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PSF Meeting Minutes for Aug. 22, 2017

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

August 22, 2017

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 16:00 UTC (GMT/Zulu, on August 22, 2017. 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 (12 of 13) were present at the meeting: Van Lindberg, Lorena Mesa, Naomi Ceder, Jackie Kazil, Kushal Das, Paul Hildebrandt, Paola Katherine Pacheco, Thomas Wouters, Marlene Mhangami, Trey Hunner, Kenneth Reitz, and Ewa Jodlowska. Eric Holscher was represented by proxy.

Kurt Kaiser (Treasurer), Betsy Waliszewski (Event Planner and Administrator), Phyllis Dobbs (Controller/Assistant Treasurer Accountant), and Mark Mangoba (IT Manager) were also in attendance.

3   Meetup Expenses Approved

  • $179.88 USD - DerbyPy User Group for 12 months
  • $89.94 - Chicago PyLadies User Group for 6 months
  • $60.00 - Python User Group Freiburg

4   Board and Staff Reports

Note: These are received once a month.

4.1   Ewa Jodlowska

  • PyCon
    • Reviewed old notes to create a list for conference chair detailing out the customization work we had done on our website
    • Reviewed and signed design contract for PyCon site design; added their timeline into our timeline; reviewed designs and helped select final
    • Reviewed Event Coordinators mini budgets created for 2020/21 site selection; improved calculations
    • Started to work on 2018 PyCon budget
    • Met with conference chair at PyOhio to discuss “incubator” program; continued the discussion after PyOhio via a conference call and working on a blog about it
    • Signed an additional hotel contract for 2018/19
    • Had a meeting with Program Committee chair and Conference chair
    • Sent notes to posters, education summit, and tutorials chairs to get the CFP process started
    • Sent notes to potential staff
    • Worked on 2018 space - contracted more space with the convention center
    • Reviewed and signed LOI for 2020/21; reviewed contracts and provided feedback for what was lacking to the convention center
    • Sent out RFP info to two AV companies; working on 3 more
    • Reviewed contract for reg/housing and signed
  • PSF
    • Worked on presentation for EuroPython; staffed the PSF booth, attended EuroPython and gave my presentation
    • Worked with IT Manager on grant descriptions for CiviGrant
    • Reviewed the CiviGrant form and tested it; created reports for financial use and for better tracking
    • Worked on getting the PSF Fellow Work Group started and started working on a policy for the WG; nominated several people; worked to get the policy voted by the WG
    • Created a Helios vote for the PSF Fellow Q3 nominees and sent out to WG members
    • Held a training with Event Coordinator to go over how to add logos to pydotorg
    • Attended PyOhio and volunteered
    • Reviewed the MOSS application and discussed hiring with the group
    • Helped with a few PyCon PL emails as the US Ambassador
    • Reviewed the General Counsel’s draft contract for Fiscal Sponsorship and provided feedback
    • Had a call with two directors to discuss the future of PyLadies
    • Continued the process for getting a face to face meeting scheduled for the directors
    • Had calls with Sprout Social and Event Coordinator
    • Wrote a blog for the PSF blog about the recent bylaw changes
    • Reviewed Event Coordinator’s prospectus for PSF sponsorship
    • Met with Controller to discuss employee insurance and PyCon 2018 budget training
    • Updated the list of community service awards based on new nominations and got the board discussing options for 3rd Qtr
    • Wrote up training material for the staff on how we will move over to CiviGrant; held training on conference call & screen share
    • Researching CiviContribute & campaign pages for possible future use
    • Continue to manage the Grants WG and PSF board grants and the research necessary for all
    • Continue to review time sheets
    • Continue to meet with Event Coordinator and IT Manager regularly on calls
    • Continue to chat with Controller and Treasurer about accounting stuff via Slack

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. Made deposits. Created Quickbooks Online (QBO) transactions for all of these. Updated the PyCon Tutorial/FA, PyCon Sponsor, and PSF Sponsor status spreadsheets to reflect activity. Reconciled and reviewed the 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. 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 meetings.
  • Participated in setting up the CiviGrants facility. Approved grant wires and handled communication with the Controller relative to ongoing wire payments.
  • Set up a Payoneer account and finished processing the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) invoice. This will be at least $19,200 for 2017.
  • Wrapped up PyCon payments. Dealt with an HR/compensation issues.
  • Completed the telephonic part of the audit on our Worker's Compensation payments for the last year. Provided supporting information. It appears this will become a yearly task.
  • Provided the yearly financial statements to FirstData, our PyCon registration payment portal.
  • Still dealing with the Karimnagar grant wire! Requested updates were done weeks ago but payee funds are still not released by Indian bank.
  • Prepared condensed financial reports for the python.org website.

4.3   Betsy Waliszewski

  • PSF / Sponsors / Sponsorship
  • Completed my own strategic plan for 2017, to be reviewed by Ewa.
  • Working on blog about events in Nigeria, and hope to have it approved and posted soon.
  • Continued routine tasks of invoicing, sending out statements, and keeping records up-to-date.
  • Continued to support the grants WG by sending out notifications and minuting resolutions.
  • Continued taking notes at board meetings, posting minutes and approved resolutions, notifying grant recipients and special award winners, as well as recording contributor forms and self-certifications.
  • Continued working on proposal plan to bring in new PSF sponsors. New levels to be voted on at August 22, 2017 meeting.
  • Working with Beatrix Bodo (PyCon sticker designer) on new PSF sticker designs and PSF flyer.
  • Ordered PSF banner and tablecloth for Africa conference kit, and new tablecloth for Southeast Asia kit.
  • Sent stickers to many different user groups, including several board directors.
  • Worked with Sponsor WG to evaluate new PSF sponsors.
  • Took on new task to facilitate of our social media presence, with Ewa and Trey’s support. Using the Sprout Social platform to plan, schedule, and publish content. Regularly posting “evergreen” tweets about donating and membership. Had weekly calls wit Sprout Social and participated in 3 webinars.
  • Finalizing plans for a membership / donation drive to begin in September.
  • Participated in CiviGrant training
  • PyCon 2018
  • Completed draft of launch email to be sent to new sponsors, and 2017 sponsors.
  • Updated 2018 sponsor pages in preparation for launch.
  • Worked on Food Truck lunch options with Destination Cleveland.
  • Concentrating on getting Diamond and Platinum level sponsorships, resigning current sponsors, and signing new sponsors through personal contact, social media, and our web site.
  • Worked on menu for special events

4.4   Mark Mangoba

  • Assisting the community with Infrastructure related request.
  • Meeting with Rackspace, solidified expectations of credits and determination of continued support. Laid out our position of notifying the PSF at least 6 months if credits we’re terminated.
  • Completed the submission with the Packaging Workgroup of the MOSS grant and follow up questions from Mozilla.
  • Worked with Berker as needed with the on-going pythondotorg improvements and Django upgrade.
  • Resolved communication issues relating to bugs.python.org hosting and outage that occurred.
  • Continued to work with the PSF Staff on the Grant Request form.
  • Worked on a couple issues regarding psfmember.org.

4.5   Phyllis Dobbs

  • Human Resources & Benefits
  • Replace United Healthcare employee health insurance plan with Blue Cross Blue Shield via ADP as of August 1st. This plan provides far better employee benefits and is much simpler from an administrative perspective.
  • Investigate potential healthcare funding options for active employees on Medicare and deductible/out-of-pocket coverage, such as HRAs and FSAs.
  • CiviCRM/Grants Reporting
  • Continue working with the team to implement CiviCRM grant tracking system and recommend accounting-specific items.
  • Update the Grants spreadsheet to provide more detailed information about grants approved vs. paid for 2016 and 2017.
  • PayPal
  • Move to reviewing & recording PayPal at transaction level, which provides more detail about donations (previously recorded one line for the month).

Accounts Payable

  • Recorded and initiated payment for grant and meetup reimbursements throughout the month. Includes working with Kurt & SunTrust to acquire access to returned wire documentation.

4.6   Lorena Mesa

As a new member of the PSF Grants WG began to participate in discussions of grants and vote on grants in WG. Attended monthly PSF board meeting as usual. Spoke at and attended DjangoCon USA. Met with Ernest regarding PyCon 2018/2019 to discuss Pyladies broader participation, learn how to support PyCon staffing. Continued research on what is best format to use for a Pyladies Conference.

4.7   Trey Hunner

  • I gave two talks at PyCon Australia, handed out many dozens of python3 and PSF stickers, and held a live chat with attendees about what PyCon AU is like and why others should attend. I also had a number of long discussions with passionate Python community members about education, community organizing, and regional conference organization.
  • At DjangoCon US I held a sprint during which we started a psf-community-resources repository for cheatsheets directed at specific people who could be benefited by particular types of PSF involvement. I brainstormed ideas with other contributors and we came up with ideas for cheatsheets directed at Python meetup organizers, workshop organizers, open source code contributors and community volunteers, and those interested in reviewing into the PSF's financial history.
  • I also held two chats with DjangoCon attendees and organizers about what DjangoCon is like, how it's run, and how they continue to improve each year. I had hallway discussions with a few other board members and other community members about the Python community and the role of both the PSF and the DSF. I shared python3 and PSF stickers with many conference attendees.
  • In between traveling I've also chatted a little bit with Betsy and Ewa about the direction we should take the PSF Twitter account.

4.8   Naomi Ceder

Chaired July board meeting, active in email and Slack discussions, worked on policies and recruiting for PSF fellows WG, discussed considerations for adding features to PyCon, preparations for PyCon ES (keynote and PSF session), accepted invitation to keynote at PyCon Colombia.

4.9   Jackie Kazil

No report submitted.

4.10   Van Lindberg

No report submitted.

4.11   Kushal Das

No report submitted.

4.12   Paul Hildebrandt

Active in email and slack. Participated in Marketing WG working on a new flyer and discussing new stickers. I spoke at the Siggraph VFX Reference Platform (http://www.vfxplatform.com/) BOF. The entire VFX community is working towards Python 3 in 2019. I posted the text of my presentation to the discussion forum in order to further discussion. (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/vfx-platform-discuss/Nfsl8Uf-dpU)

4.13   Eric Holscher

Went to Djangocon, gave a lightning talk about the PSF, and talked with a number of folks about the PSF. Tried to get funding for the Django Girls from the PSF, but failed

4.14   Kenneth Reitz

No report submitted

4.15   Marlene Mhangami

Worked on a 3 day mentorship session for young women using Python programming. Was able to connect girls in Zimbabwe to Pythonistas from USA and India. Prepared for PyCon Zimbabwe which will happen from the 23rd of August to the 25th of August. Still working on getting regional conference kit for Africa.

4.16   Thomas Wouters

Continued administering #python on Freenode and following along with the Infrastructure/Packaging WGs PyPI developments. Attended the 5-day SHA2017 hacking event; handed out 150 each of the Python 3 and PSF stickers, mostly through a collective sticker table in the volunteer tent. (A longer report on SHA2017 was sent to the board list.)

4.17   Paola Katherine Pacheco

This month I took advantage to advance all the events that I am organizing and finish my Python Brasil keynote. I'm with Django Girls Mendoza, Django Girls Python Brazil, Argentina DevDay. I also used to talk directly with the pyladies and some groups of python so that they could talk to me about ideas, which they believe can improve in the community, in python.

5   Work Group Reports

Note: These are received once a month.

5.1   Marketing

In August, we discussed "fun" promotional materials such as a new sticker, and had a community discussion on how to help python and its related projects find volunteers.

5.2   Sponsorship

Approved two iron and one silver level sponsors. Discussed updated PSF Sponsor Prospectus and provided feedback.

5.4   Packaging

Received questions back from Mozilla about the MOSS application. The WG worked on answering them.

5.5   PSF Fellow

Voted in new policy for the work group. We also created a Helios vote for the Q3 nominees that we will review and discuss. Decisions will be made by end of September. Decision making policy can be seen here: https://wiki.python.org/psf/FellowWG/Charter. We also voted in two new members.

5.6   Trademarks

We've had our usual number of requests. We had two TM cases reported to us by Manabu TERADA(PyConJp)and are still unresolved. In both cases, companies are trying to register the Python word mark in classes and for purposes which overlap with our uses of the mark. Van wanted to look into this, but we have so far not received any update on these. Manabu knows a Japanese lawyer who could help us.

6   Votes Approved by Working Groups

Below are resolutions approved by the various PSF Working Groups since the May 10, 2017 board meeting:

6.1   Grants

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $1,250 USD to the Django Girls evening happening in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan October 1, 2017

Approved 7-0-0, July 26, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $1,250 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Ho, Ghana September 29-30, 2017

Approved 7-0-0, July 26, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group sponsor the Python Brazil 13 conference happening October 6-11, 2017 in the amount of $4,500 USD

Approved 7-0-0, July 25, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $480 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Novo Hamburgo, Brazil August 25-26, 2017

Approved 9-0-0, August 2, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $534 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Trento, Italy September 23, 2017

Approved 8-0-0, August 3, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation's Grants Working Group grant $650 USD to the Django Girls Rize, Turkey event happening October 21, 2017.

Approved 7-0-0, August 4, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $700 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Freetown, Nigeria October 14-15 2017

Approved 10-0-0, August 8, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $975 to the Django Girls event happening in Lautech, Nigeria November 4, 2017

Approved 7-0-0, August 9, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group sponsor PyCon Spain 2017 in the amount of $3,500 USD. The event is happening in Cáceres, September 22-24.

Approved 7-0-0, August 9, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $700 USD to the PyBITS conference happening in Hyderabad, India October 27-29, 2017

Approved 7-0-0, August 10, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $600 USD to the PyLadies event happening at PyCon PL August 16-18, 2017

Approved 8-0-0, August 14, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation grant $845 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Koforidua, Ghana November 10-11, 2017

Approved 7-0-0, August 15, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group sponsor PyCon Pune, India 2018 in the amount of $6,000 USD (Gold Sponsorship Level)

Approved 7-0-0, August 16, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $810 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Mbale, Uganda September 16, 2017

Approved 8-0-0, August 18, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group sponsor the PyCon India 2017 conference in the amount of $2,800 USD

Approved Approved 8-0-0, August 18, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $500 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Wrocław, Poland September 16, 2017

Approved 10-10-10, August 21, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $1,000 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Jos, Nigeria October 21, 2017

Approved 8-0-0, August 22, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $206 USD to the Python Meet Up happening in Abeokuta, Nigeria September 2, 2017

Approved 9-0-0, August 22, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $1,000 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Awka, Anambra, Nigeria November 11, 2017

Approved 7-0-0, August 22, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group sponsor the PyConf Hyderabad conference happening in Hyderabad, India October 8, 2017, in the amount of $2,000 USD

Approved 8-0-0, August 22, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $1,000 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Jos, Nigeria October 21, 2017

Approved 8-0-0, August 22, 2017

6.2   Sponsors

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation approve the sponsor application from Travis CI at the Silver Level.

Approved 8-0-0, July 28, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation approve the sponsor application from HostPapa, Inc. at the Iron Level.

Approved 9-0-0, August 7, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation approve the sponsor application from HostPapa, Inc. at the Iron Level.

Approved 9-0-0, August 7, 2017

7   Votes Approved Via Email

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation grant a two year license for “PyCon Web” for a topic-specific conference to be held in Munich, Germany in 2018 and TBD location for 2019.

Approved 13-0-0, August 7, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation grant $1,200 USD to the Python Community Meetup happening in Lahore, Pakistan August 19, 2017 for venue rental fees and refreshments

Approved 13-0-0, August 11, 2017

8   New Business

8.1   PSF Sponsor Prospectus

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation approve the new PSF + PyCon sponsorship levels and associated benefits program for those supporting the PSF.

Approved 13-0-0

8.2   Code of Conduct Work Group

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation approve the creation of the PSF Code of Conduct Work Group to enforce the PSF code of conduct and provide guidance and recommendations to the Python community.

Approved 13-0-0

8.3   Q3 Community Service Award - Eric Floehr

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation present the Q3 2017 Community Service Award to Eric Floehr for his work Chairing the PyOhio Conference. He is the founder and co-organizer of the Central Ohio Python User Group. COhPy has served as a resource for Python programmers in Columbus, OH. Eric's efforts to "spread Python love" via discussions with leaders of PyNash and IndyPy lead directly to the creation of the annual PyTennessee conference and the Pythonology quarterly mini-conferences.

Approved 12-0-1

8.4   Q3 Community Service Award - Thomas Kluyver

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation present the Q3 2017 Community Service Award to Thomas Kluyver for his contributions to the Scientific Python Community. Thomas has also served on many other open source projects and is active on the Python subreddit helping many people in the Python community.

Approved 11-0-2

9   Other Business / Discussions

  • Continue discussion to approve funds for PyBay 2017 via email.

10   Meeting Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 17:01 UTC (GMT/Zulu).