The PSF Python Brochure is now printed and available for shipment

We shipped the first few boxes to sponsors, the PythonCamp in Cologne and a total of around 600 copies to Python 2014 in Montreal.

Even though I did not get a chance to announce the availability of the brochures at the conference in a lightning talk (for some reason the talk was rejected), I did a blog post mentioning the availability and coordinated with Ewa to have a table to display and distribute the 600 copies to the attendees.

Once we had the table installed at PyCon, it took just 3-4 hours to have all of them distributed.

Feedback was very positive and people immediately understood the intent of the brochure - providing a tool for them to use to promote Python at their work place, in their community, schools, universities, etc.

We are now looking into setting up a dedicated strategy for shipping the brochure, so that we can easily and swiftly respond to shipping requests.

People already contacted us to have more copies sent, so even though we haven't announced the shipping plans yet, people are already interested in receiving more :-)

If you're interested in receiving some brochures, please contact me or Ewa.

Python Stickers / Merchandise

Other than the brochure, we also have stickers available for use at conferences and user group meetings.

I took a set of stickers to PythonCamp. Ewa and I each took around 600 stickers to PyCon 2014 in Montreal.

I also sent a few stickers to user groups. If you'd like some, feel free to contact me and I'll get them sent out. I have enough in stock to last for about 2-3 months.

Jessica brought up the idea of creating more such giveaways for conferences and user groups. I had already collected ideas in the PSF wiki:

https://wiki.python.org/psf/Merchandise

The plan is to have the marketing work group create these and, most importantly, sort out the logistics for shipping them. Creation is usually done quickly and is fun, but logistics get difficult once you do them at a global scale and is plain work.

PSF Conference Kits / PSF at conferences

I took the EU PSF Conference Kit to the PythonCamp in Cologne and also did a lightning and full talk about the new PSF structure to get people aware of the changes.

See https://wiki.python.org/psf/MembershipModelTalks for the talk slides.

I plan to take the kit to the EuroPython conference in Berlin, but still have to figure out the logistics.

No updates on the kits in the US or South America.

The US kit was not present at PyCon in Montreal. I guess we should look into finding a champion to manage the US kit to put it to some good use.

PSF Marketing Work Group

I'd like to setup a new PSF working group for managing and coordinating PSF marketing activities, after the board elections.

If anyone is interested in joining such a working group, please let me know.

Python Events Calendar

I'm continuing discussions with national and local groups, encourage people to make use of the Python events calendars:

http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonEventsCalendar

and help maintain it, along with a team of volunteers.

The new site shows the calendars, but still has a lot of issues with the calendar app implementation (for which we've opened tickets on the tracker).

Meanwhile, we are getting a constant stream of listing requests to the events mailing list and via events at python.org:

https://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonEventsCalendar#Mailing_List

It seems the calendars are now reasonably well known and people are putting them to good use.

The Twitter account is also being used a bit, but could need some more followers:

https://twitter.com/pythonevents

It gets all newly added events as tweets.

I guess doing a blog post about it will likely bring in more followers.

Python Jobs Board

Work on the jobs app is moving forward, albeit more slowly than we originally planned due to real life kicking in.

The dev team around Jon Clements is finishing up the changes needed to start using the app this week. Once these changes are applied, we'll then kick off the review process and launch the app on the website using the phase 1 changes:

https://wiki.python.org/moin/PSF%20Python%20Job%20Board/Jobs%20App%20Feature%20Requests

I've now created a separate org account on github, to make it easier for the dev team to work on the jobs app:

https://github.com/python-jobs-board/pythondotorg

New developments will be sent as pull requests to the main site. We have

Melanie who's leading the efforts to get the posting into the database will then likely take over the review part.

Due to the extended dev period needed to get the jobs app to a usable state, we've lost some volunteer momentum. I hope to reactivate at least some of them for the review process in the coming weeks and may do another call for volunteers if needed.

Melanie also has some ideas on using gamification to help spur volunteer interest.

More information on the jobs board team is available on our wiki page at:

https://wiki.python.org/moin/PSF%20Python%20Job%20Board

Register pycon TLDs

No progress, since the board hasn't yet decided which domains to register.

Monitor domain renewals

Gandi.net will inform us renewals that need to be processed in due time, so no extra action is needed on our part.

We've had a larger batch of renewals end of April and 4 more scheduled for May.

Kurt has added USD 1000 on April 21 to the account to make sure all renewals run through fine, since Gandi did not send out a reminder with the total due amount for this batch for some unknown reason. They did again for the upcoming May batch, so it looks like an error on Gandi's part. Fortunately, Kurt quickly acted on this, so no problems occurred.

The account now has a balance of over 655 USD, the next batch in May will cost around USD 175, so no action needs to be taken for the May renewals.

Current status

Please see the wiki page for details on the current status and a list of registered domains:

https://wiki.python.org/psf/PSF%20Domains

Three domains did not successfully renew.

One is due to a problem with the registry, and the other two due to some email problems with registry confirmation emails. We're looking into these and have opened a support ticket with Gandi.