20260627 Plenum

The Plenum is a regular meeting of all people involved with the space to talk about things and decide stuff. If you have any topics to add, go right ahead! Please sign your points with your name (by adding a "--~~~~" after your text).

After the Plenum, please follow the tasks outlined in Cycling the Plenum to archive the discussion.

Preamble

• The Plenum is an institution to decide what the space should look like, physically and in other ways, such as virtually.
• Things concerning the space should be discussed at a plenum.
• Everyone on-site can participate in that process, member or otherwise.
• Everyone can lead a plenum; no need for board members to do that.
• Topics should ideally be announced on the Plenum wiki page beforehand.
• The Plenum should be held in a language that everyone participating understands.
• Scheduling: Second Thursday of the month at 8 pm and the last Saturday after the cleanup (which starts at 4 PM)
• Plenums should be no longer than 90 minutes.

Next Plenum: Saturday, June 27th after the cleanup (around 6:00 PM)

Topics for the Plenum

What are you currently working on?

• RobertO: Continuing Work on his Lidar Robot, cooling off in the pool
• Chris: cooling off in the pool, Fixing and Improving several things in the lab, like lighting and bluetooth in the workshop
• Maggie: Taking part in the CSD Parade, cooling off in the pool
• Valentin: Relaxing
• Robert: burning claude tokens for questionable gain, spending 90€ to save 5€ on licensing apps
• David: Already burned his tokens, trying to get lightllm to run
• Adrian: Embroidering, Cooking, cooling off in the pool

Say thank you

• David B for taking our metal and electronics trash to the recycling center again
• Chris B for making the sound system in the workshop functional again.
• Chris B for installing a bunch of zigbee switches so that we are almost to the point where "everything off" actually switches everything off

Projects & Groups update

This is a quick update from group meetings at our space, other long-term space projects (e.g., Lasercutter, CNC, etc.) or of the lab internal projects.

• Our neighbours: Werkbox3 have a regular repair cafe and have not enough "repair helper" at the moment. If anyone has fun on repair jobs and want to support their volunteer work. Just get in contact with Oliver Megele in our slack. The repair cafe is happening every first thursday of the month at 6 o'clock pm. If we now how it's going and have enough people we could also offer this in the Munich Maker Lab. There is also a nice funding for such projects from the Bavarian state. -- Milian
• New Table Saw for the Workshop Rainer has organized a second-hand/B-ware/return unit table saw from SawStop for the space, specifically the Compact Table Saw. It's similar in size and capability to our current loaned Bosch table saw, but comes with an important safety feature: the blade stops instantly upon contact with skin, preventing serious injuries. Since we're receiving the saw at no cost, the plan is for the club to cover the replacement of the safety cartridge should it ever trigger. Members are welcome to contribute voluntarily afterwards if they appreciated the protection it provided. That said, we of course hope we'll never see it in action! The saw will arrive next Wednesday. -- Milian
• Kreativlabor Open: Festival Recap The festival event went smoothly, a big thank you to everyone who helped out! Visitor numbers were lower than last year, but given the extreme heat and the many competing events happening in parallel, that's completely understandable. Compared to other locations at the festival, we actually had more visitors overall. And while turnout was below expectations, the people who did come had a great experience, according to the feedback we got. On the bright side, we now have plenty of materials we can carry over to future events, including more than enough kits for upcoming soldering workshops. A few things we still need to wrap up:
  • Secure the official funding reimbursement (Around 1000-2000€)
  • Collect all materials and documentation
  • Gather photos from the weekend Please share your photos and feedback in #kreativlaboropen We also received €280 in donations over the weekend. -- Milian
• Belt Sender for Metal work: Deniz offered to lend his belt sender for metall work e.g. for making or sharpening knives. The idea would be to get it to the lab and check, it is useful and safe enough for lab usage and then decide, if we want to keep it at the lab for longer. This would be a good occasion to also check our wetgrinder. Storage depends a bit, whether it will fit into a box or not. Trying it out hot or not? Deniz said he could also offer some workshop how to use these devices. -- Milian
  • The device is too unsafe for untrained usage, and also devices like this are prone to flinging the belt into your face at great velocities. Voted 3/2/2 (against/for/abstained)
• Sound system in the workshop should be usable again and we got a new bluetooth dongle to connect to. There is a zigbee switch on it so you have to use the dashboard to activate it

Vorstand updates

General Updates:

• Current (paying) members: 175 members starting of July

• Status re-booking of missing membership fees from 2023/2024: Round 4 of 8 has been executed. Still every month some addtional work to do, but it's running smoothly so far. Just four more months to get rid of this nasty topic.

• The tax assessment has arrived from the tax office. Everything is in order. Non-profit status has been confirmed again.

Asbestos on the Kreativlabor Area

Asbestos was found in temporary walls in another building on the Kreativlabor premises. We shared an update about this some time ago. Our landlord has since reminded us that any structural work must be coordinated with them beforehand.

In practice, this means: please reach out to us before drilling into any walls at the space. We'll check the latest status and let you know which areas are safe and which ones we should hold off on until test results come in. It's unlikely that we're directly affected, but let's avoid any unnecessary risk in the meantime. -- Milian & Adrian

Some club priorities for the next month:

Short overview of some topics that we should push a bit over the next month from club perspective:

• Workshop improvement project: Continue to make good results, particularly around machine storage, the current setup is temporary and needs a permanent solution.
• Power consumption reduction: Standby power usage is still quite high. Next steps: audit remaining high-standby devices, switch to LED lighting and optimize the overall lighting setup, migrate the NAS into our existing server rack, and more, see #infrastructure for details.
• Organizational efficiency: Reduce the overhead at Vorstand level by evaluating and piloting a dedicated member management software solution. Maybe helps also in the future to combine different tools into one.
• Space utilization: Use our space more effectively and enforce clearer boundaries on individual member storage. As membership grows, we need to be stricter and prioritize resources that benefit the broader community.
• Distribute the workload: Actively motivate more members to take on responsibilities by lowering the barrier to contribution and making it easy to get involved.
• Budget review: Investing in improvements across many areas makes sense, but after July we should do a thorough spending review to ensure we haven't overextended, keeping enough budget available for the rest of the year. As long we do not have our final renting contract the cost calculation is a bit tricky.

Regarding Rumours About Our Space

Several members have reached out privately after hearing rumours that our location will be sold or torn down. To be clear: this is not true based on current information. Please be mindful about spreading unverified claims, it creates unnecessary anxiety in the community.

Here's the actual situation:

• The Kreativlabor area is intended to be preserved for cultural projects. The city is under financial pressure and budgets are tighter across the board, so costs are unlikely to decrease without external funding support.
• Our landlord, the MGH, is professionalizing the management of the area, this means higher costs and stricter rules, but that's comparable to any standard non-municipal rental situation.
• The current plan includes renovating most of the Kreativlabor, including our building.
• We don't yet have a signed rental contract, but we are paying rent under an agreement running until October. Negotiations are progressing slowly but have already improved in terms of content.
• The main remaining blocker is clarifying that we, as a non-profit, should not be liable for rental tax, which is being worked on.

Things can always change, but this is the current state of affairs. For ongoing updates, follow the #future-of-the-kreativlabor channel, where we post information regularly.

-- Milian

What would you like to change or to be changed? Anything you don't feel comfortable with within the space?

• The project boxes all have been occupied by the same people for month now. I thing we should find a better solution so that people can use them when they need but not for that long without paying. -Nico

• Non-members continuously using the space infrastructure/commodities for not space related activities like cooking and storing food in the fridge during not public space times without interacting with on site members (asking for permission or taking part in conversations) or working on projects related to the labs’ intended use. Multiple member issued this to me with the strong opinion that we should not allow this. -Chris
  • The Lab is only to be used for the clubs intended Purpose. Everyone that uses the premises bedsides that outside of a fair use allowance is to be asked to leave. Non-Members are are always required to ask when entering the space if the space status is off. Voted for unanimously
• The Bosch GSS 160 Multi orbital sander has been missing for several weeks. It is likely misplaced somewhere in the lab rather than gone for good, but as our most valuable handheld power tool, it deserves more attention. Please have a look around and return it to its designated spot if you come across it. -- Milian
• Recent donations have brought in a great supply of USB chargers, USB-C cables, and breadboards, exactly the kind of things you reach for on a whim during a project. Unfortunately, a lot of this stock keeps disappearing from the lab despite being clearly labeled free2use, not free2take. Please respect this distinction and leave shared resources available for everyone. -- Milian
• There is a growing gap between the number of people actively using the workshop and those contributing to its maintenance and improvement. A functioning lab depends on shared responsibility. We would love to see more members get involved in internal lab projects so the workload is distributed more evenly across the community. -- Milian

Things to Buy

(Per-plenum spending limit for purchases that belong together: 250€. Larger amounts go through a loomio poll.
To get back your paid money send the invoice(s) to finance@munichmakerlab.de within 3 month. Extension of this time-frame needs to be approve by the Plenum beforehand. Make sure to have a separated invoice for Lab purchases)

• The first part of the new workbench cost 42,56€ more than original requested (due to different offerings at the home depot now). 20260328 Plenum => Request for the remaining money since the result is very nice. Milian & Marco
  • Approved Unanimously
• For better safety on the KLO event I bought some hooks, lines and tension belts. 50€ - Milian
  • Approved Unanimously
• To better sort different stuff like electronics kits, our rope and tension belt material and our sewing stuff, I want to buy more transparent boxes which makes it better visible what is inside. Since this stuff is not heavy, transparent boxes are better here then the normal euroboxes. 100€ - Milian
  • 100€ seems a bit excessive, please bring it to the next plenum with at least a link to the product
• To be better able to move the big vacuum and the sanding machine in the workshop for better usage or to get to the stuff behind the devices, it would good to add some wheels to them with breaks like the mitre saw has. 41€ -- Milian
  • 30€ Approved for one set of rolls for the Sander, the Vacuum is too fragile and top heavy to be moved safely in our opinion 5 Aproved, 1 Abstained
• 10kg PETG from kingroon for lab projects here ~ we'll set about 100€ and if there's another roll that looks reasonable we'll buy that as well -- ChrisB
  • Approved unanimously

Stuff from the past

What was discussed at the last Plenum? What's the current status of those things? 20260611 Plenum

Get Involved

If you want to be mentioned at the previous section as well, one of the easiest ways is to take one of our MiniJobs or to get involved in one of our Lab Projects.

This is a great way to participate in the Munich Maker Lab and contributing time helps to keep our space in a good shape.

Current key topics looking for additional support:

• Workshop improvement project: Check out in slack #workshop-improvement-project
• More people that help out with MiniJobs or requests that pop up in slack.

Introduce Loomio poll

(Loomio Poll Explanation)

Request for online participation

If necessary, you can request to participate remotely (via jitsi). Please briefly describe why you want to participate remotely and what topic you want to discuss. (additionally to adding the topic on top!)