Committee Chair

What Committee Chair Does

The Committee chairperson will be responsible for maintaining the list of committee members and providing reports to the status and activities of the committee. By default binding committee decisions can be made by the chairperson or by the majority vote of the committee members. Governance model can be changed by majority vote of the committee members.

Committee Rules

Committee rules are copied here from the Dallas Makerspace Rules. In the event of a discrepancy, the DMS rules are the governing document.

1. Purchasing
   1. The Committee Chair may make purchases of supplies and/or tooling without Committee vote, for purchases in amounts less than $500, or 1/3 of the Committees total fund balance, whichever is smaller.
   2. Purchases for items exceeding $500 require a majority vote of the Committee at the next regularly scheduled Committee meeting, or at a duly called emergency meeting.
   3. The Chair/Vice Chair may exceed the $500 limit to effect repairs of highly utilized tooling.
2. Committees are responsible for establishing the rules of the Committee area.
3. The Chair/Vice-Chair shall be empowered to enforce the rules of the Committee, and of the Dallas Makerspace within the Committee area, and may limit access to the Committee area for a time not to exceed the last day of the subsequent month. The Chair may petition the Board to enforce a longer or more stringent consequence.
4. Committee meetings must be posted on the calendar and announced on the forums. Meetings at which Committee Chairs are elected must be posted 2 weeks prior to meeting.
5. The Chair may hold an emergency Committee meeting with 5 days notice on the forums of DMS, and on signs conspicuously posted in the committee area, provided a good faith effort to notify all current committee members is performed, and that the time of the meeting is not unreasonably restrictive on the members.
6. Committees may establish other positions as needed to ensure the effective operation of the committee, or to accomplish Committee goals. Ad Hoc positions with spending authority, or administrative access to DMS resources, require the approval of the Board.
7. Each committee will need to maintain a page on the wiki with at least the following information:
   1. The name of the committee chair
   2. A list of all active members
   3. A brief statement listing the goals or tasks assigned to the committee.
   4. The category tag,either:

      [[Category:Active Committee]]

      or

      [[Category:Proposed Committee]]

   5. All rules made by the committee for committee areas or covering all committee equipment.
   6. Any new rules made by the committee for specific committee equipment.

Also located in Rules and Policies

Communication

1. Talk - A forum where fellow Dallas Makerspace members can discuss ideas and projects
   1. Groups - A group of individuals who are able to answer questions or address issues brought up by users when tagged. i.e. @PR_Team
   2. Categories - Discussions and Projects are sorted by interest related to a particular committee
2. Discord/Telegram/Google Hangouts/Slack messaging apps - each committee has a form of informal communication discussing ideas and projects. For access ask someone within the committee.
3. Wiki - The wiki page displays committee members, goals, projects, tools and resources

Meetings

Committee Meetings - must be posted on the calendar and announced on the forums. Notes can be posted on the wiki. Per DMS rules, committees shall hold meetings each calendar month at minimum.

Board of Directors (BoD) Meetings - Where rules are voted on, request monetary support for equipment or projects, suggest needs or improvements of DMS in general and the selection of committee chairs, procurement agents, and officers of the corporation.

Regular Member Meetings - Committee chair or representatives gives updates on what’s happening in their area. Also a quorum of voting members may vote to create a new rule or to remove a rule passed by a prior member meeting or a meeting of the board of directors. If a ⅔ quorum of voting members are present at a member meeting, votes to remove a board member or to change the corporate bylaws may be held.

Regular Member and BoD meetings follow Modified SRC3 format.

Classes

Committees usually give classes related to their area of interests. They also can fund themselves by classes that qualify for honorarium. Honorarium can be forgone by the hosting member and designated to a committee.

Official honorarium rules are located in Rules and Policies

Equipment

As a committee you are responsible for the maintenance and use of equipment. Specify what equipment requires training before use.

Special Interest Groups (SIG)

Special Interest Groups are supported by members who have a shared interest in a specific area, but which does not meet the requirements for a committee (whether intentionally otherwise).They can be allocated a budget ONLY if they are sponsored by a committee whose chair is willing to be responsible for the allocated funds.

Purchasing

If your committee would like to purchase equipment using its funds, ask a Procurement Agent for further information. A list can be located here

Finances

To view your committee’s funds, email [email protected] for access to Quickbooks.

1. Click Profit and Loss by Class
2. Change the From date to 01/01/2001
3. Click Run Report
4. Scroll across to find your committee. Once you do, scroll down to the amount above the double line. This is your committee’s current budget, Net Income.
5. If you click on this amount you will find a Profit and Loss Detail from the beginning of the year to present month. From here you can see all expenses and honorariums that have been entered to give you your committee’s current budget.
   

Current Committee Chairs

Current Committee chairpersons and vice-chairs are listed at this link.

Changing Committee Chairs (Maintenance/Updates)

When a new vice-chair is selected, and/or after a new committee chair is confirmed by the Board, the following changes must be made:

WIKI:

• The committee needs to update the chair name on their committee wiki page
• Names must be updated on the Current Committee Chairs page - this does not require any special privileges to edit

TALK:

The following changes must be performed by a TALK Administrator. All changes must be performed for all four affected persons; the outgoing and incoming chair and the outgoing and incoming vice-chair:

• Update the TALK Title for those users
• Update the TALK group for that committee:
  • Membership - make sure the incoming chair/vice are in the relevant TALK group. There is no need to remove the former chair/vice.
  • Ownership - transfer TALK group ownership to the incoming chair/vice
• Add incoming chair/vice to the Committee Chairs TALK group and remove outgoing chair/vice