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PSF Meeting Minutes for Jan. 27, 2021

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

January 27, 2021

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 January 27, 2021. 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, Jeff Triplett, Christopher Neugebauer, Thomas Wouters, Dustin Ingram, Van Lindberg, Katie McLaughlin, Nina Zakharenko, and Ewa Jodlowska.

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

2   Resolutions

Minutes from prior meeting October 28, 2020:

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation approve the minutes at https://mail.python.org/archives/list/psf-important@python.org/thread/2AQJ5NPC567Z7EDGZ3KNPUBSYMRDQE7C/ as representing a true and accurate record of the October 28, 2020 meeting.

Approved 10-0-0

3   Board and Staff Monthly Reports for November-December 2020 & January 2021

3.1   Ewa Jodlowska

  • PyCon

    • Streamlined the process for how sponsors book meetings with the PSF staff via Calendly and Zoom. Developed the spreadsheet for tracking sponsorship benefits.
    • Researched interactive platforms for sponsors to use as fun, interactive sessions (in lieu of sponsor receptions onsite)
    • Continue to attend all sponsor calls
    • Worked with General Counsel to finalize the contract for new sponsors based on template provided by outside legal firm
    • Continue to review sponsor communications
    • Worked on sponsor communications during the holidays and adding logos to the PyCon site.
    • Mentoring two mentees for CFP
  • PSF

    • Continuing to fine-tune the PSF sponsorship program, did a call for designers and am now working with designer to implement a new UX/UI experience for the web app, worked with PSF finance team and created percentages of breakdowns for sponsorship package allocations
    • Filed contributor agreements while sponsorship coordinator was OOO during the holidays
    • Created the fundraiser page on pydotorg, Worked with sponsorship coordinator on executing end-of-the-year fundraiser
    • Worked on 2021 budget, narrative, and financial statements with Controller and provided feedback.
    • Continue to work with the PSF’s Grants WG on incoming grant requests
    • Helped organize the November board meeting and December Executive Committee meetings, attended both and worked on follow up items for both. Worked with a non-profit consultant to provide board training at November meeting. Attended a meeting with a non-profit consultant to discuss appointed directors.
    • Wrote talk and presented at PyCon PL 2020.
    • Wrote a talk and presented at PyCon Nigeria 2020.
    • Call with grants professor from University of Delaware and how that can potentially help us with future grant writing.
    • Wrote and launched call for resumes for Director of Development and have completed a dozen interviews at this time.
    • Completed a Prevention of work place harassment training
    • Had three meetings pertaining to certification program research
    • Created a Trello board for fundraising strategy and a Trello board for marketing strategy
    • Added PSF Code of Conduct WG & Funding WG meetings as scheduled
    • Had soft evaluations with staff (at the 6 month point), sent out staff gifts for the holidays, attended a training on staff leadership during a pandemic and racial unrest
    • Continue to attend weekly Steering Council meetings and help take notes. Continue to be part of the GitHub Migration work and calls with GitHub. I continue to review necessary Discourse discussions.
    • Continue to publish PSF newsletter every other month
    • 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
  • Prepared and sent RFP outline to virtual platform companies
  • continued to compare and demo new features for virtual platforms
  • assisted with new era sponsorship process
  • attended calls with sponsors to discuss new sponsorship opportunities
  • assisted with review and updates for sponsor contract template
  • Prepared registration flow document for tech team
  • worked with VisitPittsburgh and DLCC for PyCon 2021 in-person cancellation
  • reviewed proposals for location of PyCon 2024/2025
  • Prepped for PyCon Committee meeting
  • worked with committee chairs and tech team to launch Call for Proposals
  • training on new cms page editor for us.pycon.org
  • continued work on cms pages on us.pycon.org
  • attendee Financial Aid Committee meeting
  • worked on timeline plan and project management tools
  • Weekly team calls
  • Weekly one on one calls with team

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
    • Helped with research on virtual platforms
  • PSF
    • 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
    • Helped out with grant notifications
    • Logged in new contributing and managing members
    • Completed a Prevention of work place harassment training
  • PSF Sponsorship
    • Managed new sponsor applications
    • Worked on updates to infographics
    • Worked on updates to annual impact report
    • Worked on designs for sponsor badges
    • Promoted PSF launch day sponsors on social media
    • Participated in 11 sponsor calls
  • Fundraising
    • Completed 2020 End-of-the year fundraiser
    • Sent email thank you’s to all donors and participating companies
    • Sent thank you gifts to top donors - worked with board directors to send email thank you’s

3.4   Ee W. Durbin III

  • python.org
    • PSF Sponsorship application development and oversight with Django Contractor
  • PyCon
    • Website launch
    • Development
    • Review and merge contractor work from designers and Django Contractor
  • Infrastructure
    • Renewals and management of service donations

3.5   Phyllis Dobbs

No report submitted.

3.6   Joe Carey

  • 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
  • Banking

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

    • Created, sent, and updated sponsorship invoices as needed
  • 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
  • Accounting Systems

    • Attended demos of expense management systems
    • Discussed expense management systems with accounting team
  • 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
  • Completed evaluation of PSF for the BBB Standards for Charity Accountability
  • Reviewed groups in our Meetup instance and recommended groups for removal based on inactivity
  • Worked on getting into compliance with various federal and state laws surrounding poster presentation and notification of employees
  • Updated employee handbook to be in compliance with multiple federal and state laws
  • Completed various schedules for the 2019 990
  • Reviewed 2019 990 for accuracy before submission
  • Drafted RFP for audit firms
  • Met with audit firms regarding our RFP
  • Reviewed audit firm proposals and created overview for the finance committee
  • Started a schedule to track legal fees by individual trademarks/copyrights
  • Year-end prep work for closing 2020

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 - Published an election reform community update in Dec 2020 to PSF blog
  • PSF - Chair duties - met with Ewa to prep January agendas as well as promote agendas within the Board for discussion.
  • PyLadies - assisting in planning for remote PyLadies auction for PyCon 2021

3.9   Kushal Das

No report submitted.

3.10   Jannis Leidel

  • PSF: The usual comms work (mailing lists, Slack, Twitter)
  • PSF: Finance Committee - attended quarterly meeting
  • PSF: Finance Committee - reviewed 2020 financial statements
  • PSF: Finance Committee - reviewed proposals for tax auditors
  • PSF: Outreach comms work for new sponsorship program
  • PSF: Packaging WG - Followed up with Python core dev about Debian/Ubuntu issues
  • PSF: Packaging WG - Caught up on current packaging issues for data science projects
  • Jazzband: Regular maintenance
  • Jazzband: Moved 3/4 of Jazzband projects off of Travis CI
  • Jazzband: Kickoff meetings with PSF staff of making Jazzband a PSF fiscal sponsoree

3.11   Katie McLaughlin

  • PSF - Participated in email, slack, and chat discussions
  • PSF - Communications Co-Chair - drafting/review of new sponsor posts

3.12   Marlene Mhangami

  • PSF - Participated in email and Slack discussions
  • D&I WG - Organised and chaired the first Diversity and Inclusion Work Group Meeting of 2021.
  • D&I WG - Encouraged collection of community feedback through a survey
  • D&I WG - Began Collecting nominations for the CLC.
  • D&I WG - Published Diversity and Inclusion announcement on PSF blog.
  • PyCon Africa - Chaired initial planning meeting for 2021

3.13   Dustin Ingram

  • PSF: Finance Committee - meeting & reviewed PSF Financial Statements
  • PSF: Finance Committee - reviewed proposals for auditors
  • PSF: Sponsors - ongoing work to acquire & announce new sponsorships and projects
  • PSF: Outreach - participated in Seagate OSPO Speaker Series with Barry Warsaw & Betsy
  • D&I WG: Edited & reviewed the Election Reform Community Update post
  • Project Funding WG: Continued work to connect funding with projects
  • Project Funding WG: Discussed upcoming directed sponsorship projects
  • Packaging WG: Ongoing discussions about integrating security vulnerability services with PyPI
  • Packaging WG: Discussion with IQT Labs and security-related packaging work
  • PyPA: Continued maintenance and maintainership of projects including PyPI
  • PyPA: Ongoing discussion on paid PyPI feature development
  • PyPA: Migration of the PyPI public dataset to an official BigQuery public dataset

3.14   Jeff Triplett

  • PSF - Code of Conduct WG - bi-weekly meetings and discussions.
  • PSF - Finance Committee - January meeting, agenda review, and participated in email, Slack, and chat discussions.
  • PSF - Had a quick one-on-one with Lorena to discuss some PSF goals
  • PSF - Participated in email, Slack, and chat discussions.
  • PSF - PyCon US Committee meeting and discussions.
  • DEFNA - Presided over the December and January meetings. Participated in email, Slack, and chat discussions.
  • DSF - I participated in email, dms, and chat discussions.
  • Outreach - Co-hosted monthly Python organizers hangout in December and January.
  • Outreach - Helped community members find more job leads.
  • Outreach - Met with a few community members who reached out.

3.15   Anna Ossowska

  • Organized and hosted the December PyLadies London meetup
  • Worked on Community Leadership Council documentation

3.16   Thomas Wouters

3.17   Christopher Neugebauer

  • Participated in PyCon US committee, and helped prepare SLC 2022/23 announcement
  • Participated in discussions on board mailing lists
  • Presented at Linux.conf.au 2021

3.18   Nina Zakharenko

No report submitted.

4   Work Group Reports

4.1   Sponsors

Nothing new to report at this time.

4.2   Marketing

  • Completed 2020 end-of-the-year fundraising campaign.
  • Working on a membership campaign for Q1.

4.3   Jobs

Working to create a list of improvements to the site.

4.4   Trademarks

The work group was very busy in November 2020. They responded to over 25 requests for nominative, educational, and commercial use of our trademarks and logo.

4.5   Fellows

Voted on Q4 Fellow members

4.6   Packaging

Nothing new to report at this time.

4.7   Infrastructure

Nothing new to report at this time.

4.8   Scientific Python

The WG usually funds events, such as conferences and workshops—most of which are not currently happening. To support developers of scientific Python packages during this time, we announced a call where projects can apply for small grants to support maintenance, documentation writing, infrastructure upkeep, and so forth. We are currently awaiting applications.

4.9   Funding

Google sponsorship contract was signed. This is an increase in Google's existing sponsorship. The group discussed the process of this funding being secured and how we could create more projects that are as likely to be funded. Some discussion on other possible grants to apply for. Discussion on adding a core dev to the group to help with project scoping.

4.10   Diversity and Inclusion

We had our first meeting and discussed the goals of the workgroup. We set some priorities including advising the board about the Community Leadership Board, increasing member representation and improving member knowledge about the PSF. The group has decided on quarterly in-person meetings but will continue to mainly discuss asynchronously. Our next meeting will be held in February.

5   Votes Approved by Email

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation approve via director's allowance, $300 USD to the Third edition PyCode Conference that is happening online on December 11-12, 2020.

Approved November 24, 2020

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation approve the creation of the PSF Diversity and Inclusion Working Group to actively further the PSF’s mission to ‘support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Python programmers.’ The group will be formed under this charter: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uvIztyTLr6Cq4yQpNCjPlIl5pYlUjYYYqWCG1ZQrkHE/edit?usp=sharing

Approved November 30, 2020

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation grant $6,500 to the Outreachy program to support one intern to work on OpenAstronomy.

Approved 13-0-0, December 14, 2020

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation approve via director's allowance, $329 USD to the PyLadies Python Basics and Data Analysis and Visualization event that is happening on December 23, 2020.

6   Votes Approved by Working Groups

6.1   Grants

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $2,000 to the Plone Conference happening December 5, 2020 virtually

Approved 6-0-0, December 8, 2020

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $2500 USD to the Go Girls: Code+Create event happening virtually and partially in-person in Nigeria January 2021

Denied 0-7-0, December 30, 2020

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $359 USD to the Python Week virtual event produced by the Mehsana Developers Club in January 2021

Approved 7-0-0, December 22, 2020

8   New Business

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation provide fiscal sponsorship for the "direct project" the Python Packaging Authority (PyPA). The PSF will collect targeted donations and reimburse properly receipted expenses on their behalf up to the level of the donations made to this project. This project must not represent that they are independent legal entities and abide by the regulations stated in the "Python Software Foundation Standard Fiscal Sponsor Agreement"

Approved 9-0-1

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation award the 2021 Distinguished Service Award to Jesse Noller for his significant contributions to Python as a core developer, PyCon US Chair, PSF board member.

Approved 9-0-1

9   Discussions

  • Continued to discuss Python packaging issues on Debian/Ubuntu platforms. Board discussed policies for what a distro should look like. Thomas will bring this up at the next Steering Council meeting and will keep the board updated.
  • Discussed scheduling virtual membership meeting(s) - 2 at PyCon for global accessibility.
  • Discussed trademark "framework" language to be announced to the membership in February for discussion.
  • Continued discussion of PSF Director Term Cap. The goal is to create the language for the bylaws change to be announced to the membership in February for discussion.
  • Discussion of future DSA nominations, including the diversity of nominees, will continue via email.
  • Celebrating the 20 year anniversary of the PSF & 30 years of Python to be discussed via email.

10   Meeting Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 23:01 UTC (GMT/Zulu).