Neighborhood Guard Annual Meeting

It is time for Neighborhood Guards annual meeting. Member organizations have already been contacted directly by email and in some cases by phone.

Prospective members and other interested parties are welcome to the public meeting which is held on

Wednesday October 29 at 7:00pm
Sunrise Assisted Living
11889 Skyline Blvd, Oakland, CA 94619

Agenda

  • Wine & Cheese Reception
  • Call to order
  • Quorum Count
    • Introduction of Board Members
    • Review of Accomplishments
    • Chairman’s Report
    • Financial Report
    • Election
    • What’s coming up in 2015
  • Close of Meeting

Examples of current Hardware will be shown together with the unveiling of the new Weatherproof box for a more elegant and less intrusive installation.

What do new Members get for the Enrollment fee?

FIRST: Neighborhood Guard is completely run by unpaid volunteers.

This includes:

  • The Organization does NOT have any staff (paid or unpaid)
  • The Organization does NOT have any Paid Officers or Boardmembers
  • The organization does NOT provide any benefits for the board members/Officers (Healthcare, Life insurance etc – we don’t do any of that)
  • The Non-profit does NOT pay for food or drink during Board meetings
  • NO services are purchased from Boardmembers, their family, friends,employers, or companies etc.
  • Board members cannot directly use organization funds to pay for organization expenses. Each board member must personally front the expenses and then will only get reimbursed if and when the expense is approved by the board.(This reduces potential abuse, not that we have had any)
  • Neighborhood Guard does NOT make political contributions

SECOND: All the money is used for Crime Prevention.

  • Financial Aid to underprivileged neighborhoods for participation in Neighborhood Guard – Feeling safe should not be dependant on financial resources.
    • Contact us for details on the financial aid program.
  • Recruiting and outreach – The more neighborhoods that participate in Neighborhood Guard the safer we all are.
    • Flyers
    • Business Cards
    • Snacks for potential members at recruiting events
    • Pens and printed signup sheets, clipboards
  • Training for new neighborhoods
    • Training equipment
      • Training Camera
      • Projector
      • Screen
      • Network equipment for Training Setup
    • Lunch for Members during all-day training
  • Software development
    • Development and installation tools
      • High Quality Network Tester
      • Development Raspberry Pi
    • Purchase of critical commercial software not available as open source (luckily we have not had to exercise this option yet)
    • Open Source development
      • Pizza and Red Bull for Hackathons.
  • Administrata
    • Insurance for non-profit Board members
    • Envelopes and stamps for postal forward
    • Internet domain and Web-site hosting.
    • State fees for incorporation as Non-profit
    • Federal filing Fees for 501(c)3 status

Priority in Distribution of Funds:

  1. Administrata – we cannot exist if we don’t pay our filing fees so this must come first.
  2. Financial Aid (Allocated in 2014: 25% of money after administrata)
  3. Recruiting/Training (Allocated in 2014: 25% of money after administrata, if we don’t use the money then it becomes available for Financial Aid)
  4. Commercial software (Allocated in 2014: 25% of money after administrata, If we don’t spend the money then it becomes available for Financial Aid and Training)
  5. Open Source software (Allocated in 2014: 25% of money after administrata, If we don’t spend the money then it becomes available for Financial Aid and Training)

THIRD: Unique Member benefits

  • Installation Support
    Volunteers from Neighborhoods already online with Neighborhood Guard will come and train you and will be by your side during the entire installation process, no matter how many times you have to re-adjust the infrared and night sensitivity to get it right.
  • Ongoing support
    Typically once the system runs it requires very little support – but we are here for you.
  • Easy Access to our New – Yet to be completely announced Raspberry Pi Project for buffering and upload.
  • Influence over new features developed in the Neighborhood Guard software
    So you want that automatic License plate Database? Become a member to make it happen.
  • Access to Members only online services – including:
    • Best Practices knowledge exchange
    • Data Exchange with other neighborhoods
    • [Planned] Online reporting of images directly to the police
    • [Planned] Crime statistics for Membership neighborhoods vs. non-members.

Enrollment Fee and Annual Fee

The enrollment fee to join Neighborhood Guard is based on the total number of households in your neighborhood not just the participating households. E.g. if your block has 88 households but only 48 participate in your security initiative then you would still sign up to Neighborhood Guard based on the 88 households.

Enrollment fee structure:

Households Enrollment Fee
Up to 10 $500
11 to 50 $1000
51 to 100 $1500
101 to 150 $2000
151 to 200 $2500
Each additional 50 households Additional $500

Enrollment fee includes the yearly fee per member organization for the rest of the calendar year in which the enrollment fee is paid. (It does not include the per camera fee) Continue reading

Neighborhood Guard Bylaws

The Neighborhood Guard Board has release the new Bylaws.

Bylaws Image

New Organizations wishing to join Neighborhood Guard must agree and adhere to the Bylaws.

The Bylaws can be changed by the members of Neighborhood Guard, (details in section 14 of the bylaws), we expect you to actively work with us to make the bylaws better every year.

First chance for changing the bylaws will be at the Annual Members meeting in October (Section 7 of the Bylaws)

If you have suggestions or proposal for changes to the bylaws make sure you submit them well in advance before the meeting so that they can make it into the notice for the meeting. (Section 8 and 14 of the Bylaws)

The current Board agrees that the Bylaws as they stand are “wordy” and could use additional editing to make them shorter and friendlier to read. If you are a wordsmith, legal-eagle or just likes fixing bylaws, please join our Bylaws Committee 😉

PDF Version of the bylaws. Neighborhood Guard Bylaws.v1 – Signed

Joining Neighborhood Guard

  • Only organized neighborhoods can join Neighborhood Guard as members.
  • Individual persons are encouraged to volunteer in the organization.

Typical member organizations include:

  • Home Owners Associations (HOA)
  • Neighborhood Watch Groups
  • Other Crime prevention Groups such as:
    • Crime stoppers
    • Block Parents
    • Crime watch
    • Montclair Organized Neighborhoods. (MONs)

Signing up and getting started.

  1. Request a presentation using the “Presentation Page
  2. Setup your organization if needed
  3. Make a budget and collect the money Continue reading