PSF Meeting Minutes for Nov. 20, 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 15:00 UTC (GMT/Zulu), on November 20, 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").
Contents
- 1 Attendance
- 2 Resolutions Decided for Consent Agenda
- 3 Meetup Expenses Approved
- 4 Board and Staff Reports
- 4.1 Ewa Jodlowska
- 4.2 Betsy Waliszewski
- 4.3 Kurt Kaiser
- 4.4 Mark Mangoba
- 4.5 Phyllis Dobbs
- 4.6 Lorena Mesa
- 4.7 Trey Hunner
- 4.8 Naomi Ceder
- 4.9 Jackie Kazil
- 4.10 Van Lindberg
- 4.11 Kushal Das
- 4.12 Paul Hildebrandt
- 4.13 Eric Holscher
- 4.14 Kenneth Reitz
- 4.15 Marlene Mhangami
- 4.16 Thomas Wouters
- 4.17 Paola Katherine Pacheco
- 5 Work Group Reports for October / November
- 6 Votes Approved Via Email
- 7 New Business
- 8 Other Business / Discussions
- 9 Action Items
- 10 Meeting Adjournment
1 Attendance
The following members of the Board of Directors (12 of 13) were present at the meeting: Van Lindberg, Lorena Mesa, Naomi Ceder, Paul Hildebrandt, Thomas Wouters, Marlene Mhangami, Trey Hunner, Eric Holscher, Kushal Das, Kenneth Reitz, Paola Katherine Pacheco, and Ewa Jodlowska.
Kurt Kaiser (Treasurer), Betsy Waliszewski (Event Planner and Administrator), Phyllis Dobbs (Controller/Assistant Treasurer Accountant), and Mark Mangoba (IT Manager) were also in attendance.
2 Resolutions Decided for Consent Agenda
- Minutes from prior meetings: October 16, 2017:
RESOLVED, that the PSF approve the minutes at https://mail.python.org/mailman/private/psf-important/2017-October/000267.html
Approved 11-0-1
- Consent Agenda Resolutions:
Resolved, that the Python Software Foundation grant $500 USD to the IndyPy user group for their first PyCon Startup Row Event happening January 9, 2018
Approved 12-0-0
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation approve the Consent Agenda items presented in the November 20, 2017, agenda
Approved 12-0-0
3 Meetup Expenses Approved
- Python Edinburgh - $89.94 for 6 months
- PyLadies Edinburgh - $89.94 for 6 months
4 Board and Staff Reports
Note: October reports will be included in the November minutes.
4.1 Ewa Jodlowska
- PyCon
- Surveyed some PyCon attendees on what they want to know about Cleveland and used those questions in my talk at ClePy
- Prepared a talk for ClePy and gave the talk
- Met with 3 AV companies in CLE and discussed our needs so they can submit a proposal for PyCon 2018/19
- Reviewed several AV proposals and revisions of proposals. Had follow up calls with all AV companies; documented comparisons
- Met with Destination Cleveland to discuss future ideas for PyCon
- Worked with the Hatchery Program committee to launch the program and had a conference call
- Reviewed PyCon reg site several times and provided comments back to CTE
- Kicked off financial aid planning with two conference calls
- Worked on 5k contracts
- Researching Childcare possibilities
- Conference call with Accessibility Chair to kick off the planning
- Contacted several CART providers and had calls with two service providers
- Update content on us.pycon.org to reflect 2018 data
- Continue to update CFP counts weekly for history tracking
- Started the planning for stickers and shirts
- Attended Chicago Startup event and gave out PSF info and 2 minute talk
- PSF
- Organized and attended the Oct 16 face to face executive meeting; wrote a blog about the event
- Attended ACT-W in Chicago on behalf of OSI and gave out info about the PSF
- Reviewed Packaging WG proposals for MOSS Grant work
- Worked with General Counsel, Finance Controller, and Treasurer to determine pay increase for an employee for insurance
- Had a conference call with Finance Controller and Treasurer to go over the reports that the Finance Controller created as well as a 2018 budget draft
- Helped the Scientific Python WG relaunch
- Helped review some blogs on pyfound
- Reviewed and approved the MOSS contract
- Review technical communication book in order to assist IT Manager with MOSS Grant role
- Reviewed documentation on Sloan grant
- Sent out strategic planning questionnaire to staff
- Reviewed Ambassador Program report from South America
- Discussed and wrote up guidelines for multiple event grant requests
- Worked more on the Python Dev survey and gave feedback on prizes
- Reviewed NTEN material as well as Board Source resources
- Worked on trademark issues with Haynes Boone
- Wrote up ops report for Executive Committee Meeting
- Booked trip for nonprofit training in January
- Started planning January executive meeting call and face to face meeting at PyCon 2018
- Helped review the 990
- Continuing to add issues to CiviCRM’s repo https://github.com/python/psfmemberdotorg/issues
- Continued to work on Fiscal Sponsorship growth by meeting with General Counsel, Treasurer, Finance Controller and SFC President and ED
- Continue to log the fellow member nominations and wrote up 3 nominations
- 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 on Slack - had a phone meeting as well
4.2 Betsy Waliszewski
- PSF
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, as well as recording contributor forms and self-certifications.
- Community
- Created a slide presentation about the PSF to share with events we sponsor that would like more information about the PSF and what we do. I’ve also shared it with the board and the PyCon organizers slack channel. There are notes for each slide.
- Joined BAyPIGgies - Sunnyvale. Attended Oct. 26 meeting to introduce myself and the PSF. The meeting was focused on diversity, so my presentation was on what we do to promote it.
- Joined Women Who Code East Bay - Oakland. Attended their Hands-on Python meeting on November 13 and gave diversity and inclusivity presentation.
- Joined Santa Cruz Python Meetup
- Joined Women Who Code Silicon Valley
- Giving a presentation on the PSF at North Bay Python on December 2.
- Received a good response to a tweet letting new members know about our community ML
- Fundraising
- 2017 - Donation Drive: we collected $12,872 and enrolled 975 new members in our 30 day drive.
- 2018 - Started new fundraising drive project that will begin 30 days before PyCon and end at PyCon. Guido is supporting the effort with signed/customized prizes.
- Continuing to research ways to fundraise
- PyCon 2018
- Finalized contracts and banquet event orders for both offsite dinners.
- Worked on food truck menu for tutorial day.
- Reached out to 10 companies on LinkedIn re: sponsorship. 9% response rate.
- Reached out to 45 companies through LinkedIn Sales Navigator for sponsorship. 7% response rate.
- Reached out to 25 companies who have listed jobs on our jobs page to see if there is interest in PSF or PyCon sponsorship. Response rate (too soon to tell)
- Establish tax exempt status for us at PyCon in Ohio, which is a big cost savings.
- Sponsorship Efforts
- Contacted Django Foundation Sponsors that we were not already in contact with
- Contacted PyBay Sponsors that we were not already in contact with
- Contacted SustainOSS attendees that we were not already in contact with
- Contacted PyCon UK attendees that we were not already in contact with
- Posted a blog on sponsorship
4.3 Kurt Kaiser
Continued the diverse, but routine, activities needed to process 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 as needed to reflect activity. Reconciled and reviewed the PSF bank/credit accounts and transferred funds between accounts as needed. 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. Approved grant wires and handled communication with the Controller relative to ongoing wire payments. Much of my time in November was spent on creating the 2016 IRS Form 990 submission.
4.4 Mark Mangoba
- The PSF IT Manager had a very diverse workload for September and October. In September we had the possibility of our Rackspace hosting discontinued. The announcement of discontinuation was peddled back shortly after contract negotiations, but other contractual obligations needed to be met by the PSF for our hosting agreement to remain valid. The PSF met the requirements of the agreement within 5 days time. This also prompted the Infra staff to think about the sustainability of our Rackspace hosting and looking at possible alternatives in the near future. We were awarded $170,000 for improvements of PyPI, thanks for Mozilla. The PSF IT Manager worked with our MOSS Champion, Mozilla Management and the Python Packaging Workgroup to orchestrate a timeline, statement of work and the final contract. The Packaging Workgroup is slated to start work on December 4th, 2017.
- The PSF IT Manager continues to work with Maciej Szulik on the bugs bpo: https://github.com/python/docker-bpo. The project is going well and planned to move bugs to Open Shift by the end of the year.
- Aside from the general day to day support, the PSF IT Manager also continues to work on our Grants Database (CiviCRM) and hopes to launch version 2 of the Grants Form which will include an upload feature for Grant Reporting by the end of this year.
4.5 Phyllis Dobbs
- Human Resources & Benefits
- Research ways to reimburse employees for Medicare/supplemental insurance (gross-up, FSA, HSA, HRA). Work with several vendors and determined that the only option is to gross-up salary.
- FSAs do not allow reimbursement of insurance premiums
- HSAs are only associated with high-deductible plans and do not allow reimbursement of insurance premiums.
- HRAs do allow reimbursement of insurance premiums. However, the Qualified Small Business HRA is not available to PSF because PSF offers health insurance.
- CiviCRM/Grants Reporting
- Create Grants schedule by month/country for PSF strategic planning/budgeting meeting; includes graphs & charts analyzing trends.
- Move bank and credit card charges associated with grants to the new Program Service class to better align cost with 990 categories.
- Continue working with the team to clean up data transition from the Grants spreadsheet to CiviCRM.
- Donations Reporting
- Share PayPal reports showing year-over-year impact of Fall 2017 membership/donations drive with staff.
- Move credit card charges associated with membership & donations to the new Fundraising class to better align cost with 990 categories.
- Reconcile PayPal account for September and October.
- Accounts Payable
- Recorded and initiated payment for grant and meetup reimbursements via wire, check, and PayPal on an ad hoc basis.
- Create PEX card expense report for Ambassador and discuss ongoing reporting.
- Reconcile PEX account for September and October.
- Budget
- Prepare quarterly non-Pycon budget for 2018, including projections by account based on 2016-2017 history.
- Consolidated PyCon and non-PyCon budgets for 2018 and created summary schedules for Board presentation.
- Banking
- Research options for check for tutorial & financial aid payments for PyCon Cleveland.
- PSF's banks do not have branches in Cleveland.
- There do not appear to be debit or credit card options in which PSF can load a specific dollar amount and allow cash withdrawals up to that amount.
- Investigating establishing a checking account with 5th 3rd Bank or US Bank, which have physical branches about 2-3 blocks from the Cleveland Convention Center and branches in Illinois. Both offer reduced fees to non-profits.
- Write wire transfer wiki and consolidate information about resources and procedures.
- Fiscal Sponsorship
- Research impact of potential new LLCs for fiscal sponsorees, including disregarded entities taxation treatment; a single return may be filed for all Python LLCs as long as PSF is the only member of each child LLC.
- Discuss fiscal sponsorship process and procedures with the Software Conservancy and PSF staff, including best practices and what may work/not work for PSF.
- Taxes
- Restructure QBO classes to better align with Form 990.
- Research de minimus rules for excluding goods & services from cash donations.
- Research in-kind services/goods received by the PSF and then regifted to grantees.
- Complete Schedules F and I reporting grants by region on the 990.
- PyCon Financial Aid
- Discuss additional 2018 Financial Aid issues with FA team and make updates to PyCon 2018 FA FAQs.
- Add year-over-year comparisons to FA application statistics.
- PyCon Tutorials
- Research and communicate additional options to help foreign tutor to avoid double-taxation on tutorial honoraria.
4.6 Lorena Mesa
Attended PSF board meeting and participated in PSF Grants working group as usual. Continued to oversee PSF blog, offering editing assistance as needed. Began work on PyCon 2018 Programs work with Co-Chairs Jackie Kazil and Jason Myers. Participated in review of proposed PyCon 2018 Hatchery program. Began recruitment for new PSF Communications Chair and PyLadies Chicago organizers.
4.7 Trey Hunner
Attended day-long executive meeting of the board and October board meeting. Attended PyGotham, passed out PSF and python3 stickers, and talked with a number of attendees about what the PSF does. Discussed ideas for PyCon open spaces with the rest of the open spaces team.
4.8 Naomi Ceder
Chaired September and October regular board meetings; chaired day long executive meeting of the board; chaired first meeting of executive committee of the board; assisted Dir of Operatons in planning face to face board meeting; active in Fellows workgroup, nominating potential fellows; was a judge in Chicago edition of StartUp Row competition; active on committee for PyCon Hatchery Program; preliminary organization for Spanish Language track proposal for PyCon Hatchery; various discussions with members of the community about the PSF fellows program and about local community governance.
4.9 Jackie Kazil
Attended day-long PSF board meeting. Participated PSF Grants group. Began work on PyCon 2018 as Co-Chair of talks. Work to reinvigorate PyLadies DC with new organizers. Hosted virtual CFP info session. Worked with IRE/NICAR to submit grant to teach journalists how to code. Wrote blog post about lacation spaces for event organizers (https://medium.com/@jackiekazil/best-practices-for-lactations-spaces-for-event-organizers-8b6c77797c45).
4.10 Van Lindberg
No report submitted.
4.11 Kushal Das
- I atttended PyConf Hyderabad, PyCon UK and PyCon India in October and November. I have given the ending keynote at PyConf Hyderabad, also managed the PSF booth along with Anwesha. During PyCon UK, I have taken part in a panel on Education, and also did a joint keynote. In PyCon India, I was in the PSF booth along with Anwesha and other community members.
- I am also working for PyCon Pune 2018 with the rest of the community. We now have started our weekly volunteer meetings, and working on finalizing location and other details. We already sold out the devsprints tickets. I have also informed all selected speakers, we will make the list public this week.
4.12 Paul Hildebrandt
I worked through a bunch of event reports from organizers that accepted a PSF grant. They varied wildly in scope and details. I proposed a reporting template that was reviewed at the board meeting. It was accepted to move forward with the template. I am now trying to implement the form in CiviCRM under the title "Grant Accountabily"
4.13 Eric Holscher
- Went to in-person board meeting in Chicago
- Worked on MOSS grant blog post
- Participated in the monthly board meeting via phone
- Provided ideas & feedback on @thepsf twitter account
4.14 Kenneth Reitz
No report submitted.
4.15 Marlene Mhangami
Attended PyCon ZA and gave a lightning talk about the PSF. Answered general questions about the work of the PSF and encouraged attendee's to sign up as members. Started a mailing list for various Python community leaders in Africa to begin discussion for a potential Pycon Africa 2019.Continued my work with ZimboPy
4.16 Thomas Wouters
Attended the in-person board meeting in October, and the Executive Committee meeting right after. Continued administering #python on Freenode and following along with the Infrastructure/Packaging WGs PyPI developments. Participated in the Fellows WG.
4.17 Paola Katherine Pacheco
- In October, I gave a talk in Python Brazil, I organized the Django Girls Belo Horizonte, I participated in Anittas which is an event focused on women that has the focus of uniting programming with entrepreneurship. Also we started thinking about a PyCon Latam. I talked to the new director of the Brazilian python association, making it closer to Brazil and the PSF.
- November - I'm in the organization and collaboration group for Python. In addition, I started to organize another local event in Mendoza for students and beginners to promote technology.
5 Work Group Reports for October / November
5.1 Marketing
No report submitted.
5.2 Sponsorship
Approved one application at the Copper level. Denied one application.
5.3 Cuban Pythonistas
SciPyLA 2017 cancelled
- Meetup scheduled on November 25th 2017 was cancelled
- Rescheduled on December 22nd . We expect to have Tarek and offer a hands-on lab about MicroPython and consuming web services using async I/O
- The grant for SciPyLA 2017 was therefore rejected
- An alternative proposal to cover the reservation for the December 22nd meetup was suggested by us. We wait for a definitive resolution to that matter
A grant was submitted with the goal in mind of been able to reserve venues for PyDay + PyData meetups during 2018
5.4 Packaging
No report submitted.
5.5 PSF Fellow
No report submitted.
5.6 Trademarks
We've had the usual round of requests and processed all of them.
5.7 Scientific Python
A new charter was adopted, and we approved a grant to the SciPy Latin America conference. Unfortunately, the event was cancelled due to damage from the hurricane.
5.8 Votes Approved by Working Groups
Below are resolutions approved by the various PSF Working Groups since the October 16, 2017 board meeting:
5.9 Grants
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $625 USD to the AfroPython event happening in Porto Alegre, Brazil November 25, 2017
Approved 8-0-0, October 16, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group sponsor the Kiwi PyCon conference happening December 2, 2017 in Auckland, New Zealand in the amount of $2,500 USD
Approved 9-0-0, October 16, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $300 USD to the Code-Off Hackathon event happening in Delhi, India October 27-28, 2017
Denied 0-8-0, October 17, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $420 USD to the Django Girls workshop happening in Seattle, WA November 4, 2017
Approved 8-0-0, October 20, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $1,206 USD to the AboCoders Training Program in Minna, Nigeria to be used towards infrastructure improvements
Approved 7-0-0, October 20, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work grant $590 USD to the Introductory classes of Python happening in Rupandehi, Nepal November 20, 2017
Approved 9-0-0, October 23, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $500 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Milan, Italy December 2, 2017
Approved 8-0-0, October 24, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $2,500 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Lisbon, Portugal November 5, 2017
Approved 9-0-0, October 24, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group sponsor the PyCaribbean conference in the amount of $3,750 USD. The conference is happening in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic February 17, 2018
Approved 8-0-0, October 25, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $400 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Katsina, Nigeria January 7, 2018
Approved 7-0-0, October 30, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant a complimentary PyCon 2018 ticket and $1305 USD for travel expenses to A. Chapman for the purpose of getting experience at the Young Coders workshop
Approved 9-0-0, October 31, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $250 USD to the IRE Coding Boot Camp happening at the University of Minnesota starting on November 4, 2017
Approved 9-0-0, October 31, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group sponsor the PyCon Indonesia conference happening in Tangerang, Indonesia December 9, 2017 in the amount of $2,000 USD
Approved 9-0-0, October 31, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant a complimentary PyCon 2018 ticket and $1305 USD for travel expenses to A. Chapman for the purpose of getting experience at the Young Coders workshop
Approved 9-0-0, October 31, 2017
RESOLVED that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $200 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Bangalore, India November 11, 2017
Approved 7-0-0, November 1, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group sponsor PyCon SK in the amount of 3500 Euro. The conference is happening March 9, 2018 in Bratislava, Slovakia
Approved 8-0-0, November 2, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group sponsor the PyCon Cameroon conference in the amount of $800 USD. The conference will take place in Limbe, Cameroon January 24, 2018
Approved 9-0-0, November 8, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $500 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Omaha, NE February 17, 2018
Approved 8-0-0, November 13, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $750 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Sango, Nigeria December 16, 2017
Approved 7-0-0, November 13, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group sponsor DjangoCon Europe in the amount of $3,000 USD. The conference is happening May 23-27, 2018, Heidelberg, Germany
Approved 8-0-0, November 13, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group sponsor the GirlScript India Summit in the amount of $1500 USD. The event is happening December 16, 2017 in Ahmedabad, India
Denied 0-8-0, November 16, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $330 USD to the Django Girls event happening in Tashkent, Uzbekistan November 26, 2017
Approved 7-0-0, November 16, 2017
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Grants Work Group grant $240 USD to the Python meet up event happening in Effurun, Nigeria November 25, 2017
Approved 7-0-0, November 17, 2017
5.10 Sponsors
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation approve the sponsor application from PythonAnywhere at the Copper Level.
Approved 9-0-0, November 1, 2017
5.11 Scientific Python
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation's Scientific Python Working Group grant Gold Sponsorship of $2048 USD to the SciPy Latin America Conference that is happening in Sancti Spiritus Nov 22-25, 2017.
Approved 6-0-0, November 1, 2017
6 Votes Approved Via Email
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation recognizes the new Scientific Python Work Group charter located here https://wiki.python.org/psf/ScientificWG/Charter_v2 and approve an additional budget of $5,000 USD for the work group
Approved 13-0-0, October 23, 2017
7 New Business
No new resolutions were voted on.
8 Other Business / Discussions
- Conflict of Interest forms
- Open "issues" from October 16th meeting were discussed
- PyLadies management & sibling groups
- NumFOCUS & the PSF
- The PSF's Event Coordinator contacted the jobs volunteer group to help review and approve job postings and to provide better support.
- The IT Manager gave an update on the PyPI MOSS grant and will provide monthly reports going forward.
- Distinguished Service Award nominee discussed.
9 Action Items
- Vote on DSA and CSA at December board meeting.
- Discuss establishing different benefit levels for job listings with Sponsor WG.
- Discuss creation of potential working group to assist and support PyLadies. Suggest that the working group appoint a designee for PSF relations.
- Board directors to fill out Strategic Planning Questionnaire and also provide feedback/suggestions for questions.
- Director of Operations will come up with a more detailed plan for the PSF and NumFOCUS to do a matching grant
- SSO third party service providers were discussed. Van brought up G Suite as a possible solution. Continue discussion via email.
10 Meeting Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 16:05 UTC (GMT/Zulu).