Starting Feb 1, Cause funding will be suspended if obligations are not met each month

[jabelone (Jaimyn Mayer)]

Hi everyone,

I mentioned in my last monthly update that I’m going to start enforcing the cause requirements as described in our causes policy. What does this mean? As of February 1, I will start suspending access to cause funds if they have not met their obligat ions each month. If a cause funding has been suspended, I will not process purchases or reimbursements for that cause (even for consumables).

My interpretation of the contributions required is as follows:
" 1. One event or class per calendar month" - Each cause must have run a publicly accessible class or event in the current or previous month. This does not have to be a cause sanctioned/organised event. Inductions do not count towards this.
" 2. Obligation to ‘own’ a physical area of the hackerspace and be responsible for its upkeep and appearance." - Each cause area must be clean and tidy, and most tools and machines must be in good working order.

I don’t enjoy doing this but it’s vital for HSBNE’s long term survival that causes start running more classes/events to help boost community and member engagement. It’s also important that causes maintain their areas, tools, and machinery to help improve the safety and usability of HSBNE.

If you don’t want your cause to lose access to funding, feel free to organise your own event or class for that cause. Put together a plan, including date/times, costs, photo, title, and description then email it to the exec. We can post it on eventbrite and Facebook for you.

[Redhatter (Stuart Longland)]

" 1. One event or class per calendar month" - Each cause must have run a publicly accessible class or event in the current or previous month. This does not have to be a cause sanctioned/organised event. Inductions do not count towards this.

Just thinking about this… what counts as a “class or event”? Understood that inductions are ruled out. Does it have to be something practical building something, or can it be of a more theoretical/instructional nature?

Brisbane WICEN sometimes do have a lecture on some radio-related field. It’s usually a short 20-minute in the form of a short talk held after the meeting, maybe over tea/coffee. I’m thinking that this may be a way we can help scratch the back of the Electronics cause: to actually run a few “tech talks” or maybe do a few more project nights (of which HSBNE members are welcome to join in with).

At the moment I’ve been doing lots of research into 6LoWPAN as part of an effort to adapt the protocol for use over AX.25 packet radio networks, and so I figure in the future there may be such a talk introducing the concepts of 6LoWPAN and IPv6 networking in general. (For the curious, there’s some preliminary research on my blog and Hackaday.io.)

@vk4mdl has also mentioned the thought of doing a talk on how the modern cellular networks operate. (Not everyone is across how a mobile phone actually operates… sure it’s radio, but there’s more to it than that!)

A while back we did an antenna building night. Not sure what other projects, maybe we could run one building a few receivers and such like… I’m open to ideas there.

Long term, I’d like to actually see us be able to do amateur radio license courses – a lot of this is in a state of flux, partly because the ACMA has put out a tender for training organisations to take on the role of providing the examination service that the WIA presently runs. I did look into what was required, and basically, the WIA have very much locked it down which means there aren’t many assessors around due to getting the accreditation and holding it being a pain in the rear.

Maybe things might get opened up a bit, and it’ll be more practical for Brisbane WICEN to run courses. I don’t know. Time will tell there.

If there’s interest, particularly from the Electronics group, we could set aside a bit of time on the 3rd Monday of the month. Notification of such talks could be advertised here, on the WICEN website and through the WIA news service, to the benefit of both groups.

Would this be beneficial to HSBNE doing this?

[jabelone (Jaimyn Mayer)]

As the current electronics cause leader @merseyless would be the best person to talk to in order to co-ordinate talks or events related to the electronics cause. However, as long as you’re an active member feel free to approach the exec with a proposal if you’d like to run a class or event.

Just thinking about this… what counts as a “class or event”? Understood that inductions are ruled out. Does it have to be something practical building something, or can it be of a more theoretical/instructional nature?

It doesn’t necessarily have to be practical or building something. Events like our previous home automation showcase, or random talks/presentations about electronics related things would all count towards meeting this requirement.