Greenline MACE Report Back

A lot of new attendees at the Mutual Aid Community Exchange meeting, both from Zine Fair and Instagram.

We had an engineer visit who knows a lot about the mesh networks. He brought a node for us to look at. The mesh networks are accessible via old phones, that only need to be connected to wifi once to download the app. Once the app is downloaded the mesh network is connected. We discussed the pro’s/con’s of meshtastic and meshcore. Seems like we’re leaning more towards meshcore for what system we implement on the “Mesh Network & TRILL” project. We have more 3d printing volunteered for creating the housing on these devices. Looking like the nodes could be as cheap as $43 each, if we solder and assemble them ourselves. There are many new potential spaces being volunteered to install, so the next step is getting a supplies list together and get an order in for the hardware. As always, we are asking for donations of old solar landscape lighting, so as to scavenge the solar cells from.

There’s a project proposal ruminating of creating and distributing custom maps of Omaha.
They could detail mutual aid projects around town, our mesh nodes, all the lil free pantries/libraries, bike trails, good foraging spots, natural springs in the city, etc. Obviously, this labor of love would have to be protected and given only to those trusted to keep it.

We heard about someone’s personal experiences volunteering with the Dandelion Network, in Lincoln, and why it wasn’t able to sustain. Dandelion Network started out with Emergency Response Training, and grew into a full-on mutual aid network. It was headed up by one person, and when they moved out of state, it collapsed. For this reason, alternating leadership positions is very important to us. We encourage others to facilitate, note take at the weekly meetings. “Each one, teach one, & many hands make light work.”