Burning Book Brainstorming Session

What? Burning Book informal meeting
When? Evening, Tuesday November 6
Where? More than coffee, downtown Blacksburg
After briefing people about the meeting with the Town Planning Engineers and our interactions with the BURG organization, we proceeded to marshal our thoughts about the next steps that need to be taken. The first step is for the collective to become an incorporation. This step is required to apply for 501(c)3 status (non-profit organization). Darren indicated that writing the articles of incorporation does not seem difficult. The only thorny issue is that in order to incorporate, an initial board of directors needs to be in place. There are two issues with establishing a board of directors. 1) Concentration of power in a board of directors is at odds with the premises of the collective: egalitarian and consensus based. 2) There exist liabilities for the board of directory in case of grossly negligent incidents. The solution to the first issue is easy; the board of directors will be nominal, and members of the board will not have more power than any other member. Some research needs to be done in order to clarify the liability issues, though. A task force formed by Liam, Sally, and myself will investigate liability issues on Saturday and present a summary to the collective before taking action.

We also brainstormed about possible spaces. The option of occupying the prior Eats space seems to be gaining weight. People were also keen on starting in a temporary shared space before securing external funding to pay rent.