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PSF Meeting Minutes for Sept. 30, 2016

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The Python Software Foundation
Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors

September 30, 2016

A regular meeting of the Python Software Foundation ("PSF") Board of Directors was held over Group Conference Call via phone and Internet Relay Chat beginning at 1:00 UTC (GMT/Zulu), on September 30, 2016. Betsy Waliszewski took notes/minutes.

All votes are reported in the form "Y-N-A" (in favor-Y‚opposed-N‚abstentions-A; e.g. "5-1-2" means "5 in favor, 1 opposed, and 2 abstentions").

1   Attendance

The following members of the Board of Directors (10 of 11) were present at the meeting: Lorena Mesa, Naomi Ceder, Kushal Das, Diana Clarke, Trey Hunner, Carol Willing, Jackie Kazil, Van Lindberg, Annapoornima Koppad, and Younggun Kim.

Kurt Kaiser (Treasurer), Betsy Waliszewski (Event Planner and Administrator), Mark Mangoba (IT Manager), and Ewa Jodlowska (Director of Operations) were also in attendance.

2   Minutes of Past Meetings

The 12 September 2016 Board meeting minutes were voted on and approved.

RESOLVED, that the PSF approve the minutes at https://mail.python.org/mailman/private/psf-board/2016-September/040110.html as representing a true and accurate record of the September 12, 2016 meeting.

Approved 6-0-1

3   Meetup Expenses Approved

Below is a list of Meetup expenses the PSF has approved since the [May 10th] board meeting:

3.1   PythonCR

$29.94 USD - PythonCR meetup group

4   Board and Staff Reports

Note: Reports are received once a month.

4.1   Ewa Jodlowska

PyCon - Continuing to project manage tasks per the timeline I created for PyCon 2017. This month is has been getting the CFP applications up to date on the website by Sept 30 as well as launching launch-day sponsorship. I worked with Brandon to get the site ready and populating it with necessary sponsor benefits and suggested changes to sponsor application form. We also project managed a new designer for the logo. We decided to not use the company we have been using previous years in order to make the design simpler and to save money. I have sent out 3 email blasts for launch day sponsors and will send another batch after launch. I have also created a tracking spreadsheet to show what the response rate is and what the sign-up rate is. I have created a new PyCon standup method to include the co-chair and Betsy and created a new ongoing agenda for that set of standups. I have worked on transferring knowledge for the financial aid process to Betsy so Betsy can support the volunteers going forward and step in when necessary to complete tasks. We had a call with the new FA team, old FA team to go over procedures and any questions. I have also reviewed the PyCon dinner contracts that Betsy has signed for 2017. Betsy and I have created a PyCon 2017 reg form and sent it to CTE. I created better housing analysis based on 2016 pickup to help me decide how many blocks to book for 2017. I have continued booking hotel contracts for 2017 and also sending those to CTE. I researched airbnb to see if they do blocks for conferences or track for commission, but they do not. I have worked with CTE on a timeline to launch reg on Oct 17. I have about 75% of the PyCon 2017 budget revised and should have it ready for board review in October. I have moved all of the past payment for PyCon 2017 to the 2017 ledger. I have started to document the PyCon chair responsibilities for our current co-chair and added a link to that documentation to our PyCon Staff document that is used for on boarding. This month I documented how the chair is involved in sponsorship. I have been sending suggestions to Betsy on the catering she is working on for 2017. We discussed how to arrive at probables, especially for Sprints and how to scale down menus to make them more affordable. I contacted OCC to start the conversation of matching space for 2017 to what we had in 2016. Working on updating specific pages on us.pycon.org in order to be ready for Monday’s launch. I reviewed for the fourth time, a new set of contracts for 2018/19 and found more edits that need to be made. I continue to answer sponsor emails and meet with the PyCon staff when necessary. PSF - I have reviewed the Colvin models in more detail and also their example contract for fiscal sponsorship. I have sent it to Van for further review. Tried to negotiate a lower cost for python.be but was unsuccessful because the agreement had already been signed. Purchased python.be. Created https://www.python.org/psf/sponsorship/sponsors so we have a listing of sponsors by level and continue to maintain it when new sponsors are added. Have worked with Lorena to review blogger applications and worked with her to select our candidates. Reviewed treasurer/accountant applications again for those that we selected to have calls with. Had calls with all 5 selected candidates and took notes on all of them. Had 2nd round interviews with 2 selected candidates and took notes on all of them. Had two phone calls with the references provided by one of the applicants. I worked on creating a volunteer welcome letter to be sent to new grants-wg volunteers and any other new volunteers that join the PSF in a WG. I continue to work with Manuel and Nick Coghlan on the documentation that Nick created for PSF Ambassadors. I have worked with Betsy to create the rest of the year days-off calendar. Working with Mark to create RFP for CiviCRM contractor. Attended the CiviCRM summit with Kurt and Mark. Met with Kurt onsite to discuss possible new hires and also other accounting things he is working on. I took notes on the conference and also created a wiki page for staff to add their notes when they attend an education conference: https://wiki.python.org/psf/Staff%20Conference%20Reports. During the conference, with Kurt’s idea about comparable pay, I created a new policy for employee compensation. I also created employee evaluations. I continue to work with all staff as necessary and review their work as necessary.

4.2   Kurt Kaiser

Continued the diverse, but routine, activities needed to process all the incoming and outgoing financial transactions (checks, wires, PayPal, ACH, charges) for the PSF and PyCon, working with payees to get their wire or credit card details as needed. Paid bills and grants. Made deposits. Created Quickbooks Online (QBO) transactions for all of these. Updated the grants, PyCon Tutorial/FA, PyCon Sponsor, and PSF Sponsor status spreadsheets to reflect activity. Reconciled and reviewed the seven PSF bank/credit accounts. Reviewed the donations and allocated them to our eleven fiscal sponsorees. Transferred donated funds to the Boston Python PEX card. Reimbursed fiscal sponsoree expense and meetup.com expense. Reviewed open invoices and designated those needing statements sent. Processed the biweekly payroll and matched those transactions in QBO. General review of financial status. Attended Board meeting and staff meetings. Attended a CiviCRM training and CiviCRM Summit in Washington DC (refer to the Wiki for report). Met with SunTrust and Bank of America representatives to update the signature cards on all of our accounts. Submitted documents to implement an upgrade of our online banking and added online wire transfers. Participated with the Operations Manager in several telcons with Assistant Treasurer candidates. Worked through an issue caused by Rackspace not properly enabling swap during the psfmember.org conversion.

4.3   Mark Mangoba

In the month of September, Kurt, Ewa and I attended a 2 day CiviCRM training that allowed us to learn more in depth about our CRM's capabilities and features to look forward to in the new version of CiviCRM (4.x). The conference also gave us an opportunity to network with other organizations and learn how their organization uses CiviCRM. At the moment, we are working on a RFP process on our future plans to upgrade CiviCRM and developing a membership API to synchronize our membership database with our CRM. The IT Manager for the month of September also had several Systems Administration duties and continued to develop more documentation in regards to our Infrastructure.

4.4   Betsy Waliszewski

The Sponsor Working group approved 2 new sponsors at the Iron Sponsor Level. 2 other sponsors are being voted on. Completed final edits on the PSF Sponsor Prospectus. Sent out emails to 84 PyCon sponsors, and to 30 current sponsors. Added link on the sponsorship page to download the prospectus. Ewa made requested changes to the page to show the sponsor logos by level. Updated all PSF sponsor records in CiviCRM. Sent out statements for outstanding invoices. Continuing outreach to encourage more signups. As the new admin for PyCon FinAid, I set up a phone meeting with the new chair (Karan Goel) to help facilitate knowledge transfer of past financial aid chairpersons. Completed edits to FinAid application and FinAid info page. Finalized the PyCon 2017 prospectus for the launch, in addition to updating sponsor pages. Signed contracts for the PyCon dinner venues. Completed catering budget/probable. Updated 2017 Sponsor Info page that goes into the exhibitor kit. Continuing to review RFPs for PyCon 2020-21.

4.5   Lorena Mesa

Attended all PSF meetings. With Ewa, started reviewing PSF blogger submissions defining next steps for hiring. Met with other BoD members Jackie, Annapoornima, Naomi and Trey to discuss how we will distribute work and define the scope of the PyCon Organizers manual. Group has decided to use GitHub and will work to include community actors and voices in the creation of the manual. Goal is to meet with some content to review in October. Started a conversation with PyCaribbean organizers to outline ways to find more speakers for the February 2017 conference and develop online content for PyCaribbean in the lead up to the conference. With BoD member Jackie met Lynn Root and Thursday Bram to revisit the PyLadies blog, the blog will be moved to a new repository and have additional documentation written to help other bloggers get started submitting an article. By revamping the blog I hope to be able to make it easier to cross list content from the PyLadies blog with the PSF blog and to use the blog as a recruitment and marketing tool for the inaugural PyLadies Conference in 2017. I've submitted a bid to be lead organizer for the PyLadies Conference as well.

4.6   Annapoornima Koppad

Started the PyData Bangalore meetup group. Conducted one online tutorial on Introduction to Python programming on behalf of Pyladies Bangalore group. Worked on the blog post for PSF Fellow Nomination process. Currently working on the PSF Organizers manual. I am also working towards having one monthly meetup for PyData Bangalore. The topics for the meetups include one advanced topic on using Python for Data Analytics at least one for a month. Attended Pycon India 2016 at Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi. I have proposed to speak about PSF's role in promoting python programming all over the world. I hope it gets selected for the Open Spaces. Started working on making video tutorials on Python programming basics. I am running to be the organizer of PyLadies conference in Bangalore.

4.7   Van Lindberg

No report submitted.

4.8   Diana Clarke

This past month was largely focused on grants oversight and providing board continuity in the form of historical context. Ewa has taken the lead on the compensation committee front, and my efforts to re-skin pycon.org are stalled waiting on the site owner to confirm direction. PyCon Canada will take place November 2016 in Toronto, and while I'm no longer actively involved in organizing it, I have been amplifying promotional tweets and will be attending. For a change of pace, I have also been doing technical reviews of the Python 3 version of the Python Module of the Week by Doug Hellmann – a resource I found immensely helpful when I was first learning Python.

4.9   Carol Willing

Keynote at PyData Carolinas

4.10   Carrie Anne Philbin

Organised and ran the PyConUK education track. One day for educators and another day for children. Handed out 300 BBC micro:bits to developers and 100 to children at PyConUK.

4.11   Jackie Kazil

Shared stories of how Python empowers women with 8 Ambassadors to the United States & work of PSF at Women's Ambassadors lunch. Continued organizing PyData DC, which is on Oct. 7, 8, 9. Continued as Grants WG chair. On-boarded 3 new voting members. Recruited for work at MIT -- had lots of great conversations about open source and Python at the event. On-boarded new organizer to PyLadies DC, who organized first Meetup. Working on conference handbook w/ Lorena, et al. Working w/ Julia Elman on the meetup organizer burn out problem.

4.12   Kushal Das

Helped PyLadies to organize, and present in PyCon India for the first time. Red Hat helped by sharing the booth space. It was a huge success. We also had a full house PyLadies open space discussion on community building. Represented PSF in PyCon India along with VanL who had a keynote in the conference. Took a workshop in PICT college Pune on command line application developments in Python. Doing regular workshops in the college helped us to get new members into the local PyLadies group. Participated, and helped in organizing September PyLadies Pune meetup. Helped in a special PyLadies meetup to teach IRC, and various other tools related to Open Source development on 28th September. Attended regular PSF board meetings. Talking to the different grants applications from India to understand their requirements. Helped a few of the events to find local speakers as required, and also met the event organizers present in PyCon India.

4.13   Naomi Ceder

Continued involvement with Grants WG and recruiting new WG members; chaired first September meeting of PSF board, participation in email discussions and votes.

4.14   Trey Hunner

I engaged Python community members online in an attempt to identify specific problems the PSF could help resolve and discussed my findings with the rest of the PSF board. I'm hoping to help strengthen the relationship between the PSF and the greater Python community. I helped kick off the first official (long overdue) SD Python organizers meeting during which we discussed successes, issues, and future goals.

4.15   Younggun Kim

Successful PyCon APAC sprint is a good influence on Korean Open Source Software Lab which is an affiliated organization of the Korean Ministry of Science. The org supports open source developers in Korea and I belong to the lab as a developer. The KOSS lab organized a week long OSS development sprint for Sept. 24-25. The project is listed here: https://www.kosshackathon.kr/project. In Tokyo for PyCon JP now. Though we don't have a booth here, I'll host an open space on the PSF.

5   Work Group Reports

Note: Reports are received once a month.

5.1   Trademark

No report submitted.

5.2   Scientific Python

No activity since the last meeting.

5.3   Marketing

Continuing to work on the postcard/flyers to take/send to events encouraging membership in the PSF.

5.4   Sponsorship Bundle

No activity since the last meeting.

5.5   PSF Sponsors

Approved 2 new sponsors at the Iron Sponsor Level. Currently 2 applications being reviewed. Going forward, we decided to re-word resolutions to read: RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation approve 1korting.com as an Iron Level Sponsor.

5.6   Cuban Pythonistas

SciPyLA Conference is lined up. Continuing to plan for this.

5.7   Bylaws

No report submitted.

5.8   Packaging

No report submitted.

6   Votes Approved by Working Groups

Below are resolutions approved by the various PSF Working Groups since the September 12 board meeting:

6.1   PSF Sponsors Work Group

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation approve the sponsor member application at the Iron Sponsor Level from 1korting.com.

Approved 8-0-0 September 15, 2016

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation approve the sponsor member application at the Iron Sponsor Level from Sticker Mule.

Approved 8-0-0 on September 20, 2016

6.2   Grants Work Group

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation's Grants Working Group grant $300 USD to Django Girls, running in conjunction with PyconZA in Cape Town, South Africa, October 6-7, 2016.

Approved 8-0-0 on September 21, 2016

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation’s Grants Working Group grant $687.50 for the Manipal University Python Developer Conference (MUPy).

Approved 7-0-0 on September 23, 2016

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation's Grants Working Group grant $3000 USD to PyCaribbean on February 18-19, 2017 in Bayamón, Puerto Rico.

Approved 8-0-0 on September 28, 2016

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation's Grants Working Group grant $600 to Bay Area Python3.x Rigorous Indulgence Group (BayPRIGgies) for 6 hour tutorial event of “Compatible Advanced Python” on 9/25 & 10/23.

Denied 8-0-0 on September 28, 2016

7   Approvals / Votes by Email

7.1   PyCon Japan 2016

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation sponsor PyCon Japan 2016 at the Silver Level in the amount of 100,000 JPY (approximately 978 USD).

Approved, 11-0-0 on September 15, 2016

7.2   TechPy Workshop 2016 in Baroda, India

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation grant $500 USD to the TechPy Workshop 2016 in Baroda, India that is happening on October 1, 2016.

Approved, 11-0-0 on September 23, 2016

8   New Business

8.1   3rd Quarter Community Service Award

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation award the 2016 3rd Quarter Community Service Award to Sheila Miguez and William Kahn-Greene for their monumental work in creating and supporting PyVideo over the years.

Approved 9-0-0

8.2   Pykids

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation grant $300 USD to the Pykids program that begins in October 2016 at Fremont Mission elementary, middle and high school in Fremont, CA.

Denied 3-7-0

8.3   GeoPython 2016

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation grant $2500 - Gold Level Sponsorship - to the GeoPython 2017 Conference that is happening May 8-10, 2017 in Muttenz, Switzerland.

Approved 10-0-0

9   Other Business / Discussions

  1. Update on our blogger program: 2 and potentially 3 new people are interested. Will do onboarding to new bloggers after an invitation email from Lorena.
  2. Grant request from PyCon Zimbabwe: we are unable to send funds there due to the the sanctions imposed by the US government, so we were not able to vote on it.

10   Meeting Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 1:38 UTC (GMT/Zulu).