20260910 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: Thursday, Sep 10 at 8 PM

Topics for the Plenum

What are you currently working on?

• Milian: Bike repair and car repair
• Moritz: Making a box out of waste and for waste
• Felix: Considering using the 3d Printer in the future once he has a project in mind
• Philipp: First time here and just checking out the space
• Maxim: Just started his membership, helping someone with the 3d Printers
• Nico: Repairing an Airbrush compressor and building a robot arm
• Friedjof: Reverse engineering an IKEA speaker
• Fahmy: Working on random ESP-based Project (also does that as a job)
• Michael: Random electronics and microcontroller things
• Valentin: Fixing his e-scooter cargo rack for the 3rd time
• Mario: 3d printing various things for his moped and home
• Kris: Keeping his plants alive
• Michael 2: Is new to the space, building a book press
• ChrisK: Fixing his headphones
• Brett: Building an iOS App to help with his german studies and local AI stuff. Also fan tray for his Macbook.
• Korbinian: relaxing
• Adrian: Making some shelves for the Bathroom to save a bunch of money, a bunch of admin stuff
• Robert: Still working on his cat-annoy-inator
• Chris: Callibrating the new speakers

Say thank you

• Maggie for supporting on our social media and marketing topics
  
• Milian for doing all the online admin stuff, especially a bunch of work for the upcomming general assembly
• ChrisB and Adrian for setting up the new audio system
• Jost for fixing the Proxxon
• Fahmy for bringing the old electric stuff to the recycling center

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.

• We introduced some statistical data on our status page, when the Munich Maker Lab is typically open: status.munichmakerlab.de

Hosting Munich Hardware Meetup?

Should we host one of the next Munich Hardware Meetups?

We got a request, if they could host one of their next events at the Munich Maker Lab. The host Ros told me, he has visited the Munich Maker Lab already some time ago and he meant he would scope the event to the available space we have. Should we offer them to do a test event at our location? If it runs good, we can decide, if they come regularly to us and under which guidelines. For me it looks kind of a bit too professional/commercial scoped, but maybe I am wrong and member would benefit from it as well.

Here two examples from previous events:

https://luma.com/rrzqzyo0

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rostyslav-spolyak_another-great-munich-hardware-meetup-took-activity-7472539714139607040-6I2e/

-- Milian

• Approved unanimously

Vorstand updates

Save the date: General Meeting Saturday, October 24th.

Please note that we're planning this year's general meeting (Mitgliederversammlung) for Saturday, October 24th.

It usually starts around 3 PM, but we'll send a separate news mail to all members with more details soon. The official agenda will also go out in October, but feel free to send us any important topics you'd like included before then.

We've set up a Nuudel poll so you can indicate whether you're planning to come, which will help us plan capacity. There's also an option for "I really want to come, but can't make it on that date" . We'll only consider rescheduling if a significant number of members can't attend but genuinely want to join. The poll will stay open until the date of the meeting.

https://nuudel.digitalcourage.de/TIoxB11CVAWjGU4y

There will be plenty of updates on our financial topics and hopefully some news on our rental situation as well.

We'll also be electing a new Board of Members. We definitely need a new treasurer and since we've made good progress streamlining things over the past year, the role should be significantly easier to take on than before.

If you could see yourself taking on a board role and want to know more, please reach out to us. We've started documenting the general responsibilities here as well:

https://wiki.munichmakerlab.de/wiki/Vorstand

We will also held a Plenum after the general meeting to have time to discuss topics in more details afterwards, which are not close related to the general meeting. We had this in the past as well.

Preparation Members and Guests Survey 2026

As we're about to hit the 200-member mark, it feels like the right moment to check in with the community and better understand where we stand today.

A few years ago, the 'Future of the Lab' initiative kicked off with a larger workshop. Since then, quite a bit of time has passed and a lot has changed in the club, so it feels like a good moment to pick the topic back up. The materials from that session are still available in the #future-of-the-lab Slack channel for anyone curious about what came out of it.

To pick this effort back up, I suggest we run a member survey to get a clearer picture of our current community: who's actively engaging, what members expect, what might be holding people back from getting more involved, and which topics they're most interested in.

We do have discussion formats like the plenum and general member assembly, but these aren't ideal for gathering input from a larger share of members. A survey offers a more accessible and scalable way to collect feedback at scale.

I'm currently working on the survey and plan to send it out soon, ideally before our next general meeting. If you'd like to contribute or already have questions or topics you'd want covered, join the #future-of-the-lab Slack channel and share your thoughts.

-- Milian

Updates rental and financial situation

MGH is expected to send us a new draft lease shortly, incorporating all the changes we've negotiated so far. The clause banning welding and angle-grinder use should be softened, shifting the emphasis back to tenant responsibility rather than a blanket prohibition. We also won't have to pay the newly demanded VAT, saving another €385 per month.

With our current 195 paying members and the updates above, we're currently looking at a quite positive monthly result again. That would give us a more solid buffer for potentially rising heating costs, especially assuming we only heat for around 4–6 months a year rather than all 12.

-- Milian

News E-Mail

There will come another news e-mail sent out to all members soon to give overview about the latest updates and to share the link for the Member survey and also the date for the general meeting

-- Milian

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

• There is still the stuff stored from Jans old storage box. It's now there since several month and he did still not pick it up. There is also stuff like tents from someone else (as posted already on slack). Request that we make it now free to take or dispose this stuff -- Milian
  • Approved
• Lot of old computer stuff is standing in the living room. No sign on it, no pre-announcement, not clear who care about this (donation) now? -- Milian
  • Fahmy will take that stuff today
• Project boxes being used for month/a year without paying --Nico
  • We'll tell the people to clear the boxes
  • New Rule: Project Boxes can only be used for 4 consecutive weeks. Afterwards, that stuff goes into the basement for 4 weeks and becomes free to take afterwards. they HAVE to be cleared out afterwards and can't be used by that member/group for the next 4 weeks.
    • Approved

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)

• 100m 2x2.5 speakercable for connecting the new speakers in the community area ~50 eur - Chris
  • Approved

Stuff from the past

What was discussed at the last Plenum? What's the current status of those things? 20260829 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:

...

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!)