Notice: While JavaScript is not essential for this website, your interaction with the content will be limited. Please turn JavaScript on for the full experience.

PSF Meeting Minutes for Sept. 30, 2020

Subscribe via RSS

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

September 30, 2020

A regular meeting of the Python Software Foundation ("PSF") Board of Directors was held over Group Conference Call via phone and Internet Relay Chat/Slack beginning at 22:00 UTC (GMT/Zulu), on August 26, 2020. 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: Lorena Mesa, Jannis Leidel, Katie McLaughlin, Marlene Mhangami, Anna Ossowski, Jeff Triplett, Christopher Neugebauer, Nina Zakharenko, Thomas Wouters, Dustin Ingram, Van Lindberg, and Ewa Jodlowska.

Betsy Waliszewski (Event Planner and Administrator), Jackie Augustine (PyCon Manager), Phyllis Dobbs (Controller), Joe Carey (Accounting Manager), Ernest W. Durbin III, and Laura Graves (Financial Analyst) were also in attendance.

2   Resolutions

Minutes from prior meeting August 26, 2020:

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation approve the minutes at https://mail.python.org/archives/list/psf-important@python.org/thread/JPUPCIH2JXPE7OF67X74BOICA4YST23P/ as representing a true and accurate record of the August 26, 2020 meeting.

Approved 10-0-1

3   Board and Staff Monthly Reports (September)

3.1   Ewa Jodlowska

Aug 22 - Sept 24, 2020

  • PyCon

    • Attended weekly meeting for meeting planners & one sponsor planning call
    • Watched demos on virtual platforms
    • Continued to help review staff’s work related to PyCon
  • PSF

    • Attended monthly board meeting and gave relevant reports.
    • Complied Hidden Genius proposal for board review and acted on follow up questions.
    • Initiated involvement of fundraising consult to help us review our sponsorship program. Based on discussion, created a new logical flow and process for all of PSF’s sponsorship. Currently working with staff on getting this prepared for board review.
    • Worked on Grants re-launch blog, sent to WG for final review, and updating the relevant webpages; re-launched the Grants Program
    • Participated in final interviews for Django contractor role
    • Started to review the 2020 Developers Survey
    • Starting to plan the November Board Meeting by contacting consult to provide brief training
    • Attended bi-weekly FOSS meetings and first Sustain Marketing WG
    • Attended Code of Conduct Work Group meetings to assist
    • Created and published September newsletter
    • Attended Python in Education website planning meeting and reviewed drafted flow for the website with Director of Infrastructure and contractor
    • Continue to attend weekly Steering Council meetings and help take notes. Continue to move GitHub migration plan forward by working with the contractor on finalizing their contract with the PSF. Started the GH migration workgroup and sent intro email to contractor and WG members. I continue to review necessary Discourse discussions.
    • Supporting two core developers with the planning of the October virtual core dev sprint
    • Worked with a core developer (and SC, DoI) so core dev may spend some of their school credit time contributing to CPython
    • Created social media guidelines for directors and sent draft to Chairperson for final input.
    • Created a consent privacy policy for directors based on feedback and shared with director for final input
    • Monthly personal goal review
    • Monthly meeting with chairperson
    • Continue to moderate several mailing lists
    • Continue to help review contracts, documents and other drafts written by staff
    • Continue to log the fellow member nominations, run quarterly votes, update Fellows page on pydotorg, update CiviCRM with new Fellow members, notify new members, write blogs for new members
    • Continue to answer general PSF email
    • Continue to participate in board discussions
    • Continue to review time sheets
    • Continue to meet with Event Coordinator, Event Manager, Finance Controller, and IT Director regularly on calls and regular communication via Slack.

3.2   Jackie Augustine

PyCon

  • Completed PyCon 2021 design and received files for implementation
  • Continued 1:1 calls with sponsors
  • Assisted with sponsorship prospectus and benefit draft document
  • Participated in multiple virtual platform demos
  • Continued work on virtual platform comparison document and pricing
  • Worked on draft budget for PyCon 2020 online
  • Participated in online event planner education webinars
  • Met with PyLadies Committee to discuss 2021 plans
  • Began initial research on virtual auction platforms
  • Worked on draft for us.pycon.org speaker pages
  • Scheduled meetings with Tutorial, Program, Poster Committee Chairs
  • Participated in final interview for Django Contractor
  • Bi-weekly call with conference chair
  • Weekly team call for PyCon 2021 planning
  • Weekly individual calls with team members

3.3   Betsy Waliszewski

  • PyCon
    • Attended weekly meeting for meeting planners.
    • Attended weekly meeting with PyCon team.
    • Attended PyCon Committee meeting.
    • Attended PyLadies Auction meeting.
    • Conducted additional follow up meetings with PyCon sponsors to discuss 2021 participation.
    • Worked on updates to the 2021 sponsorship program.
    • Worked on timeline to release prospectus and other sponsor communications.
    • Helped with social media planning.
    • Watched webinars and did research on event and sponsorship best practices.
    • Participated in PyLadies Committee meeting to discuss 2021 plans.
  • PSF
    • Continued to work on Q4 fundraising campaign. Posted blog about participation to collaborate with the community. Finalizing participants. Worked on creating infographics for campaign.
    • Met with fundraising consultant to discuss new sponsorship program plan.
    • Managed new sponsor applications with the sponsor work group.
    • Continued to help manage the Jobs, Marketing, and Sponsor working groups.
    • Logged in contributor agreements.
    • Continue to respond to general PSF email.
    • Weekly 1:1 with Executive Director.
    • Continued routine tasks of keeping records up-to-date.
    • Managed community mailing list subscriptions.
    • Continued taking notes at board meetings, posting minutes and approved resolutions, as well as recording self-certifications.
    • Continued to manage social media presence through Sprout Social.
    • Helped out with job board submissions.
    • Worked on plans to participate in All Things Open (Capital One chose the PSF to participate as their nonprofit of choice)
    • Worked on social media to promote the 2020 Python Developers Survey

3.6   Joe Carey

3.6.1   Donations

  • Researched deduping functions in CiviCRM
  • Added civipy package to Donations Database system to integrate with CiviCRM
  • Worked on linking donor table of donations database to CiviCRM and QuickBooks
  • Moderated psf-donations mailing list
  • Maintained acknowledgement system
  • Produced bespoke donation reports to support fundraising campaigns

3.6.2   Banking

  • Started compiling list of parties that make ACH deposits to our accounts
  • Provided updated ACH instructions to depositors

3.6.3   Sponsorships

  • Created, sent, and updated sponsorship invoices as needed

3.6.4   Financial Reporting

  • Applied donation and sponsorship payments in QBO
  • Reconciled donation records between QuickBooks and Donations Database
  • Reconciled PayPal account
  • Recorded PSF sponsorship revenue in accordance with GAAP
  • Reconciled Deferred Revenue accounts
  • Review AR Aging and update bad debt reserve

3.6.5   Accounting Systems

  • Attended demos of expense management systems
  • Discussed expense management systems with accounting team

3.6.6   Other

  • Held periodic 1:1's with Controller
  • Responded to various emails on psf-donations and accounting

3.7   Laura Graves

  • Ongoing accounts payable responsibilities
  • Started registrations with some states for charitable solicitation
  • Met with staff re: cause related marketing vs advertising
  • Started reviews of services that would help with charitable solicitation registrations
  • Started tax exempt applications for some states
  • Research on OFAC restrictions for Cuba
  • Collected missing PEX receipts and cleaned up AP
  • Reviews of expense systems ahead of accounting team demos

3.8   Lorena Mesa

  • PSF: Met with Ewa to prep monthly agenda
  • PSF D&I Workgroup: Reviewed charter
  • PSF Grants Workgroup: Reviewed policy for reopening program
  • PSF PyLadies: Electioneer judge, closed elections, coordinating the onboarding of inaugural PyLadies Global Council
  • Outreach: Taking normal Q&A meetings, coordinating with core Dev / PyLadies for Oct 20 2020 Q&A on YouTube
  • Outreach: Ran PyLadies "Meet PyLadies" series
  • Misc: Researching Python & Deep Learning opportunities
  • Misc: PyCascades Communications Chair onboarding activities, working on CFP, etc.

3.9   Kushal Das

No report submitted.

3.10   Jannis Leidel

  • PSF: The usual PSF comms (email, Slack, lists) work.
  • PSF: Finance Committee, reviewed PSF Financial Statements for June 2020
  • DSF: Voted for Django's Technical Board.
  • Conferences: Attended DjangoCon Europe 2020 virtually
  • Jazzband: Regular maintenance and comms as Jazzband roadie
  • Outreach: Facilitated jobs search of community member.

3.11   Katie McLaughlin

  • PSF: Communications Co-Chair: CSA Q2 blog article review (now published)
  • PyConline AU Sept 4 - 6 2020: Conference organiser.
  • DjangoCon AU Sept 4 2020: Conference co-organiser
  • DjangoCon Europe Sept 18 - 19 2020: Conference attendee.

3.12   Marlene Mhangami

  • D&I WG: Created draft charter and contributed to initial member list (trying to get consensus on final list)
  • PSF: Discussed Community Leadership Council Model Proposals created by Anna
  • PSF: Reviewed Hidden Genius curriculum proposal
  • Outreach: Worked on PyCon Africa report and video releases to PyCon Africa Youtube channel

3.13   Dustin Ingram

  • PSF: Finance Committee - reviewed PSF Financial Statements for June 2020
  • D&I WG: Initial member list and draft charter contributions
  • Project Funding WG: Compiled list of previous and in progress grants
  • Packaging WG: Ongoing discussions about integrating security vulnerability services with PyPI
  • Packaging WG: Prioritization/budgeting for security-focused fundable projects
  • PyPA: Evaluation of paid feature proposals for PyPI
  • PyPA: Started a pypa-committers vote about making the PyPA a fiscal sponsoree of the PSF
  • PyPA: Continued maintenance and maintainership of projects including PyPI
  • Outreach: Represented the PSF at Russian Python Week panel with Carol Willing

3.14   Jeff Triplett

  • PSF - Code of Conduct WG - bi-weekly meetings, discussions, and new member intros.
  • PSF - Finance Committee - checked in with Phyllis on Board of Director's meeting notes. Next meeting is in October.
  • PSF - Participated in email, Slack, and chat discussions.
  • PSF - PyCon US Committee meeting and discussions.
  • DEFNA - No September meeting. Participated in email, Slack, and chat discussions.
  • DSF - I participated in email, Slack, and chat discussions.
  • Outreach - Co-hosted monthly Python organizers hangout.
  • Outreach - Helped community members find more job leads.
  • Outreach - Met with six community members who reached out.
  • Outreach - Streamed with Lorena on a PyLadies Python project and answered questions from community members.
  • Misc - Attended Django Day.
  • Misc - Attended DjangoCon Europe.
  • Misc - Attended Octo Gatos: Day 2.
  • Misc - Attended PyCon AU.

3.15   Anna Ossowska

  • Participated in email discussions
  • Created PSF Community Leadership Council Model Proposals
  • Planned a PyLadies London meetup
  • Research on virtual conferences and how we can improve attendee engagement

3.16   Thomas Wouters

  • PSF - Participated in PyCon committee, board mailing list.
  • Voted for Q3 PSF Fellows.
  • Steering Council - Participated in weekly SC meetings and PEP review, including extensive PEP 622 discussions.
  • Continued to champion Core Dev Sprint sponsorship internally at work.

3.17   Christopher Neugebauer

  • Participated in PyConline AU as speaker and lightning talks host
  • Wrote PyConline AU report and sent to the PyCon US committee

3.18   Nina Zakharenko

No report submitted.

4   Work Group Reports

4.1   Grants

Grants WG re-launched in September!

4.2   Sponsors

Working on new sponsorship program for 2021.

4.3   Marketing

Continued to work on the Q4 fundraising campaign, requesting feedback from the group.

4.4   Jobs

Nothing new to report at this time.

4.5   Trademarks

  • Discussed trademark issues with "Python Universe WEB Edition Global Summit online by Geekle" and Python in Japan - we will be taking action in these matters
  • Did outreach for community volunteers and invited community members to help out by joining the committee.

4.6   Fellows

Completed the Q3 nomination and voting process for new Fellows. In the process of contacting new members and also a blog announcement.

4.7   Packaging

  • Ongoing discussions about integrating security vulnerability services with PyPI
  • Prioritization/budgeting for security-focused fundable projects
  • Tzu-Ping joining the WG is a highlight worth noting.

4.8   Infrastructure

  • Consolidation and migration of hosting is nearly complete!
  • Began outreach for non-US infrastructure volunteers for contingency

4.9   Scientific Python

Funded events that took place online:

  • SciPy 2020
  • PYHEP
  • Python Machine Learning - Happened in September rather than May as originally scheduled
  • Python in Astronomy - Cancelled

4.10   Funding Work Group

The group discussed involvement with the Securing Critical Project WG (https://github.com/ossf/wg-securing-critical-projects). Additionally one of the WG members was informed of potential funding for PyPI improvements via "Google Open Source Patch Rewards" and that has now been passed onto the Packaging WG for further discussion.

5   Votes Approved by Email

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation approves Philip James, Brett Cannon, Rami Chowdhury, Trey Hunner, Lorena Mesa, Carol Willing, Jeff Triplett, Tereza Iofciu, Reshama Shaikh, and Mercedes Wyss as members of the Code of Conduct Work Group.

Approved 13-0-0, September 4, 2020

9   Discussions

9.1   Workgroups & Committees updates

  • Q&A for financials. Our financial statements for June 2020 were discussed, specifically the information collected policy and tax implications of fundraising campaigns.
  • Update on Q4 fundraiser. Launch date is Nov. 23 and will run until Dec. 31. Discussed stories the PSF can create for Directors to help with fundraising.
  • Diversity Workgroup: progress is being made on the charter. The timeline to approve the charter to announce on blog for community update was discussed.
  • Community Leadership discussed outreach and recruiting. They are working on a draft charter.
  • Trademarks: Adafruit's application for the mark CircuitPython in several jurisdictions including Australia was discussed. To be continued via email.
  • PyLadies: Election concluded, the inaugural Council will meet in October. Aiming to write a charter for the Council and find a chair/liaison with the PSF. More info at elections.pyladies.com
  • Grants: the program has relaunched. The workgroup is reviewing applications and working on other resources for the community.
  • Code of Conduct: Workgroup had a meeting and onboarded three new members and discussed open items.
  • Funding: discussed involvement with the Securing Critical Project WG.

10   Meeting Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 22:15 UTC (GMT/Zulu).