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PSF Meeting Minutes for June 26, 2017

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

June 26, 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 18:30 UTC (GMT/Zulu, on June 26, 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 (11 of 11) were present at the meeting: Van Lindberg, Lorena Mesa, Naomi Ceder, Jackie Kazil, Kushal Das, Trey Hunner, Paul Hildebrandt, Eric Holscher, Kenneth Reitz, Thomas Wouters, and Marlene Mhangami.

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

2   Minutes of Past Meetings

The 10 May 2017 Board meeting minutes were voted on and approved.

RESOLVED, that the PSF approve the minutes at https://mail.python.org/mailman/private/psf-board/2017-May/043288.html as representing a true and accurate record of the May 10, 2017 meeting.

Approved 3-0-7. Passed by a majority of those present from the previous board.

3   Meetup Expenses Approved

  • KaunasPy meetup - $29.94 USD for 6 months
  • Python Frederick meetup - $89.94 USD for 6 months
  • PyLadiesATL - $89.94 USD for 6 months

4   Board and Staff Reports

Note: These are received once a month.

4.1   Ewa Jodlowska

PyCon
  • Final preparations for PyCon such as BEO reviews, floor plan reviews, mobile guide, conference surveys, helped with PyCon panel preparations,
  • Setup for PyCon including shipments, power, signage
  • Supported all PyCon staff throughout PyCon
  • Trained staffer from temp agency for PyCon assistance
  • Held meeting with Ernest to go over PyCon 2018 things
  • Met with Guido to discuss Language Summit sustainability
  • Held an executive board meeting and then a PSF dinner with board and staff
  • Met with Manuel to discuss how the Python Ambassador program is coming along
  • started working on closing up PyCon 2017 such as preliminary invoice review from the OCC during the Sprints
  • Went through the final F&B numbers with Betsy onsite to show how a final review should be done
PSF
  • Created an auto-response for psd-board during PyCon and told the board and grants wg that delayed responses are to be expected
  • Met with Kurt and Phyllis to discuss goals for financial planning.
  • Finalized on-boarding for new directors
  • Helped getting the election out by putting together bylaws and giving access to voters to administrator
  • Continued to manage grants wg

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 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.

Worked with the IT Director to continue to deal with some issues on psfmember.org involving the new anti-spam controls and also a recent DDOS, which the IT Director addressed by introducing a couple of technical improvements.

Finished setting up the ACH Fraud controls on our SunTrust accounts. Set up SunTrust Cash Manager access via Trusteer. Integrate iOS access. Worked with SunTrust to expand the accounts covered by Online Courier.

Continued making PyCon vendor payments. Traveled to/from PyCon.

Wrapped up 2016 in Quickbooks Online (QBO) and prepared preliminary financial reports for PyCon PSF Member meeting.

Worked with the Controller and the Financial Aid and Tutorial volunteers to pay out financial aid and tutorial honoraria. Collected tax forms and tracked those for 1099 reporting and withholding payments.

Worked up PyLadies balances for application to PyCon financial aid. Processed and deposited cash received for t-shirts and the PyLadies auction.

After PyCon, continued to process Tutorial tax forms and honoraria. Processed registration refunds and handled chargebacks.

Worked with the Controller to revise the chart of accounts in preparation for reporting condensed financials on python.org/psf, and began preparing those reports.

Worked on PCI compliance issues.

Grant activity: although most of the grant activity is now being handled by the Controller, during the period I was still quite involved with invoices and grant email. I've now formally transferred the grant responsibility to the Controller. I will continue to handle FX wire payments while I set up an online system for those and continue to mail checks and approve wires. But, those activities should not take much time.

Worked through a couple of HR issues involving withholding adjustments.

Focusing on wrapping up payments to PyCon vendors and volunteers.

4.3   Betsy Waliszewski

  • PSF
  • Continued to support the grants working group by keeping the spreadsheet up to date and sending out notifications
  • Compiled psf-vote mailing list and sent it to Mark in preparation for June 1 election email.
  • Continued routine tasks of 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
  • Continued routine tasks of invoicing, sending out statements, and keeping records up-to-date
  • PyCon 2017
  • Finalized catering menus for onsite and offsite events
  • Managed expo hall and all sponsor interactions
  • Created sponsor survey and sent it to all exhibitors for feedback
  • Worked with Ewa on supervising Sprints. Managed food and beverage needs.
  • Reviewed final orders from GES and OCC food and beverage BEOs
  • Read all attendee surveys and took notes for improvements for 2018
  • Sent out statements
  • PyCon 2018
  • Provided updated prospectus and floor plan to 2017 sponsors onsite. Successfully signed 5 sponsors (1 platinum and 4 gold) for 2018.
  • Met with GES to discuss decorator contract for 2018-19
  • Sent out thank you email to 2017 sponsors and provided information for 2018
  • Sent PyCon 2018 outreach email to 10 potential sponsors
  • Continuing to improve floor plan for expo hall
  • PyCon 2020-21
  • Continuing to evaluate proposals and discussing Internet needs
  • Met with sales managers from 2 proposed cities who attended PyCon 2017

4.4   Mark Mangoba

  • Continue to support the Python community and the staff with various IT support request.
  • Working with the Director of Operations, Treasure and the Controller on the new electronic grant form initiative. Adding funds tracking, currency converter and contact information.
  • Assisted at Pycon US 2017 as needed.
  • Met with Ernest regarding Infrastructure Credits, projects, Infra consolidation and planning.
  • Continue to work on bugs.python.org, with the help of Majeck and Brett.
  • On-going documentation and wiki project.

4.5   Phyllis Dobbs

  • With the partnership of Eric Ma, Karan Goel, and Kurt Kaiser, reviewed and logged receipts prior to the start of PyCon 2017. During financial aid distribution windows, initiated reimbursement payments via check or PayPal to financial aid recipients. Discussed financial aid automation opportunities for PyCon 2018 to both improve acquisition of required data and streamline receipt review and payment process.
  • Worked with Ruben Orduz and Kurt Kaiser to issue tutorial honoraria via check or PayPal, which includes ensuring that the appropriate documentation was provided.
  • Discussed health insurance plan options and setup process with Paychex representative.
  • Recorded and initiated payment for grant and meetup reimbursements throughout the month.

4.6   Lorena Mesa

Participated in board meeting as normal. Attended PyCon USA in Portland, Oregon where I volunteered in several capacities including: being a teaching assistant for the Young Coders: IO track, staffed the PyLadies booth, and act as an auctioneer for the PyLadies Auction.

In lead up to PSF Board of Director elections I spent time on-site at PyCon and online (e.g. PyLadies Slack) to recruit individuals for the coming PSF Board of Directors election. Ultimately I found one candidate that I've nominated, alongside myself, for the PSF Board of Directors 2017 election.

At PyCon met with other PSF Directors, staff, and community members to discuss the future of the Code of Conduct working group where we have made a draft for the working group. Additionally PSF Directors including me and PSF staff began to discuss the future of the Python organizers materials, like the PyCon Organizers Manual. We decided to start a Python organizers GitHub community to house these projects in, allowing the PSF staff to take ownership of the community to better foster longterm growth. As we wait for the new board to define what the future of these projects should be, I have continued to reach out to regional Python organizers to solicit feedback and participation including individuals in the Caribbean and South America.

Lastly began drafting a call for hosting for the PyLadies Conference. The PyLadies Conference, which was to be chaired by a member that had to resign, never came to fruition. Along with a few PyLadies we are revitalizing the conference and beginning with the call to host PyLadies Conference.

4.7   Trey Hunner

I was on vacation and preparing for my 2 tutorials and 1 talk at PyCon for most of May, so the majority of my community work happened during PyCon. I attended multiple PyCon staff and PSF-related meetings and dinners during PyCon, held two code of conduct committee planning meetings, and attended a Python conference organizers manual planning meeting. We're now very close to a fully drafted charter for the code of conduct committee.

4.8   Naomi Ceder

Attended PyCon, chats with potential board candidates on what board member responsibilities are, discussions with attendees on various aspects of PSF and PyCon, sprinted with Python core sprint, attended on-site PSF board meeting. I also encouraged 2 candidates to run for the board. Lead discussions and organized executive session on PSF employees' mid year evaluations and bonus. Keynote at PyCon CZ, and spoke via video at PythonDay Mexico.

4.9   Carol Willing

Attended PyCon, Language Summit, and Education Summit. Enjoyed the Poster session and sprinting with Jupyter. Attending PyCon Taiwan.

4.10   Younggun Kim

Attended PyCon, attended on-site PSF board meeting, sprinted with pandas. had post-mortem meeting with officers from the Korean Ministry of Science.

4.11   Jackie Kazil

5   Work Group Reports

Note: These are received once a month.

5.1   Marketing

Through May, the Marketing Workgroup resolved how to get feedback from sponsors, and how to increase benefits to sponsors and visibility of the PSF through sponsor badges. Continuing to work on ways to increase sponsorship.

5.2   Sponsorship

Received and evaluated 3 sponsor applications.

5.3   Cuban Pythonistas

  • Received four offers of venues for the SciPyLA 2017 conference: We've chosen Memories Varadero resorts. We are in the final process of signing contract and doing required paperwork.
  • Python meetups: Docker on Raspberry Pi Cienfuegos - https://www.meetup.com/Docker-Cuba/events/240871128/; PyDay Cienfuegos -https://www.meetup.com/CubanTech/events/240871291/
  • Upcoming Meetups: Docker on Raspberry Pi Havana - https://www.meetup.com/Docker-Cuba/events/240872505/; PyData Havana (Pandas for data-driven journalism) - https://www.meetup.com/CubanTech/events/240372001/; MicroPython workshop
  • Meeting at the Ministry of Informatics and Telecommunications. Summary: Green light to create a leal entity for the Cuban Python community working together with the PSF. They'll be supporting the SciPyLA 2017 conference.
  • Meeting at the Ministry of Higher Studies and Education. Summary: Green light to create a Scientific Section (legal entity) about Scientific Python writing the documentation to submit this for approval ... so this is not carved in stone yet. Their support to the SciPyLA 2017 conference is not confirmed yet. For all this we've been required to present a letter of intention or some statement or proof of the fact that the PSF is supporting these efforts . We'd appreciate to know what can be done about this since we need this documentation the sooner the better.

The creation of such legal structures is quite important . The Cuban constitution only allows peaceful assembly under the umbrella of a registered organization, so this is a precondition to the organization of annual PyCon Cuba conferences.

5.4   Packaging

Nothing to report.

5.5   Scientific

Nothing new to report.

5.6   Trademarks

We continue to receive and process tens of requests per month for logo usage approval.

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 Working Group grant $800 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Karu, Nasarawa, Nigeria June 23-24, 2017

Approved 7-0-0, May 10, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Working Group grant $600 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Taipei, Taiwan June 24, 2017

Approved 8-0-0, May 24, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Working Group grant $600 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Banjul, Gambia July 8, 2017

Approved 9-0-0, May 25, 2017

RESOLVED that the Python Software Foundation Grants Working Group sponsor PyCascades 2018 in the amount of $3,800 USD

Approved 9-0-0, May 30, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Working Group grant $1,125 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Salvador, Brazil July 29, 2017

Approved 9-0-0, May 30, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Working Group grant $670 USD to the Django Girls event happening in São Luís, Brazil June 8, 2017

Approved 9-0-0, May 30, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $600 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Zamfara, Nigeria June 12-15, 2017

Approved 8-0-0, June 3, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Working Group grant $600 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Uturu, Abia, Nigeria July 2017

Approved 7-0-0, June 3, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Working Group sponsor PyCon Russia 2017 in the amount of $2,000 USD

Approved 9-0-0, June 5, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $500 USD to the PythonDayAlagoas Brazil event happening July 22, 2017

Approved 8-0-0, June 7, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $1,000 USD to the Software Carpentry event happening in San Sebastian, Spain June 28-30th 2017

Approved June 7, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grant Work Group grant $1,200 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Seoul, Korea June 23-24, 2017

Approved 7-0-0, June 7, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $750 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, Nigeria September 8-9, 2017

Approved 7-0-0, June 14, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $745 USD to the Code Carrots event happening in Szczecin, Poland June 23-25, 2017

Approved 7-0-0, June 15, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grant Work Group grant $600 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Belém, Brazil August 5, 2017

Approved 9-0-0, June 20, 2017

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grant Work Group grant $350 USD to Django Girls Cuarto happening October 14, 2017 in Río Cuarto, Córdoba, Argentina.

Approved 6-0-0, June 26, 2017

6.2   Sponsors

No new sponsors at this time.

7   Votes Approved Via Email

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation grant $950 USD to the Code Club Bangladesh after school programs to help cover venue costs, micro:bit purchases, and volunteer training sessions.

Approved 10-0-0, June 5, 2017

8   New Business

8.1   Vote on PSF Officers for 2017-2018 Term

  • RESOLVED that the Python Software Foundation appoint the following Officers for the 2017/2018 term:

President: Guido van Rossum Chair: Naomi Ceder Vice Chair/Chair-Elect: Van Lindberg Vice Chair: Thomas Wouters Communications Co-Chairs: Lorena Mesa, Kushal Das, Eric Holscher General Counsel: Van Lindberg Secretary: Ewa Jodlowska Assistant Secretary: Betsy Waliszewski Treasurer: Kurt Kaiser PyCon US Chair: Ernest W. Durbin, III

Approved 10-0-0

8.2   Appoint Ewa Jodlowska and Van Lindberg as Officer Directors

  • RESOLVED, the Python Software Foundation appoint Ewa Jodlowska and Van Lindberg as officer directors.

Approved 10-0-0

8.3   Q2 Community Service Award - Glyph Lefkowitz

  • RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Q2 2017 Community Service Award to Glyph Lefkowitz, for his work on the Twisted network programming framework and his contributions to the Python community in general.

Approved 11-0-0

8.4   Q2 Community Service Award - Lynn Root

  • RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Q2 2017 Community Service Award to Lynn Root for her work as the founder of the San Francisco Chapter of PyLadies, a member of the Django Software Foundation, and as a tireless volunteer at PyCon.

Approved 11-0-0

8.5   Python classes at Kathmandu Model College and Horizon College in Nepal

  • RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation grant $490 USD to help fund Introductory classes of the Python Programming Language at Kathmandu Model College (KMC) and Horizon College in Nepal in 2017.

Approved 12-0-0

8.6   Update of the PyConLT conference website

  • RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation grant 1262€ to b3d101 to make the updated PyMove3D free tutorials available in Spanish.

Approved 11-0-1

9   Other Business / Discussions

  • Now that Van Lindberg has been appointed as an officer director, that leaves one board seat open. Per the vote tally, the 11th board director seat would go to Paola Katherine Pacheco. The PSF will now have a total of 13 directors: 11 plus 2 officer directors. Van Lindberg will be notifying the community about the new makeup of the board of directors.
  • Discuss support for Naomi to keynote at PyCon Spain under travel policy we created last year. This will be the 5th PyCon Spain and they have not had a PSF representative. They asked last year and we weren't able to accommodate. They have asked about the possibility of me keynoting this year but are worried about the cost. To do: work on developing a policy around funding board director travel to support the PSF.

10   Meeting Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 19:30 UTC (GMT/Zulu).