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); A new lay out for the ware house is in the planning stages. We are testing out different ideas, check out the new singage. Matteo 12:35, 11 September 2007 (PDT)

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 Shawn who will keep on top of all the tasks that are not huge (and some that are). Matteo 12:35, 11 September 2007 (PDT)

Building security: We have repaired all our external doors. We are currently reviewing our internal key structure. Matteo 12:35, 11 September 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. Notification of where First Aid kits are has been requested to be added to the tour. We have also created a Safety policy. Matteo 12:35, 11 September 2007 (PDT)

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're formulating the details for hiring an Education Coordinator.

volunteer management: Rewards such as core BBQ are covered by Inreach (Outreach work group) and are 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.

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). RfS 14:32, 7 July 2007 (PDT)

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: Pacific Crest Community school is running 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.; (See Group volunteering for how groups of kids can volunteer.)

Free Geek Library: The library has been considerably cleaned up in preparation for moving it in to the old meeting room. We are looking at library software. We need to decide a mission for the library so we can determine what books to acquire and/or keep. (MW 13:42, 15 May 2007 (PDT))

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 next event is the Holiday Party unless we have an Ubuntu release party. -- Elizabeth 11:00, 11 September 2007 (PDT)

Inreach: Core BBQs are popular and are looking into sponsorship to help with costs. Are in the process of recruiting tour guides and creating a training guide.(Elizabeth 11:00, 11 September 2007 (PDT))

Community Builders: -- Elizabeth 11:00, 11 September 2007 (PDT)

Fundraising: -- Elizabeth 11:00, 11 September 2007 (PDT)

PR: -- Elizabeth 11:00, 11 September 2007 (PDT)

Outreach: -- Elizabeth 11:00, 11 September 2007 (PDT); email address: outreach@freegeek.org

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 10:34, 7 August 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.

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: (information needed)

Online Sales: Ebay sales are presently ongoing under the care of the Exploratory Online Sales Coordinator. The scope of online sales will include Craigslist and wishlist fulfillment in the very near future. Serge 13:09, 5 March 2007 (PST)

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.

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)