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Hacksmiths Committee Handbook

Welcome to the Hacksmiths Committee. This document provides an outline of the expectations, structure and processes which we use to deliver our projects. If you have any questions, message our President - Kevin. Over time, this document may change or grow.

What are we?

Hacksmiths is the student-run tech society a Goldsmiths, University of London. Our mission is to provide an opportunity for people in all departments and from all backgrounds the chance to learn about, and play with, technology. We do this by organising talks, workshops and facilitating hackathons (invention marathons).

In the 2016-2017 academic year, we held 28 events including three large hackathons - Sex Tech Hack, a Global Game Jam center, and our annual flagship, Anvil Hack. These events invited over 300 people from around the world to discover new skills to build weird, wacky and wonderful projects. We organised press coverage in both the print and online editions of New Scientist, Girl on the Net, and a prominent place in the nationally-broadcast BBC 1 documentary "Invented In… London".

Platforms we use

  • Hacksmiths HQ, based on Airtable, is the home for our team profiles, project details, finances and sponsorship details.
  • Airtable also contains our credentials to login to other accounts.
  • Private Facebook Group, to discuss things in a more informal setting.
  • Whatsapp Group - mainly used for on-the-spot support requests.
  • Google Drive, to store files between one another. We have a new folder as of the 2017-18 academic year.

When you join, you will be added to all of these platforms. More detail about Hacksmiths HQ is below.

Structure

The Executive Committee is made up of five roles:

  • The President, who is elected by members. They oversee the society and Project Owners.
  • The Treasurer, who is elected by members. They look after finances.
  • The Secretary, who is elected by members. They look after administration.
  • The Diversity & Inclusion Officer, who is appointed by the President, Treasurer and Secretary. They ensure our projects are inclusive, and work to make our society more diverse overall.
  • The Accessibility officer, who is appointed by the President, Treasurer and Secretary. They ensure events are comfortable for everyone, especially those for whon we should be making accessibility requirements.

Everybody else is a General Committee Member. They are given support by the Executive Committee and empowered to become Project Owners for projects they are interested in running (they may already exist, or they may be proposed as new projects). You may also become a Project Supporter, and be involved in projects without taking charge - this is more flexible around your time.

Committee meetings

Once a week, the Executive Committee will meet and make sure that they are across all of the projects being run. At these meetings, they will discuss projects, resourcing and sponsorship. Once a month, the entire committee will meet to discuss progress and make desicions.

All dates for monthly committee meetings for the 2017-2018 academic year are already set and you are expected to be at all of them. If you can't make it, please contact our Secretary before the meeting to make apologies. If you miss two meetings, we will check that you still have time to be in the committee. If you miss three, we will discuss whether you should be removed from the committee. By setting out all of these dates for the year, we hope you can make plans around them.

Being a Project Owner

Part of being a Committee Member for Hacksmiths is the ability to become a Project Owner on one or more projects. Here are some top-level expectations of you in this role:

  • Keep the Executive Committee in the loop. This includes team Whatsapp/Messenger chats, todo lists, and updates at least once a week. The updates can be to any member of the Executive Committee as they will propagate this information among each other once a week.
  • Create a resourcing plan - this includes a budget of everything you will need to spend, hand ow much support you feel you will need in planning/delivery stages.
  • Discuss with the Executive Committee your plans for funding your project. They can help, but we encourage you to find the funds yourself.

Project Feedback

After every project, it's your responsibility to have every Hacksmiths Committee Member who attends fill in our committee feedback form - it asks for both positive and critical feedback. We use this to make sure each event we run is better than the last. The form is here.

Using Hacksmiths HQ

Hacksmiths HQ is our one-true-source of information. It contains our team profiles (names, roles, projects, pronouns, emails, etc), finance information (per-project, money in/out, who spent and expensed it, etc), project information (name, dates, team, etc) and a rundown of who we've spoken to about sponsorship/partnership.

Team

When you join the committee, you will be given a form to fill out which adds an entry to this page. It's useful for both new committee members, and to grab emails/phone numbers in one place. If your details change, you are expectedto update your entry.

Projects

This page is managed by the Secretary. It details all of our projects, their teams, working budget (automatically worked out from the finances page), and more logistical information like date and length.

Finances

This page is managed by the Treasurer. You are expected to have the President or Treasurer approve all spending for Hacksmiths before you make the purchase. Each purchase must have an invoice/receipt, which is included in each finance entry - make sure you do this before expensing it. Status options are also important - here's what they mean:

  • Not paid for yet - make this entry when you're creating budgets for your events
  • Not expensed - you've bought the item but not claimed it back
  • SU - the SU has paid directly for this, or you have expensed it to the SU
  • DoC - the Department of Computing (DoC) has paid directly for this, or you have expensed it to the DoC
  • AF 16 - this has been expensed against the money we have asked for from the Annual Fund in 2016/17 year
  • AF 17 - this has been expensed against the money we have asked for from the Alumni and Friends in 2017/18 year

Expense Reports

This page details all of the expense reports we hand in, so we have a reference of what we've handed in