Difference between revisions of "State of the Onion"

Revision as of 16:56, 20 January 2007

This is a draft of a new or in-progress document, and is likely to have a few people specifically working on it. You may wish to check in on the discussion page to see what the purpose of the document is and who's working on it; then feel free to give this article love and attention if have extra of those things.

Big list of programs

Here is a list of Free Geek programs organized by the staff committee that is charged with their oversight. We are asking each committee to post a brief description of the state of each program.

(For more information on each committee see the Standing Staff Committees page.)

Action

Recycling: Recycling has seen a vendor change again. CRTs are now being sent to Total Reclaim, which is costing us more money. However, Total Reclaim has been able to give us definite info on what is happening with CRTs downstream. Within the next couple of weeks we will also start sending our plastic to Total Reclaim, and actually get paid for it, too.; Every week we send about 3 tons of steel, and about 30 gaylords of different items to our vendors.
Receiving: What is the state of this program?
Maintenance and design of the physical plant: What is the state of this program?
Building security: What is the state of this program?
General safety: What is the state of this program?

C7

Policy development: Currently cleaning up the policy structure in the wiki, adding links and history. Wiki clean up mostly being done by volunteers.

load balancing of the committees: All of the committees have enough people, but some committees function better than others, partly because some people are better at being committee members than others. Some committees (such as HR) may be overstaffed.

liaison with Free Geek Community Council and Free Geek Board of Directors: Developing this page as a snapshot of information hopefully helps keep the council and board better informed about the state of things.

nominations to the various committees: What is the state of this program?

proposals concerning changes to the committee structure itself: What is the state of this program?

accounting and financial oversight: We have moved to quarterly budgets and have an intern that's helping us develop the budgeting process. We have reorganized the expense categories to mirror the committee structure, need to work on better income projections. Need to review policies about handling money from time to time.

HR

Human resources: What is the state of this program?
volunteer management: What is the state of this program?
volunteer and staff discipline: What is the state of this program?
procedures regarding theft from Free Geek: What is the state of this program?
mediation between conflicting parties: What is the state of this program?
volunteer and staff scheduling: What is the state of this program?
staff and intern reviews: What is the state of this program?
volunteer acculturation and training: What is the state of this program?
health care and benefits packages: What is the state of this program?
employee manual: What is the state of this program?

Knowledge Bees

Education: Adoption classes are happening every week. We're adding one more class on Tuesdays, to catch up. Martin has been offering Advanced Commandline classes on Tuesday evenings to builders. More Volunteer Adoption Teachers would be great.
documentation: What is the state of this program?
liaison with Distro group: What is the state of this program?
technical support: What is the state of this program?
Computers for Kids: Pacific Crest Community school is starting a Build program again with 8 of their students. We also have multiple classrooms, and kids groups come in every week to get job skills, and earn computers.; http://wiki.freegeek.org/index.php/Group_volunteering
Free Geek library: What is the state of this program?

Outreach

Fundraising: The only funding we are currently seeking is through grants.
grantwriting: Currently the only staff coordinating this project is Ali and she is managing a few volunteers practicing their grantwriting skills. There is a strong possibility of a partnership with Senior Capstone PSU students who will work on 4 separate grants for Free Geek as part of their final project.
outreach: What is the state of this program?
advertising and marketing: What is the state of this program?
parties, festivals and other events: What is the state of this program?
community building: What is the state of this program?
relations with the neighbors: Had some issues with upstairs neighbors & parking lot but it has been effectively worked out.
relations with the non-profit and social change communities: Have discussed potential partnerships with Portland Community Media.
membership development: What is the state of this program?
the Free Geek website: What is the state of this program?
the reception area: What is the state of this program?
public email addresses: What is the state of this program?
media relations: What is the state of this program?
advertising and design of donation pickups: Volunteers sporadically pickup donations but we are still advertising that we do not pickup.
volunteer rewards: We recently brainstormed new ideas for rewarding volunteers (see Minutes Archive) and have re-implemented monthly core breakfast.

Propagation

Liaison with Free Geek startups (the replication of Free Geek elsewhere): What is the state of this program?
liaison with GAP volunteers: This program is pretty quiet right now.
Hardware Grants: What is the state of this program?
liaison with NAP group (Nonprofit Assistance Program).: What is the state of this program?

Reuse

Freekbox, storebox, grantbox production (build): What is the state of this program?
testing maintenance and development: What is the state of this program?
Laptops: What is the state of this program?
retail sales: What is the state of this program?
eBay sales: What is the state of this program?
printer refurbishing and sales: What is the state of this program?
locate, evaluation, and put oddball hardware into reuse: What is the state of this program?
wholesale or bulk sales of to-be-recycled parts: What is the state of this program?

Technocrats

Liaison with Coders group: What is the state of this program?
liaison with ASS group: What is the state of this program?
liaison with Distro group: What is the state of this program?
selection of software commonly used at Free Geek: What is the state of this program?
computer security: What is the state of this program?
technical infrastructure: What is the state of this program?