State of the Onion

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

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

NOTE: When updating a section, please sign your work with the "four squiggles" syntax (~~~~) so we can see when the item was last updated (and by whom). (In theory, reports that are unsigned were created by someone from the committee or responsible for the indicated program before this note was added. RfS 09:06, 26 January 2007 (PST))

Action

Recycling

Shipments are going out once a week to each of our vendors. We recycle close to 200 monitors, about 3 tons of steel, 400 lb of plastic, 600 lb of wire and cords, and many more pounds of other copper bearing material every week.(estimated numbers)

The warehouse has a new and improved layout, easier for volunteers and staff to navigate. The layout will be changing again when the Black Hole moves into the classroom. Also, a check out system for tools now exists. Check with any staff in Recycling on the procedure on how to get a set of tools to work with.

Portland Supported Employment is helping us with some of the smaller recycling tasks by taking many boxes full of stuff to their workshop and separating the materials for us. They are earning computers by working off-site and tracking their hours through their organization.

Receiving

Receiving has been so organized and clean lately, it's frightening, even though the stream of donations never seems to stop for longer than a couple of minutes. We have stopped receiving loose batteries, and are referring donors to other places like Radio Shack with their baggies. Liane 15:35, 7 July 2007 (PDT)

Maintenance and design of the physical plant

Space Usage has been chugging along changing the layout of many of the areas we work in. The next big thing on actions list is rewiring many parts of the building. We have also divvied out the facilities tasks to Jeff and Matteo who will keep on top of all the tasks that are not huge (and some that are).

We've scheduled regular walk-throughs to check for safety and maintenance issues. Jeff will be heading these up during his facilities shift. Shawn 10:45, 15 November 2007 (PST)

Building security

We have re-keyed all the internal locks. changed some locks from random to keys the standard key setup. Matteo 10:49, 1 November 2007 (PDT)

General safety

Please remember to keep aisles free of debris, and pathways inside the building free of random stuff, because it is required by the fire department, and we have volunteers and guest using wheelchairs, or other mobility devices. Space Usage is talking about how to better define pathways around the building, look out for better defined pathways. We have also created a Safety policy.

We've scheduled regular walk-throughs to check for safety and maintenance issues. Jeff will be heading these up during his facilities shift.

Incident reports have become more regular. They are recorded to a special queue in RT created for this purpose.

Two blood spill kits were created. They are kept in the main bathroom by the volunteer kitchen and in Recycling. Shawn 10:45, 15 November 2007 (PST)

C7

Policy development

Currently cleaning up the policy structure in the wiki, adding links and history. Wiki clean up mostly being done by volunteers. We are seeking volunteers to help with this. (See Matteo or anyone from C7.) RfS 10:43, 17 February 2007 (PST)

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. Some committees could be broken up into different committees, but this might create too many committees to be practical. RfS 10:43, 17 February 2007 (PST)

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. Board members are coming to council meetings on a regular basis. RfS 10:54, 12 May 2007 (PDT)

nominations to the various committees

HR has may have a person too many people on it. With an expected some staff changes in the next year, expect to see some shifting about. RfS 10:54, 12 May 2007 (PDT)

proposals concerning changes to the committee structure itself

We are thinking about ideas expressed in Multi-Collective Free Geek as a starting point for a possibly different committee structure. RfS 10:43, 17 February 2007 (PST)

accounting and financial oversight

We have moved to monthly reporting of quarterly budgets. We have reorganized the expense categories to mirror the committee structure, have recoded the last three years of income transactions, are working on better income projections based on that. We need to review policies about handling money from time to time. We need to educate the committees on how to spend money when they're not sure how ahead or behind they are vis a vis the budget. RfS 10:54, 12 May 2007 (PDT)

HR

Human resources

We are currently hiring for an Education Coordinator and we have to hire for an Office Coordinator around the new year if Elizabeth is offered a new job.

volunteer management

Rewards such as BBQ's and dinners/movies are covered by Inreach (Outreach work group) and have been a huge success.

volunteer and staff discipline

We have a Volunteer Discipline Policy. There are a few active tickets in our Volunteer Issues queue which is visible to staff only. Active tickets in the queue are reviewed at HR meetings.

procedures regarding theft from Free Geek

This is handled mostly by our Volunteer Discipline Policy. There have been a few incidents in the past that are still open.

mediation between conflicting parties

We do this as it needs to be done. There have been a few formal mediations, but generally we try to get people to talk to each other to head that off.

volunteer and staff scheduling

Volunteer scheduling is done on paper, and works mostly. Tour guides are now scheduled, basic testing is off the schedule, and special volunteering can be written in on the miscellaneous area. Staff scheduling is semi automated but last minute changes eat up time (and money). It would be good to have a program that makes this easier. There's been a lot of group volunteering now that school's back in session.

staff and intern reviews

We have a schedule in place for reviews but they tend to slide, sometimes excessively. Reviews generate documentation about goals. etc., which may or may not be being completed consistently. We have been catching up on staff reviews.

volunteer acculturation and training

Trainings are not happening in a consistent way, but there are a few in the works. There has been a lack of people signing up in the past. We'd like to do a consensus training, a wiki training, a training in website admin. The discussion on the Council email list about the Education Program & Coordinator reflects much of the varied perspectives about volunteer trainings.

health care and benefits packages

Staff collective members have health care (including alternative care such as naturopathy), sick, vacation, and holidays. The health plan was just renewed and costs us approximately $345 per person per month. Some collective members use other plans and are eligible to reimbursed for most of their costs in lieu of taking our plan. We are adding a retirement benefit, where Free Geek will match up to 3.2% of a collective members salary, providing the collective member make an equal or greater contribution to a 503(b) plan (similar to a 401(k) plan, but for nonprofits). We're evaluating the financial feasibility of adding dependents to the healthcare plan.

employee manual

The Staff Handbook is on the wiki. It is a work in progress.... and by progress we mean perpetually incomplete.

Knowledge Bees

Education

Adoption classes are happening twice a week. More Volunteer Adoption Teachers would be great. (MW 13:42, 15 May 2007 (PDT))

The advanced linux class series has been restarted (MW 13:42, 15 May 2007 (PDT))

Documentation

Lots of documentation continues to happen. (MW 13:42, 15 May 2007 (PDT))

Technical Support

We have 4 days a week of tech support availability.

We have some new volunteers. ( martin 13:47, 3 April 2007 (PDT) )

Computers for Kids

We have groups from a few different schools, meaning hundreds of kids, coming in on a regular basis. martin 13:59, 13 November 2007 (PST)

(See Group volunteering for how groups of kids can volunteer.)

Free Geek Library

Regular volunteer effort has been given to cleaning up and organizing the library in its new home, leading to a large number of books being recycled and set on the free table. Computer cataloging of the books has also been started. martin 13:59, 13 November 2007 (PST)

Outreach

Outreach is a staff committee that is open to volunteer participation. We cover a lot of different areas at Free Geek, so to make this more manageable we broke it down into five subcommittees and one over-sight committee called "Outreach", which can be reached by emailing outreach at freegeek.org. Each committee has a mailing list that can be joined by signing up at: http://lists.freegeek.org/listinfo.

FG Events

The Holiday Party is going be on December 8th! We're still in the midst of planning it.

Inreach

Now that winter has moved in we are looking for alternatives to our monthly BBQ. The first week of Oct Free Geek charmed core volunteers with dinner and a movie. Who knows what the next months have in store. We have also recruited some fine new tour guides so feel free to thank them for sharing the wonders of Free Geek. Elizabeth 17:55, 11 October 2007 (PDT)

Community Builders

Idealist.org Non-Profit Career Fair at PSU was a success and we received many resumes for the Education Coordinator position.

Fundraising

PR

We gave a presentation to Umpqua Bank staff about their employee giving campaign (and giving to us, hopefully). We plan on attending Portland Green Drinks in the near future, where we will network with other environmentally-minded folks in the city.

Outreach

Is working on establishing point persons for each of the sub committee. They will answer emails and prepare agenda's for committee meetings. Elizabeth 17:55, 11 October 2007 (PDT)

Propagation

Liaison with Free Geek startups (the replication of Free Geek elsewhere)

The franchise group has an email list with members from outside of the Portland area. We are finalizing a formal trademark license agreement. We have an official trademark in category 41 (education). Our attempts to enforce trademark license through cease and desist letters and such are currently stalled. RfS took a trip to the mid west. He meet with folks in Minneapolis showed them our video and they are excited. Rfs also stopped in at Free Geek Chicago, they look like us if we only worked out of our WHSE and it was a basement. Matteo 10:46, 18 September 2007 (PDT)

liaison with GAP volunteers

A list of current GAP sites is on this wiki. The Red and Black location will be closing for an indeterminate amount of time. We need to touch base with the new owners of Plan B (formerly Acme). We will be upgrade to two boxen there (Grant boxen with wireless cards that work with LCD screens). RfS 10:34, 7 August 2007 (PDT)

Hardware Grants

The Hardware grants group now formally meets rarely, but hardware grants are still going strong. The staff recently started scheduling shifts to coordinate grants (as well as class-free adoption disbursements). We are working on consolidating the policies and documentation about grant giving, so that it doesn't get lost. RfS 10:34, 7 August 2007 (PDT)

Reuse

Freekbox, storebox, grantbox production (build)

Build is healthy and strong, emptying all incoming piles and filling all outgoing shelves. Our specs are higher than ever, as we ride along the wake of Moore's law.

testing maintenance and development

Advanced testing is running under the graces of a few very dedicated volunteers. In order for development and refinement of new procedures, more staff time will need to be allocated. Basic testing is part of the adoption program and volunteers test keyboards and mice.

Laptops

There is a healthy group of build graduates that have joined the Laptop build program. The laptops are dispersed as grants, and sold in the store. We are coordinating the move of the laptop program into its new space, we are also in the process we are increasing the numbers of people we can accommodate. Matteo 10:53, 13 September 2007 (PDT)

retail sales

Retail sales has been on a steady increase for the last 5 years. The store is currently staffed full time by staff, and day to day there is usually 2-3 volunteers helping out customers, testing various gizmos, and stocking the shelves. There have been some bumps starting the new year with a new POS system, but over all our accuracy in bookkeeping has never better. We just hired a new intern, Francisco Marquez. RfS 12:49, 12 July 2007 (PDT)

printer refurbishing and sales

Printers is running halfway with very little supervision. We have spent a great deal of time cleaning and getting work areas ready, setting up how-to documents and getting printers ready for the store. We sell some printers as-is or bulk besides store sales. Our goals are to have printers available for both grants and the store. If there were twenty hours a week dedicated staff time the income would pay for the staff time dedicated.

Audio/Visual

We are currentley testing our backlog of projectors. we are also creating a system for better internal reuse of these items. Normal A/V is running awesome. Matteo 10:53, 13 September 2007 (PDT)

Online Sales

Ebay sales are presently ongoing under the care of our Online Sales Coordinator. The scope of online sales will include Craigslist and wishlist fulfillment in the very near future. Matteo 10:53, 13 September 2007 (PDT)

locate, evaluation, and put oddball hardware into reuse

This is done on a ad-hoc basis. The work is mostly being done by volunteers.

wholesale or bulk sales of to-be-recycled parts

Wholesale (or bulk) sales are surging ahead with new orders coming in. A few more hours of staff time allocated would make it less frenzied.

Legacy Systems

Legacy Systems is turning into a good alternative for Eval 2. The program is still in creation mode.

Classic Gaming Library

The existence of the CGL can neither be confirmed nor denied at this time. We are currently looking of this thing. Matteo 10:53, 13 September 2007 (PDT)

Prebuild

We have recently added wireless cards to the types of cards we're looking for in card sorting. We are allowing prebuilders to work in Legacy Systems in lieu of Eval 2. We have started to get more corporate donations which means more identical systems, most of which are processed more easily and then sold in bulk. We are considering a few changes in Eval 1 that will make it easier to identify computers that should be recycled. And there's a ton of incoming computers, spilling into the hallway for the first time in a while. RfS 14:21, 20 February 2007 (PST)

Technocrats

Liaison with Coders group

The coders group does not function (as a group). Recently, Martin finished a project to rework the entire database to the point of rollout. He continues to add features and hunt bugs, but we are using the new code. We will need to train a core of staff and volunteers to maintain this code during the next year, because Martin has asked for an extended sabbatical for the year 2008. We are trying to reach out to other freegeeks to help maintain the code. -- MW 10:29, 13 March 2007 (PDT) There are currently three to four volunteer coders -- MW 10:48, 11 September 2007 (PDT)

liaison with ASS group

The ASSes meet on the third tuesday of every month. Much system administration work is actually being done by Martin on staff time. -- MW 10:48, 11 September 2007 (PDT)

selection of software commonly used at Free Geek

We are looking at possible replacements for RT. Long ago we selected moodle as software that might work to maintain curriculum and tests for online classes. The Knowledge Bees are still determining whether we will actually use this. Lessdisks has been replaced by LTSP, with a corresponding rework of our system imaging. Gizmo IDs have been ameliorated to only matter among the build teachers and students, and it is planned to "soon" remove the need for any paperwork in the build area. We are looking at Content Management Systems to replace our website. We are currently looking at replacing our current distro with gutsy, as well as changing our current distro installation process. -- MW 10:48, 11 September 2007 (PDT)

computer security

Our ASS group is always looking for ways to improve our security. Nothing particular is bothering us at the moment, and we hope to keep it that way.

technical infrastructure

The ASSes are implementing some technical options that might eventually reduce the physical number of machines needed in there. As it is, it is a bit crowded. We are in the process of updating our systems to have more recent software (debian etch). We also want to increase our bandwidth (or effective bandwidth for our most common tasks). -- MW 10:48, 11 September 2007 (PDT)