[pydotorg-www] PSF- Board Meeting Minutes -Approved- March 2012 - Please Post Online
Pat Campbell
patcam at python.org
Wed May 9 16:51:11 CEST 2012
Hello Pydotorg:
Could you please post the following "PSF board meeting minutes" online,
http://www.python.org/psf/records/board/minutes/ at the usual web
locations:
please see the attachment for the approved board meeting minutes for
March 2012.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
Thanks,
Pat
--
Pat Campbell
PSF Administrator/Secretary
patcam at python.org
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Title: 2012-03-26 PSF Board Meeting Minutes
Encoding: utf-8
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| The Python Software Foundation
| Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors
|
| March 26, 2012
|
|
A regular meeting of the Python Software Foundation ("PSF") Board of
Directors was held over Internet Relay Chat beginning at 16:00 UTC, 26
March 2012. Steve Holden presided at the meeting. Pat Campbell
prepared the minutes.
All votes are reported in the form "*Y-N-A*" (*in favor â?? opposed â??
abstentions*; e.g. "5-1-2" means "5 in favor, 1 opposed, and 2
abstentions").
.. sectnum::
.. contents::
Attendance
==========
The following members of the Board of Directors (8 of ll) were present at
the meeting: Steve Holden, Marc-Andre Lemburg, Martin von Löwis, David Mertz
Jesse Noller, Tim Peters, Jeff Rush [arrived at 12:06 & left at 12:13], and
Gloria Willadsen [arrived at 12:12 & left at 12:21]. Also in attendance were
Kurt Kaiser (Treasurer) and Pat Campbell (Secretary/Administrator).
Minutes of Past Meetings
========================
The 27 February 2012 Board meeting minutes were voted on and approved.
**RESOLVED**, that the minutes at http://mail.python.org/mailman/private
/psf-board/attachments/20120310/15bff493/attachment-0001.txt represent
a fair and accurate record of the February meeting.
Approved, 5-0-1.
Votes Taken Between Meetings
=============================
There was one (1) vote taken between meetings.
PSF Sponsor Membership Application from Lincoln Loop
----------------------------------------------------
**RESOLVED**, that the Board of Directors recommend Lincoln Loop
to the membership, as a future sponsor member of the PSF.
Approved via email vote on February 29, 2012, 8-0-0.
Treasurer Report
================
The monthly Treasurer's Report was provided to Board members by K.
Kaiser prior to the Board meeting and produced from Quickbooks Online.
Here is an exerpt from the treasurer's report on a few of the activities
the treasurer has been focused on:
For the month of March 2012, the treasurer provided a sumation of the financial
activities by saying:
Our assets were up by 290K in February, reflecting the payments for
PyCon registration and sponsorship. This was matched by a similar increase
in liability.
The next month will continue to be very busy financially, but the P&L
won't show much change until we recognize the results of PyCon 2012. At
that point (triggered by settling accounts with the convention center
and the hotels) the accrued expense and revenue will move to the P&L and
our assets and liabilities will return to normal levels.
He reported on the revenue and expense below:
Revenue:
In the month of February, YTD income was up by 87K, primarily due to
invoicing our PSF Sponsors for 2012 dues. Total equity rose to 476K.
Donations for the month were $1811.
Expense:
Outside Services:
Wendroff 1,150
The treasurer goes on to say:
AR is up by 6K due to PyCon 2012 Sponsor and PSF Sponsor invoicing and
collection activity..
Concerning the Honorary Associate Member Program (HAM), he said:
Associate Member program:
At PyCon, the Chairman and I made sufficient progress on the Associate
Member website (psfmember.org) to open it for enrollment. Useful
commments were received, resulting in improvements. I expect this
process to continue over the next few months.
We still need to link psfmember.org to python.org and make the
community aware of the Associate Member opportunity.
Kurt concluded his report with a list of financial business items he will
be focused on, he said:
My focus is on PyCon wrapup, AR/AP reduction, the Associate program, and
the increased activity and interest on the fiscal sponsorship front.
Progress Reports
================
The following board reports were submitted to the board mailing list
one week prior to this month's meeting. Please see a summary of each
board report listed below and a possible board discussion at the end
of the report(s):
Communication Status
--------------------
D. Hellmann, Communication Officer, reported on continued activities from
last month. He said:
1. Send announcement email about the blog to various mailing lists
(c.l.py, c.l.py.announce, etc.).
Brian is planning an email campaign with the Outreach & Education
committee, and the PSF blog may be included in the resources
discussed there.
Doug also reported on the new activities for the month. He reported:
1. None
He reported the following information on the planned activities for next month:
1. Via Steve Holden, we have some information to put together a story
about Python's use in schools from David Coopersmith along with a
student of his named Isaac. The same story involves some
praise for the trademark committee, which may or may not go into the
same post.
2. Community service award posts for Audrey Roy and Carl Trachte.
3. Post information about this summer's PyGames contest for students
(http://www.summerpygames.org/).
As far as the ongoing projects for the month are concerned, he reported:
1. Brian Curtin is working on a post about the video equipment
purchased by the PSF and how it has been used to record conference
talks and other events.
2. Recruiting other people to help write for the blog.
3. We are wrapping up the transition plan so Brian Curtin can take
over as Communications Director around the time of the next Board
elections this spring.
For tabled activities, D. Hellmann said:
1. PyCon video equipment loan/rental program post
There was some discussion of offering the PyCon video equipment to
PUGs for their meetings, but the mechanism to do it isn't in place,
yet.
Marketing Material
------------------
M.A.Lemburg, Marketing Material Project Manager, provided a summary
of his work. He said:
The project is lead by Marc-André Lemburg who is in contact with
the people behind the Plone brochure created by the German Zope
User Group (DZUG): Jan Ulrich Hasecke and Armin Stroß-Radschinski.
We started working on the concept a few weeks after World Plone Day
in April 2010 and had several meetings and conference calls to take
the idea forward.
For more details, please see the brochure support site at:
http://brochure.getpython.info/learn-more
Marc-André also reported on the progress of his project when he said:
For PyCon US, we created a small teaser version of the brochure
to get the attention of potential sponsors. The teaser was
distributed to all PyCon US attendees in the conference bag.
Unfortunately, no one of our team was present at PyCon US, but
we had contact scouts available at the conference:
http://brochure.getpython.info/newsletter/pycon-us-2012-special
Here's the link to the PDF of the teaser, in case you missed
it:
http://brochure.getpython.info/media/flyer/python-brochure-pycon-us-
2012-teaser-booklet/view
Armin has setup a complete web shop solution to make it easy for
sponsors to sign up:
http://brochure.getpython.info/mediadata
We have now finished the layout and texts for most of the
brochure and are actively looking for sponsors.
Sponsor Options
---------------
There are 8 half-page ads available in the brochure and
we want to have 30-40 reference sponsor entries as well.
The reference sponsor entries are meant for companies
providing Python services, have a fixed layout and provide
a great value for money: the companies will not only be
listed in 10.000+ copies of the brochure, but they will
also each get a box of around 120 copies of the brochure.
New Option: Educational Sponsorhip
----------------------------------
We have also added a new sponsor option: the education sponsorship.
This works much like the subscription sponsorship where a company
can order extra brochure copies at very reasonable prices. The
difference is that companies can order extra copies for educational
institutions of their choice or of the PSF's choice. The bill will
be paid by the company and the boxes will go straight to the
institution.
Please Help find Sponsors
-------------------------
We are trying to get the brochure ready in time for EuroPython 2012
in July this year, but whether that works out depends entirely on finding
enough sponsors in time to refinance the brochure production costs.
The deadline for this is June 1st.
If you know possible sponsors or are interested in sponsoring
the brochure yourself, please check the available sponsorship plans
we have available:
http://brochure.getpython.info/sponsorship
We will announce the call for sponsors on the usual lists, feeds
and our website, once we have the credit card system setup.
M.A Lemberg reported on the current issues the project is faced with.
He said:
If you know of interesting projects or companies using Python
to great things, please contact us and consider signing up as
contact scout to provide on-site help at conferences or other
events:
http://brochure.getpython.info/signup/contact-scout-signup
and, if you're interested in the project, please consider signing
up to our newsletter:
http://brochure.getpython.info/
Thanks !
As far as the future plans for this project are concerned, he reported:
If the project goes well, we'll follow up with a second edition
of the brochure, Python flyers using material extracted from the
brochure, translated versions of the brochure and also consider
creating marketing material more targeted at specific user groups or
application fields.
In the long run, we'd also like to take the idea of producing
marketing material beyond printed material and develop booth
setups, giveaways, CDs, etc. to support conference organizers and
local user groups wishing to promote Python at their events.
Moving PyPI to Amazon CloudFront
--------------------------------
The project leader, M.A. Lemburg, Moving PyPI to Amazon CloudFront,
reported on progress for the month:
"The project is currently on hold, since the team members don't have
time to put into this.
I'm beginning to believe that doing a sprint of sorts would likely
be the best way to move this forward, but I currently don't have more
cycles to spare (the brochure project has turned out to be very
work intense), so can't lead such an effort at the moment."
In terms of having any issues surrounding his project, M. A.
Lemburg reported no issues except one: he said, he just does not have
enough time to devote to his Moving PyPI to Amazon CloudFront project.
M. A. Lemburg also reported on the future plans for this project:
"Check to see whether a trigger based approach to S3 syncing
wouldn't be easier to implement right from the start."
Sprint Committee
----------------
J. Noller &/or B. Curtin, Sprint Committee Chair, reported that there
were no issues or blockages surrounding any sprint activities for the
month.
As far as the continued activities from last month, he reported:
1. Wrapping up the ledger project. All payments and expenses are
currently listed in a Google Spreadsheet, and we had previously
discussed adding a front-end (Google Form) for easier tracking of
receipts.
On his report of the new activities for the month, He reported:
The PyCon poster, split between Sprints and Outreach & Education,
went pretty well for both groups. It was a reminder to some, and
an introduction to most - either way, people seemed interested.
No new sprint funding requests were received in this period.
In terms of the new activities planned for next month. He wrote:
Begin another email and blog campaign to raise awareness of the group.
The poster we ran at PyCon got fairly good traffic and I handed out
about 70 business cards that we had made. A few people showed
immediate interest, so hopefully another push in the coming month
brings some groups to action.
As far as the ongoing projects for this committee, He said:
Wrapping up of the ledger project.
Outreach and Education Committee
--------------------------------
D. Mertz, Outreach and Education Committee Chair, reported on the issues
& blockages this committee was faced with for the month.
- As a preface, I apologize for being so remiss in generating reports for the
Outreach and Education Committee during the last months. The committee itself
has been rather inactive since the November 2011 grant of $3300 to Boston Python
Workshop. The grant of $1200 to PyLadies to subsidize some attendance at PyCon
was funded through the PyCon budget, but was also somewhat the result of
discussion by O&E (but all thanks and praise to Jesse for actually doing the
specifics).
However, he also provided a list of planned activities. He wrote:
- At the Pycon US conference, I was able to arrange a very productive in-person
meeting of many of the O&E members, as well as some additional observers who
are likely to participate as members or advisors to the committee. I believe
we had 13 attendees to that meeting, and made much more concrete plans for 2012.
Goals for 2012 and upshots of March meeting
- Create a website to coordinate local user group and education events. A
logical place to park such a site might be community.python.org (maybe
events.python.org or pythoncommunity.org), with links to that subdomain from the
home page of python.org.
** Use clever geolocation on mentioned website to point user to "events in
your local area." (check out integration with grical.org)
** Provide means (an interface on the site itself; an ability to upload calendars
or link to external ones; etc.) for local user group admins to indicate events.
Getting meetup.com events is probably pretty easy
** At the sprints at PyCon, Audrey created a basic template, and Tarek created
a bit more fleshed out code for a website of this sort. It should be hosted
at a temporary server "real soon now."
** Brian Curtin has commit access to python.org, so can make minimal necessary
changes to link python.org to such a community/outreach site.
** Move the existing python.org community information to new site.
** Form for requesting reimbursements of meetup.com fees
** Form for adding your user group event information (RSS feed)
** Map showing user group locations and upcoming events?
** Jessica has a blog post queued for pyfound on this, + will send mail
to UG organizers who asked
- Revive the group-organizers mailing list.
** Contact local user groups to encourage their participation in the list.
** Get someone from O&E to be an admin on that list.
- Add user group material to pythonguide.org
- Make it really obvious on the python.org front page that community is important.
- What could happen to make http://python.org/community/ more welcoming / useful
- Need to propose a budget for this year
- Summarize what we've done so far in a report to the PSF at large
- Do quarterly reports to the PSF (Jessica will do this)
- Speaker exchange program
** This idea exists somewhere (people added themselves to a list saying they were
happy to speak), so let's revive it.
- Revisit the user group organizer survey for more ideas
- What do user groups need money for:
** food
** space
** travel for speakers
- List of goals:
** Get 7 meetup.com fees covered
** Get 5 stories about us helping user groups get good speakers (doesn't have to
involve spending money)
** 10 grants for enabling 10 different user groups to achieve their goals
(diversity and outreach-focused)
** Grants for kids groups
- Observation: "the less specific you are, the fewer grants you get"
- Getting people from python-dev committed to GSoC (Brian will pull in
pythonmentors.com)
Google Summer of Code
---------------------
A. Riley, Google Summer of Code (GSoC), reported on the issues and/or
blockages this program may be faced with. He said:
None, smooth sailing so far.
Arc also reported on the new activities for the month when he wrote:
1. Applied and was accepted for Google Summer of Code 2012.
2. Signing up mentors and umbrella orgs. I'm speaking with
each mentor personally this year to ensure we have clear
lines of communication re: vacations, emergencies, etc.
A. Riley reported on the planned activities for next month. He said:
1. Signing up umbrella orgs and working with prospective
students until March 26th
2. Student applications open March 26 to April 6th.
3. Each umbrella'd org will review their applicants and get
prerequisites (patch, interviews, etc) in until April 16.
As far as the ongoing projects, he reported:
None - this year just began.
PSF Contracts and Contributor Agreement Forms
=============================================
Board members discussed and voted on a motion to clarify the
current contract and contributor agreement form signature process.
**RESOLVED**, that the PSF secretary be authorized to sign
contributor agreements on behalf of the PSF.
Approved, 6-0-0.
**RESOLVED**, that given no specific instructions on who is to
sign contracts required to implement projects approved by the Board
of Directors, the Chairman of the PSF is authorized to sign such
contracts on behalf of the PSF.
Approved, 5-0-1.
Kiwi PyCon 2012 Conference Funding
==================================
**RESOLVED**, that the PSF provide NZD 1,000 for the Kiwi PyCon 2012
Conference to be held in New Zealand.
Approved, 6-0-0.
Increase Budget for the Outreach and Education Committee
=========================================================
Board members discussed and later withdrew a motion
to increase the annual budget of the Outreach and Education
Committee from the 2011 budget of $5,000 to $10,000 for 2012.
However, this motion was temporarily withdrawn due primarily
to a need to first finalize the books for PyCon US 2012.
**RESOLVED**, that the Outreach and Education Committee
shall have authority to authorize PSF expenditure of up
to US$10,000 during the calendar year of 2012, to be spent
and divided as the Committee determines best assists in
promoting diversity with Python communities. No single
spending item shall exceed $2000 without prior approval
by the PSF Board. Any commitment of PSF funds by the
Committee shall be subject to the voting procedure
adopted by the Committee and set forth in its July 2011
Committee report (http://mail.python.org/mailman/private
/psf-board/2011-July/015026.html)
Motion Withdrawn.
PSF Adds Newest Employee to PyCon US
====================================
**RESOLVED**, that the Foundation hire Ewa Jodlowska as
"PSF Event Coordinator" as an employee and officer of the
foundation focused on the continued management and success
of PyCon, at a salary agreed to between herself and the
board of directors.
Approved, 6-0-0.
Other Business
===============
None
Adjournment
===========
S. Holden adjourned the meeting at 12:57 UTC.
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