How to Run HeatSync Labs

The role of the Board of HeatSync Labs has three parts:

• To Guide the Community in the fulfillment of our mission and goals.
• To Represent the Will of the Community where an official representation is necessary to interface with other organizations and to fulfill the Law of the land.
• To Empower the Individuals that make up the Community of HeatSync Labs to take Action towards the ends of fulfilling our goals and mission.

• Current Board Members
• Elections: October, with November transition.

Everyone

• Try to be physically at the lab as often as possible
• Specifically be at the lab for Hack Your Hackerspace night
• Convert strangers into members
• Serve on committees
• Fund raise
• Promote HeatSync
• Ensure that the charitable purpose of our 501(c)3 is upheld. (See our 501(c)3 Filings)

Champion

• Physical face of HeatSync, primary contact point
• Checks/Balances (treasurer, etc)
• Vision, on track and clearly conveyed, the "why"
• Find holes in responsibility and plug them personally if need be
• Lead or make sure initiatives important to HSL are lead, for instance (and entirely for example):
• build out of individual stations (3d printing, microcontrollers)
• Communication (to/from board, to new people "no wallflowers!", connect people, to partners, getting and keeping contacts)
• Be:
  • Present for most events
  • Host/life of the party
  • a Leader
  • able to understand/track all aspects of HeatSync
  • in charge of Accountability, Follow-up
  • Empowering/motivating
  • Delegating
  • Mediating
  • Deciding

Treasurer

• Manage bank accounts (with accountant's help)
• Collect dues and monetary donations
• Timely updates to the board
• Taxes, IRS communication
• Collecting receipts for sales
• Delivering receipts to donors, with tax exempt notification (as easy as possible)
• Improving sales process to make it easy for customers (with IT/Marketing help)
• Set up accounts with vendors
• Purchasing (processing orders)
• Capital value (asset tracking with resource manager's help)
• Budgets
• Expenses (monthly/yearly)
• Building and debt management
• Accounts payable
• 501c3 status (account switchovers)
• Record when a donation worth more than $500 is sold or disposed of, we must document that sale for the IRS.

Notes Captured From Eric Wood 2022-08-23

• HSL has an accounting firm, which charges about $300 per month.
• Most bills are auto-paid, but there are some manual outliers that need to be handled.
• Payments to instructors:
  • Money transfer from PayPal to Instructor done by Treasurer.
  • Recorded in QuickBooks by Treasurer.
  • Customer payments are collected in PayPal by Website.
  • Instructor provides info to Treasurer about financial breakdown.
  • Treasurer *does not* do 1099 - Accountant does that.
    • Treasurer does categorize instructor payments in docs provided to accountant.
• Reimbursements are paid by Treasurer.
  • Receipts are stored primarily as images in DropBox.
  • Some noteworthy receipts are also kept as paper.
• Books are done in QuickBooks.
• Member Database integration would be nice. (has been on the wish list for a long time)
• Keep about $nn in checking account. (number known but not disclosed here, ask Eric)
  • When checking goes below $nn, transfer money from savings.
  • Consider pinging Jim Tolar from Bike Saviours regarding using a CD ladder for improved interest.
• Currently we do not have a purchaser of paper towels and toilet paper, which should be expenses sent to Treasurer.
• Rent is our highest expense at about $1/foot/month.
• Electricity is our #2 expense.
• Sprinklers are the big thing we don't want to do that makes us consider leaving our otherwise pleasant location. Estimate was $50k, but that included $25k to extend the City of Mesa water main, which may have been partially extended already. $50k is probably more like an upper bound right now.

Secretary

• send thank yous, etc
  • post presentations on wiki and maybe a private list of emails so we can reschedule speakers http://wiki.heatsynclabs.org/w/index.php?title=Presentations
• post agenda to lab and discussion board 1 week prior to board meeting
• take minutes during board
• post draft minutes directly after board meeting finishes to discussion board
• take minutes staff meetings--email minutes to attendees immediately after staff meetings
• Reminders (reporting, taxes, due dates)
• Operations/Events accountability
• Organize organization documents and maintain document compliance for 501c3 status

Operations

The Operations manager should be good at inspiring volunteers, delegating, following up, and taking tasks on themselves as necessary. In order to be effective and to keep HeatSync a community-oriented endeavor, they should not attempt to do everything themselves or dictate policy. Rather, they should help community members reach a productive consensus and achieve common goals together, only rarely stepping in to make decisions when the community is deeply divided.

• Delegate and coordinate ongoing tasks including:
• Membership (welcoming, tracking, training, card access, suspension/revocation)
• Propose adjustments to the space or behavior to help newcomers feel welcomed and transition to a user of the space/tools, possibly a member, or possibly a volunteer.
• Update and refine the Walk Through Orientation on a regular basis
• Community Governance (community voting, mailing list moderation, mediation)
• IT:
  • Website
  • Wiki
  • Internet
  • Internets
  • Door Access
  • WiFi
• Marketing
  • Websites
  • Social media
  • print
  • signage
  • t-shirts
• Facility Maintenance
• Safety
• At least yearly, audit the MSDS binder and update it to reflect chemicals and materials in the lab
• Facilitate communication between the community, volunteers, operations team, and board as necessary