwartzman, Vagrant Cascadian, Nori Wigmore, Martin Chase, Laurel Hoyt (scribe 2 of 2), Seamus Campbell, Jim Cox, Kathie Hitchcock, Jason Barbour, Roger Wirt, Ron Marshall, Dana Highfill, Cliff Fortune, Dan Stein, Jeremy Lindeman, Sergio Garcia, Sophia Luchini-Dexter, Mark Todd, Rev Phil Sano, Jon Van Oast, C. Sean Morgan, Liane Kocka, Matthew Harris, Jim Fitterman, Justin Dune, Jenn Dolan, Matteo Bell. (That's 40 people who signed in.)

Overview

Frameworks for considering possible paths: dichotomies that can be used to describe Free Geek, attributes and trends.

Richard introduced the goal of the Big Meeting as a brainstorm for the future of Free Geek. It will be a planning session with some back and forth questions and answers, where we are now and where we want to be. This will be looking at the big picture and not getting caught up in details.

While thinking about goals, consider a few of the dichotomies presented in the What do we want to do? page.

We have been doing SWOT analysis using external and internal trends

(Everyone is invited to edit the above lists. They are a work in progress.)

Reports

Build & production: Matteo

See Production plan

• programs will have to change in response to changes in hardware, may become less educational
• problems in space use have arisen because of the piecemeal development of the production programs
• better testing of hardware before it goes to the build workshop might save volunteer time and effort

Talk to matteo, martin, Jeff about production issues.

Space use: Matteo

See Facility Plan

• primary attribute here is our messiness
• space use group has been actively working on improving our use of the space, using Zoning plan
• major considerations of space use in the range of our plan are whether we will want to seek more space or buy a space
• moving would be a challenge to publicize and we would be hard-pressed to find an equal or better site. we might want to maintain some presence here to catch people who don't hear about it.
• do we want to explore sister free geeks in town or satellite locations?
• what about partnering with already-established organizations (like goodwill) that have locations that we could use?

Sales: Luiz

See Sales Plan

• Income has been growing, but may be stopped relatively soon by space limitations.
• Biggest external threat is competition due to the eWaste legislation.
• We build more computers than are sold; the reason for this is unclear. Primary reason could be Linux. Promoting Linux could be important to addressing this challenge. Offering classes to purchasers could help. Make the example box in the store more evident.
• Floor assistants in the store on peak days could be a great help in our customer service.
• Moving more volunteers into laptop and advanced testing would produce more saleable items.
• The path to volunteering in the store is unclear.
• Has there been thought given to a second store location or a rummage sale?

Outreach: Ali

See Inreach Plan, PR Plan, Commies Plan

• A dedicated staff person to coordinate outreach is a goal
• Another goal: more volunteers through association with other organizations
• Want to see tours improve as a community and volunteer education tool

Tech Support: Michael

See Tech Support Plan

• F/OSS has been improving; more people are keeping Linux on the machines
• Support is heavily influenced by QC and education
• Could use more education for grantees and store customers
• Support will grow, partially because more people are keeping our software
• Problems arise with trying to maintain laptops so tech support is having to ask the laptop department questions.

Education : Michael

See Education plan

• There is education is every area area (like consensus training, computer building, and more), but it's mostly by immersing people in the thick of things.
• Although the organization is permeated by education, the program itself is a bit iffy because the non-class education that is our strength is less recognized.
• There is demand for classes that can help adopter-type people become more self-sufficient.
• Hiring an education coordinator is imminent. We are likely to have more classes and a better integration of educational components of all programs.
• Where can we fill in the gaps in our education program without impairing the efficiency of other programs?
• Have our educational tools (wiki, etc.) been as helpful as they should be, and do they need to evolve further? - They have been helpful, but improvements in the wiki probably won't have too much extra benefit.
• Potential partnerships: parks bureau's seniors' computer classes, halfway houses, just getting out of prison, etc. This overlaps to some extent with grants and we also invite all volunteers in our Adoption program.
• Both ed and tech support have a hard time getting and keeping volunteers. Path to volunteering may be unclear.

Receiving: Nori

See Receiving plan

• Need more knowledgeable people to keep things running smoothly on busy days
• Theft is still a problem among volunteers
• May well get more older hardware before we start getting the laptops, meaning more recycling
• Question: What do you think about a truck? It would be very useful in allowing us to pick up more corporate donations.
• Question: What if we move the receipt part of the front desk into receiving? There are issues with that, including the theft rate in receiving and issues of moving stuff.
• Question: What's the biggest problem w/r/t receiving and flow of stuff? People assuming that stuff goes to the store or to printerland. Communication is murky about what is wanted.

Recycling: Liane

See Recycling plan

• vendor verification can be a challenge
• focus on vendor quality over cost/profitability
• things are changing and the process will need to keep up
  • what to do with LCD monitors? this will be a large cost once we find a way to get them recycled
  • small, embedded systems (e.g. phones, PDAs) will need better handling
• BAN pledge will have an impact on our recycling processes if we sign on (tracking, increased strictness)

• Question: what about the facility improvements that have been proposed before, like a baler or a shredder? Those don't appear to be good ideas for us.
• Question: what's in the way of BAN pledge? Finding good transparent recycling vendors for many of our non-commodity materials. Many are very reticent with the details. It's coming along.
• Question: Can we make our vendor information available? Potentially, but it might cause problems with vendors if we make any of them angry.
• Question: Are we in a position to exert influence on companies? No, we are small potatoes.
• Question: Can we work with other Free Geeks to exert more pressure on vendors? Potentially some of them, the national or regional ones.

Structural Evolution: Richard

See General Administration Plan

If we keep growing as we have, we will probably decentralize more.

General discussion

• Free Geek needs to adapt to the technology because the waste stream is our niche.
• Program where volunteers are trained to deal with obscure hardware. See Raccoon Plan
• We need to at least explore what it would take to buy a building, either this or another, in the next 3-5 years
• We should stay here and get more space (other buildings). Keep it smallish.
• Be physically closer to the people we serve - smaller branches serving local communities.
• Formalize and expand advanced build things, like server build
• Make adoption program more education during volunteer time.
• We should expand to the suburbs
• Get a vehicle and do pickups and be proactive about the hardware we get.
• Get cleaner and better at space use
• We should be having effect in the coop, local, and legislative world
• We should be the model for state governments and others who want to know what will work.
• We should have partnerships with other groups that take donations (like goodwill)
• Mobile satellites to visit other communities w/Linux classes.
• Continue refining space use plan for the building and stop hoarding.
• Develop linkages to disadvantaged communities (elderly, differently-abled, prison)
• Adult and family services, immigrant services, and many other social agencies could really use what we have. We need to partner with them.
• Attention to educating people on the big picture, conceptual issues. Volunteer field trips to other recyclers, etc. Keep people connected to the issues and motivated.
• Biodiesel box trucks picking stuff up. Bikes etc for mobile educational services. Teaching elsewhere; volunteer opportunities elsewhere.
• Model of how eWaste should be handled.
• The eWaste story (go to schools, for example, and talk about eWaste issues) 5 years we will be the model (woohoo!)
• Education needs to be more available, distributed and widespread for user-level stuff.
• Museum should be actually a museum with documentation etc.!
• Matteo predicts "In the next month the museum will be on the wall."
• Get production and outgoing volume synched: more grants! More volunteers will help us to send out more grants. (If you want to do it, talk to Ebeth.)
• FG needs solid legal counsel so that we can have someone who knows what's up.
• Taking care of staff members; more revitalizing activities when they are being stretched too thin.
• Multilingualinitismity. Classes, job descriptions, tours.
• Within the next 3-5 years it seems that people do not want to abandon this location so we should explore buying this building and refurbishing without having to pay full price. Which is what we are good at. We need to prioritize and raise the money to be able to do it.
• Maybe it's time to redo the space from scratch, moving everything out on the street.
• Better use of our front window display space. We aren't ugly.
• Doing a training on hardware grants so more volunteers can be involved.
• There is a lot of interest in further education for adopters (beyond the Adoption class). We hope that the education coordinator will help this situation because they will have time dedicated to it.

Follow up

Further thoughts should be sent to priorities at freegeek.org

Next: What's most important of all these things?

This will be ironed out more by the C7 and the Optimization and Priorities group, then presented to council. Optimus Prime meets next on September 28.