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PSF Meeting Minutes for Oct. 28, 2020

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

October 28, 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 14:00 UTC (GMT/Zulu), on October 28, 2020. Betsy Waliszewski took notes/minutes with the assistance of Ewa Jodlowska.

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 13) were present at the meeting: Lorena Mesa, Jannis Leidel, Marlene Mhangami, Anna Ossowski, Jeff Triplett, Christopher Neugebauer, Thomas Wouters, Dustin Ingram, Kushal Das, 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 September 30, 2020:

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation approve the minutes at https://mail.python.org/archives/list/psf-important@python.org/thread/GBDFRDDBUSHEA4LI7COHPTXP2A5GSARR/ as representing a true and accurate record of the August 26, 2020 meeting.

Approved 8-0-1

3   Board and Staff Monthly Reports for October 2020

3.1   Ewa Jodlowska

Sept 25-Oct 26

  • PyCon
  • Attended weekly meeting for meeting planners, one PyCon Board committee call & one vendor call
  • Helped draft email for PyCon US 2021 recommendation
  • Continued to help review staff’s work related to PyCon
  • PSF
  • Took most of the week of Oct 19th off
  • Restructured the PSF sponsorship program, received feedback from directors, and working with staff to implement. Worked with PyCon Manager on benefits list and sponsorship package costs. Worked with Director of Infrastructure on how to best implement.
  • Met with NumFOCUS ED to discuss DE&I initiatives
  • Filed contributor agreements while Sponsorship Coordinator was OOO
  • Worked with Sponsorship Coordinator on end-of-the-year fundraiser tasks
  • Sent community members requests for stories and short videos for end-of-the-year fundraiser.
  • Worked with Sponsorship Coordinator on promoting the Python Developers Survey. Promoted translated versions.
  • Reviewed the Q3 financial statements for Controller and provided feedback.
  • Started working on action items for the PSF’s strategic plan
  • Continue to work with the PSF’s Grants WG on incoming grant requests
  • Wrote and recorded a talk for All Things Open for the PSF booth
  • Finalized tiers and published GitHub Sponsors for CPython
  • Attended Sept board meeting and gave relevant reports
  • Continue to attend weekly Steering Council meetings and help take notes. Continue to be part of the GitHub Migration work. I continue to review necessary Discourse discussions.
  • Supporting two core developers with the planning of the October virtual core dev sprint and attended the first 2.5 days of the sprint.
  • 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 Sponsorship Coordinator, Event Manager, Finance Controller, and Director of Infrastructure regularly and regular communication via Slack.

3.2   Jackie Augustine

  • PyCon
  • Revisited demos and spoke with vendors on virtual platforms
  • Assisted with new era sponsorship benefit options and pricing
  • Continued research on virtual platforms
  • PyCon Committee Meeting planning and participation
  • Continued research and demos of virtual auction platforms and revisited vendors with new options
  • Participated in PyLadies Auction planning call
  • Assisted with communications, slack permissions, emails for D&I workgroup
  • Assisted in and sent email with draft budget, expenses, recommendation for PyCon US 2021
  • Worked on PyCon webpage content
  • Bi-weekly call with conference chair
  • Weekly team call for PyCon 2021 planning
  • Weekly individual calls with team members
  • PSF
  • Assisted in planning for ATO PSF booth and design
  • Created window icons, uploaded content and prepared the virtual booth for ATO
  • Attended ATO and assisted with virtual booth

3.3   Betsy Waliszewski

  • PyCon
    • Attended weekly meeting for meeting planners.
    • Attended monthly meeting with PyCon committee.
    • 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 copy for web pages
  • PSF
    • Continued to work on Q4 fundraising campaign. Worked on creating infographics and collecting Python/PSF “stories” for the campaign.
    • Managed new sponsor applications.
    • 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 help with our social media presence through Sprout Social.
    • Participated in All Things Open (Capital One chose the PSF to participate as their nonprofit of choice) with a virtual booth.
    • Continued to promote the 2020 Python Developers Survey via social media
    • Helped out with grant notifications
    • Logged in new contributing and managing members
    • Participated in All Things Open with a virtual booth presence on Oct. 19-20.

3.4   Ernest W. Durbin III

  • General
    • Onboarding Django Developer contractor Bernardo Fontes
    • Moderated Core Dev Community Q&A
    • Completed renewal of DigiCert EV certificate for 6 years!
    • Working to secure AWS and Google credits for PyPI operation for next year
  • python.org
    • Began directing work on minuting, agenda, and report functionality with Django Contractor
    • Began implementation of new sponsorship features with Django Contractor
  • us.pycon.org
    • Site setup and design implementation work with UX Contractor Nicole Harris
    • Staging live, production soon awaiting python.org sponsorship features
  • wiki.python.org
    • Rolling out new infrastructure to migrate from OSUOSL to DigitalOcean, wiki is last host at OSUOSL
  • PyPI
    • General support/maintenance
    • Overseeing TUF implementation, key signing ceremony happening Friday Oct 30, 2020 11:15AM eastern. Will be live-streamed at https://youtu.be/jjAq7S49eow and archived on PSF YouTube channel for transparency.
  • pip grant work
    • attend meetings for oversight
  • psfmember.org
    • Began collaboration with Joe Carey on new instance of CiviCRM.

3.5   Phyllis Dobbs

No report submitted.

3.6   Joe Carey

  • Donations & Membership
    • Continued integrating Donations Database system to with CiviCRM
    • Worked on linking donor table of donations database to CiviCRM and QuickBooks
    • Moderated psf-donations mailing list
    • Maintained acknowledgement system
    • Produced bespoke financial reports to support fundraising campaigns
    • Attended staff & kickoff meetings about taking on more CiviCRM support work
  • Sponsorships
    • Created, sent, and updated sponsorship invoices as needed
    • Research process for Google Sponsors for acknowledgement, recording, and reporting
  • 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
    • Reviewed and updated AR Aging and bad debt reserve
    • Reviewed quarter-end financial statement dashboard
  • Taxes
    • Prepared supporting schedules for 2019 tax return
  • Banking
    • Provided updated ACH instructions to depositors
  • Accounting Systems
    • Attended demos of expense management systems
    • Discussed expense management systems with accounting team
    • Attended expense management system kick-off meeting
  • PyCon
    • Attended staff meeting with online merch vendor
  • 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
  • Clean up books for Q3 financials
  • Preparing Q3 financials and additional dashboards prior to finance committee meeting
  • Reviewing contract checklist and info provided by Fleming Petenko
  • Started work on audit RFP
  • Calls with Nexonia to discuss capabilities and begin implementation
  • Reimbursements for Core Dev Sprint

3.8   Lorena Mesa

  • PSF - Code of Conduct WG - attended bi-weekly meetings and contributed to discussions.
  • PSF - Grants WG - participated in grants reviews on mailing list.
  • PSF - Finance Committee - attended quarterly meeting.
  • PSF - Diversity & Inclusion WG - helped review charter Marlene wrote as well as conduct outreach for members.
  • PSF - PyLadies Council - setup informal onboarindg meeting, started scheduling 1:1s with some members, starting to handover global leadership concerns as well as soliciting information on PyLadies liaision with the board.
  • PSF - Chair duties - met with Ewa to prep October and November agendas as well as promote agendas within the Board for discussion.
  • Outreach - Spoke at CCOSS - Latin America on the PSF role in Python open source community.

3.9   Kushal Das

No report submitted.

3.10   Jannis Leidel

  • PSF: The usual comms work (mailing lists, Slack)
  • PSF: Finance Committee, regular meeting
  • PSF: Reviewed D&I charter
  • Jazzband: Onboarded new projects, regular maintenance

3.11   Katie McLaughlin

  • PSF - Communications Co-Chair - assignments of Q3 CSA articles
  • PSF - End of year fundraiser video recording
  • PSF - Reviewed new sponsorship flow documentation
  • PSF - Participated in email, slack, and chat discussions
  • Outreach - Attended Python Conference Organiser chat
  • Community - Attended PyTexas
  • Community - Attended PyGotham

3.12   Marlene Mhangami

  • PSF - Diversity & Inclusion WG - Finalised the charter, worked with Jackie A. to reach out to group members. Created Slack channel, created agenda and organising first official meeting.
  • PSF - Funding Workgroup - Attended Project Funding Workgroup meeting. Participated in discussion and filled in the report.
  • PSF - Participated in email, Slack, and chat discussions.
  • Outreach - Speaking at PyCon Sweden

3.13   Dustin Ingram

  • PSF: Finance Committee - meeting & reviewed PSF Financial Statements
  • D&I WG: Initial members invited and proposed to PSF board
  • Project Funding WG: Continued work to connect funding with projects
  • Packaging WG: Ongoing discussions about integrating security vulnerability services with PyPI
  • Packaging WG: Prioritization/budgeting for security-focused fundable projects
  • PyPA: Vote and kickoff of making PyPA a PSF fiscal sponsoree
  • PyPA: Continued maintenance and maintainership of projects including PyPI
  • Outreach: PyTexas 2020 (https://www.pytexas.org/)

3.14   Jeff Triplett

  • PSF - Code of Conduct WG - bi-weekly meetings and discussions.
  • PSF - Finance Committee - met with Phyllis to discuss October meeting and worked on some stats for the board.
  • PSF - Participated in email, Slack, and chat discussions.
  • PSF - PyCon US Committee meeting and discussions.
  • PSF - Had a one-on-one with Lorena to discuss goals.
  • DEFNA - Presided over the October meeting. Participated in email, Slack, and chat discussions.
  • Outreach - Co-hosted monthly Python organizers hangout.
  • Community - Attended PyGotham

3.15   Anna Ossowska

  • Hosted a virtual PyLadies London meetup
  • Recorded a clip for PSF sponsorship video
  • Participated in monthly board meeting + email discussions
  • Attended PyCon US Committee meeting

3.16   Thomas Wouters

  • PSF - Participated in PyCon US committee, board mailing list.
  • Steering Council - Participated in weekly SC meetings and PEP review, including Code of Conduct issues since made public.
  • Got Google to sponsor Core Dev sprints, attended Core Dev sprints but stepped away halfway through for personal reasons.

3.17   Christopher Neugebauer

  • PSF - Participated in the PyCon US Board Committee meeting and discussions
  • PSF - Participated in board mailing lists
  • Community - Presented at and participated in PyTexas

3.18   Nina Zakharenko

  • PSF - Email, Slack, and chat
  • PSF - PyCon US Committee meeting and discussions
  • PyCascades - Weekly Planning meetings with co-chair Seb Vetter
  • PyCascades - Meetings with platform selection committee, evaluating options for Feb 2021
  • PyCascades - CFP outreach

4   Work Group Reports

4.1   Sponsors

Nothing new to report at this time.

4.2   Marketing

Nothing new to report at this time.

4.3   Jobs

Nothing new to report at this time.

4.5   Fellows

Added Fellows to membership database and published Q3 Fellow blog

4.6   Packaging

Nothing new to report at this time.

4.7   Infrastructure

No report outside of Director of Infrastructure report.

4.9   Funding Work Group

The group discussed being able to facilitate introductions between potential sponsors and project maintainers or contractors. Next steps for this included making a list of maintainers and contractors. Potential grant options and conference talks were also discussed.

5   Votes Approved by Email

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation sponsor the proposal as described [here](https://mail.python.org/archives/list/psf-important@python.org/thread/5B3NSZ6VNYMZYXVUHWW676SBNE6MUTRF/) to support Hidden Genius incorporating Python into their curriculum in the amount of $10,100

Approved 13-0-0, October 13, 2020

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation award the 2020 Q3 Community Service Award to Elaine Wong for her community work. Elaine is an organizer for PyCon CA, PyLadies Toronto, and CSV Conference, a conference speaker, she co-hosts a monthly virtual Conference Organizer meetup, and Elaine helps with video at community events.

Approved 13-0-0, October 15, 2020

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation award the 2020 Q3 Community Service Award to Rami Chowdhury for his community work. Rami helps organize and contributes to the DC Python user group. For many years Rami has been a volunteer coordinator and incident responder at PyCon US. Most recently Rami has been a helpful member of the PSF Code of Conduct WG.

Approved 13-0-0, October 15, 2020

6   Votes Approved by Working Groups

6.1   Grants

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $149.99 to the II Encuentro de Mujeres Peruanas en Computación event happening in Peru January 7, 2021

Approved 8-0-0, October 18, 2020

8   New Business

The board discussed the request to approve the creation of the PSF Diversity and Inclusion Working Group. It was decided to happen via email once brief member bios are sent to the board for review.

9   Discussions

WG & Committee Reports
  • Fundraising: GitHub Sponsor for CPython has been launched and we have several monthly contributors. Ernest and Bernardo are working on implementing the new era sponsorship flow into python.org. Ewa is working on adding CPython to the PSF's prospectus since the CZI grant didn't come through.
  • PyCon: Jackie recently sent an email to the board about PyCon 2021 being virtual. The board discussed this and no one objected to this recommendation. Ewa and Jackie will begin discussions with Visit Pittsburgh and we will be offering VP the opportunity to bid for 2024 and 2025.
  • Code of Conduct: WG met and has no outstanding issues. The group wants to start a discussion about how they may be more proactive with helping meetups.
  • Finance : WG met and discussed our Q3 finances which will be presented at our virtual BoD meeting on November 9th. The group discussed and is reviewing a draft of the Audit RFP.
  • Diversity: A brief outline of the initial members list will be sent to the board to review. The vote on new members will be moved to an email vote once the chair of the WG sends a short description of the members to the board
  • Packaging: Nothing new to report at this time. PyPA is working on becoming a PSF fiscal sponsoree.
  • Funding: The group discussed being able to facilitate introductions between potential sponsors and project maintainers or contractors. Next steps for this included making a list of maintainers and contractors. Potential grant options and conference talks were also discussed.
  • Grants: Reviewing applications and working on other resources for the community.
  • PyLadies Update: Council onboarding has started and they are working on defining their structure and scope. The Council will notify us of their liaison next month.
Trademark Discussion
  • The board continued discussion of Adafruit's application for the CircuitPython TM. The board came up with several legal questions that will help directors make a decision on this. The Group also discussed coming up with a policy to address future requests like this. The discussion will continue in email so that it may include input from legal counsel.

10   Meeting Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 15:00 UTC (GMT/Zulu).