Hello Pydotorg:
Could you please post the following "PSF board meeting minutes" online,
http://www.python.org/psf/records/board/minutes/ at the usual web
locations:
please see the attachment for the approved board meeting minutes for
October 2011.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
Thanks,
Pat
--
Pat Campbell
PSF Administrator/Secretary
pat...@python.org
Title: 2011-10-17 PSF Board Meeting Minutes
Encoding: utf-8
Author: p...@python.org
Content-Type: text/x-rst
.. declare custom role for action items:
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| The Python Software Foundation
| Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors
|
| October 17, 2011
|
|
A regular meeting of the Python Software Foundation ("PSF") Board of
Directors was held over Internet Relay Chat beginning at 16:00 UTC, 17
October 2011. Steve Holden presided at the meeting. Pat Campbell
prepared the minutes.
All votes are reported in the form "*Y-N-A*" (*in favor ââ¬â opposed
ââ¬â
abstentions*; e.g. "5-1-2" means "5 in favor, 1 opposed, and 2
abstentions").
.. sectnum::
.. contents::
Attendance
==========
The following members of the Board of Directors (9 of ll) were present at
the meeting: Raymond Hettinger, Steve Holden, Marc-Andre Lemburg, Doug
Napoleone, Jesse Noller, Tim Peters, Allison Randal, Jeff Rush, and
Gloria Willadsen. Also in attendance were Kurt Kaiser (Treasurer) and Pat
Campbell (Secretary & Administrator).
Minutes of Past Meetings
========================
The 19 September 2011 Board meeting minutes were voted on and approved.
**RESOLVED**, that the minutes of September 19, 2011 should be accepted
as a fair and accurate record of the meeting.
Approved, 8-0-1.
Votes Taken Between Meetings
=============================
There were no votes taken between meetings.
Treasurer Report
================
The monthly Treasurer's Report was provided to Board members by K.
Kaiser prior to the Board meeting and produced from Quickbooks Online.
Here is an exerpt from the treasurer's report on a few of the activities
the treasurer has been focused on:
"YTD income was down by 13K in September. Please refer to the P&L for
the full details. Some highlights:
AR is down by 18K due to PyCon 2012 Sponsor invoicing/collection
activity.
Donations for the month were $483.
Grants:
Miro Community $ 900
PyTexas 750
PyCon UK 1,500
Python Brasil 1,600
PyCon Argentina 1,500
Outside Expenses:
Wendroff $1,150
We continued invoicing PyCon 2012 Sponsors and began collecting
receipts. We're well into the process, as can be seen by a further 104K
increase in Deferred Revenue and a matching increase in our current
asset account balance."
Kurt concludes his report with a list of financial business items he will
be focused on, he said:
"My focus is on PSF Sponsor invoicing, Federal taxes, PyCon invoicing,
the Associate Member program, and AR reduction. I'm also looking into
fiscal sponsorship issues."
Board Discussion:
S. Holden: "Our total equity remains satisfactory, and with luck, the
next PyCon is going to bring a boost to our funds and reserves."
Progress Reports
================
The following board reports were submitted to the board mailing list
one week prior to this month's meeting. Please see a summary of each
board report listed below and a possible board discussion at the end
of the report(s):
Communication Status
--------------------
D. Hellmann, Communication Officer, reported on continued activities from
last month. He said:
1. Send announcement email about the blog to various mailing lists
(c.l.py, c.l.py.announce, etc.).
*No progress.*
Doug also reported on new activities for the month. The list of activities
included the following:
1. PyCon PL Grant by Paulo Nuin
http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2011/09/psf-grants-pycon-pl-2011.html
2. WebOb Port Grant by Mike Driscoll
http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2011/09/psf-provides-grant-to-port-webob.html
3. Van Lindberg Community Service Award announcement by Paulo Nuin
http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2011/09/van-lindberg-receives-psf-community.html
4. Benjamin Peterson Community Service Award announcement by Paulo Nuin
http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2011/09/benjamin-peterson-receives-psf.html
5. Laura Creighton Community Service Award announcement
http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2011/10/laura-creighton-receives-psf-community.html
6. Tarek Ziadé Community Service Award announcement
http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2011/10/tarek-ziade-receives-psf-community.html
7. Nick Coghlan Community Service Award announcement
http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2011/10/nick-coghlan-receives-psf-community.html
8. Arc Riley Community Service Award announcement
http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2011/10/arc-riley-receives-psf-community.html
9. PyCon 2012 proposal deadline announcement
http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2011/10/pycon-2012-proposals-due-12-oct.html
As far as the ongoing projects for the month are concerned, he reported:
1. Recruiting other people to help write for the blog.
A few volunteers have expressed interest, but things are getting
off to a slow start. I hope to have some more interesting topics
to give them after the August Board meeting.
2. Mike Driscoll is working on a retrospective post summarizing all of
the funding we have provided for conferences over the last year. We
will wait to publish until closer to the end of 2011.
For tabled activities, D. Hellmann said:
1. PyCon video equipment loan/rental program post
There was some discussion of offering the PyCon video equipment to
PUGs for their meetings, but the mechanism to do it isn't in place,
yet.
Honorary Associate Membership WebPages/Links
--------------------------------------------
P. Campbell, Honorary Associate Membership (HAM) WebPages Start-up
Project, reported on the current issues or blockages the project may
be faced with by saying:
"We have been in the technical phase of the Honorary Associate
Membership (HAM) Project for some time now. However, we are inches
away from recruiting our first PSF Honorary Associate member.
Many technical hurdles have been jumped in order to setup the HAM program
and we are now beginning to see some movement toward getting the HAM website
page prepared for member recruitment and subscriptions. Yes, HAM members
will have their own webpage!"
As far as the continued activities from last month are concerned, she reported:
"Since Kurt Kaiser, our treasurer, has been able to devote more time to the
HAM project implementation and setup, we should be able to set the launch date
soon.
Please see the message from Kurt Kaiserâs October 2011 treasurerâs report
regarding the current status of the technical phase of the HAM program
implementation and maintenance:"
The text on HAM signup pages is preliminary and needs
improvement. I'm looking for help here!
Continuing work on a front page with Associate Member
sign-up information. Decide how to present the HAM
Membership to the world, probably via apython.org link.
Infrastructure Committee
------------------------
S. Reifschneider, Infrastructure Committee Chair, reported on continued
activities
from last month. He wrote:
- Hosting Project: Discussions are still ongoing with regards to OSU/OSL
and other hosting provider (whos name I can never remember). Plans
are percolating.
- Arc Riley has transferred and renewed domains:
jython.org Transfer completed 2011/Sep/22
planetpython.org Renewal completed 2011/Jun/23
jythonbook.org Transfer completed 2011/Mar/12
jythonbook.com Transfer completed 2011/Mar/12
pythonpulse.org Transfer completed 2011/Mar/12
pythonpulse.com Transfer completed 2011/Mar/12
planetpython.org Transfer completed 2010/Jun/23
- Arc Riley does not have a contact for the ironpython domains.
- The pound-python.org domain contact cannot be reached, Arc is giving
up on this.
Sean also reported on the new activities for the month. H said:
- Arc Riley is transferring jython domains to the new registration
regime so that the Board doesn't have to deal with them.
The activities planned for next month included:
- Continue on migration of services to their new homes.
- Arc Riley is planning to transfer these domains yet:
jython.com
jython.net
psfb.org
psfmember.com
psfmember.net
psfmember.org
python3.org
As far as the ongoing and the tabled activities are concerned, Sean reported:
- None
Marketing Material
------------------
M.A. Lemburg, Marketing Material Project Manager, provided a summary
of his work. He said:
The project is lead by Marc-André Lemburg who is in contact with
the people behind the Plone brochure created by the German Zope
User Group (DZUG): Jan Ulrich Hasecke and Armin StroÃ-Radschinski.
We started working on the concept a few weeks after World Plone Day
in April 2010 and had several meetings and conference calls to take
the idea forward.
For more details, please see the brochure support site at:
http://brochure.getpython.info/learn-more
Marc-André also reported on the progress of this project when he said:
We have met up to discuss layouts and progress on getting text and
image data from the leads. Progress on that is still slow, but the
material is starting to trickle in.
Due to this lag time, we had to adjust the schedule for print and
are now looking to have the first edition out and printed in time
for Python US 2012. This means that we can accept success stories
for the printed version until end of October or early November.
Layout, getting approval and translation will then take up most
of November and December.
In January, we'll get the brochure printed, so that the 1500 copies
reserved for PyCon US 2012 can be sent out in time for the conference.
In the next few weeks, we'll also set up the sponsorship signup
and payment pages on the support website and start to actively look
for sponsors.
These are the available sponsorship plans we have available:
http://brochure.getpython.info/sponsorship
and here's the media data for the brochure:
http://brochure.getpython.info/mediadata
Esp. the reference entry sponsorships should be interesting for
smaller Python companies:
http://brochure.getpython.info/mediadata/reference-entry-guidelines
Registration for sponsorship will be open until end of November.
M.A Lemberg reported on the current issues the project is faced with.
He said:
As always, additional help in finding interesting projects
would be greatly appreciated. Please consider signing up as
contact scout:
http://brochure.getpython.info/signup/contact-scout-signup
and, if you're interested in the project, please consider signing
up to our newsletter:
http://brochure.getpython.info/
Thanks !
As far as future plans are concerned, he reported:
If the project goes well, we'll follow up with a Python flyer,
translated versions of the brochure and also consider creating
marketing material more targeted at specific user groups or
application fields.
In the long run, we'd also like to take the idea of producing
marketing material beyond printed material and develop booth
setups, giveaways, CDs, etc. to support conference organizers and
local user groups wishing to promote Python at their events.
Board Meeting Discussion:
S. Holden: "M.A. Lemburg, do you think the marketing project needs help,
or can you find all the input you need?"
M. A. Lemburg: "We are having problems getting the leads to submit usable
content, but I don't think anyone can really help with that. We'll be in
touch once we have the sponsoring page with payment options set up."
S. Holden: "Okay. There is a Brazilian media company that has replaced a
large amount of its infrastructure with Python, can give you a contact if
you need one."
M. A. Lemburg: "Yes, please. We could use some more media related success
stories. If you know more in the marketing sector that would be a plus as
well."
Moving PyPI to Amazon CloudFront
--------------------------------
The project leader, M.A. Lemburg, Moving PyPI to Amazon CloudFront,
reported on progress for the month:
"The project is currently on hold, since the team members don't have
time to put into this."
In terms of having any issues surrounding his project, M. A.
Lemburg reported no issues except one: he said, he just does not have
enough time to devote to his Moving PyPI to Amazon CloudFront project.
M. A. Lemburg also reported on future plans for the project:
"Check to see whether a trigger based approach to S3 syncing
wouldn't be easier to implement right from the start."
PyCon Chair
-----------
J. Noller, PyCon Chair, provided us with information on when and where
the next two PyCon US conferences will be held, in addition to the web
location of the official PyCon 2012. Please see below:
PyCon 2012: March 7th â 15th, Santa Clara, CA
PyCon 2013: March 11th â 21st, Santa Clara, CA
Official Site: http://us.pycon.org/2012
He also provided "notes" for this month. He said:
We are officially capping registration at 1500 attendees. The team feels that
this is beneficial to the conference as a whole, and allows us to maintain
the
feel PyCon has grown into. We also feel this will encourage other regional
conferences to grow in turn.
I am working on a draft document to present to the board of directors that
clarifies PyCon's position as a key fundraising entity for the Foundation. As
the planning and execution of PyCon 2012 has continued, this has become more
and more true. More later; some thoughts here:
http://jessenoller.com/2011/09/23/pycon-2012-sponsorship-making-the-case-for-sponsorship/
For the month of October, Jesse reported on "Issues and blockages." He said:
1. We are still waiting on AV/Recording vendor responses to our request for
quotes. This is a concern - I'd like to lock these contracts down quickly,
but
can not make the bidding parties move more quickly.
As far as the continued activities from last month, he reported:
1. Sponsors continue to line up for PyCon 2012: We have now achieved a record
64 sponsors signed up. I continue to drive efforts on this front. We have
closed the Diamond level sponsors (3) as well as the Lanyard levels. We will
close Platinum at 10 total, and leave Gold and Silver and FOSS open.
2. Financial updates will be sent to the private board list.
3. CTE negotiations and discussions have completed. We are now entering the
registration implementation phase.
4. Room commission rate negotiations with the Hyatt are done.
5. The on-site visit with the Hyatt and the Convention center are complete.
The space looks *amazing* and the staff has been exceedingly friendly and
polite.
6. The call for proposals for PyCon 2012 has *closed* - We broke all records
on the number of talks (374 as of this writing) and tutorials (89). The
Program Committee is staffing up and beginning to do reviews. See:
http://pycon.blogspot.com/2011/10/pycon-2012-announcing-new-diamond.html
7. Management of the program guide has been passed off to Yannick, Ewa, Van
and
Doug N. Idan Gazit has been tapped to do the artwork for the Program Guide
and
T-Shirts.
8. Negotiations with Elegant Stitches are ongoing.
9. Reached out to PyLadies, and other organizations to help put together a
plan
for talk mentorship; and a potential dedicated diversity grant fund for
PyCon.
This discussion is ongoing, and currently sitting in my court.
10. Site fixes and improvements continue - Eldarion has been *amazing*
through
this process and exceedingly responsive to needs and changes.
Jesse also listed three (3) new activities for the month. Please see below:
1. Ramp up of the Program Committee.
2. Resolve book store negotiations.
3. Get solid quotes on t-shirt costs.
The last two PyCon US items reported on by Jesse were the "planned for next
month" where he listed two (2) items and included a list of the "current
Heads/Staff
for PyCon 2012."
[see above]
1. Continue sponsor drive.
2. Push on registration integration with CTE completion and launch ASAP.
There
is a *lot* of pent-up demand for registration to open.
Current Heads/Staff for PyCon 2012
------------------------------------------
Chair: Jesse Noller
Co-Chair: Yannick Gingras
Accountant/Sponsors: Van Lindberg
Event Coordinator: Ewa Jodlowska/CTE
Public Relations Lead: Brian Curtin
Tech Lead: Doug Napoleone
Tech Co-Lead: Noah Kantrowtiz
Volunteer Lead: TBD
Program Committee Chair: Jacob Kaplan-Moss
Program Committee Co-Chair: Tim Lesher
Tutorials Chair: Stuart Williams
Tutorials Co-Chair: TBD
Posters Chair: Vern Ceder
Tutorials Co-Chair: Zac Miller
Financial Aide Chair: Peter Kropf
Financial Aide Co-Chair: TBD
However, under "tabled activities," he provided the following:
None
Board Meeting Discussion:
J. Noller: "Does anyone have any PyCon related questions for me?"
J. Rush: "The status of AV negotiations, perhaps?"
J. Noller: "See my report, I have yet to get anything from any vendor."
S. Holden: "Let me know if I can help at all -- perhaps inquire of other
vendors?"
J. Noller: "I plan on chasing AV down in the next 20 days."
S. Holden: "The sponsor recruitment is going amazingly well."
J. Noller: "Total Sponsorship: $324000."
Sprint Committee
----------------
J. Noller, Sprint Committee Chair, provided a summary of activities for
this month, he reported:
Three sprint events occurred this month, which we're currently working
on reimbursing. We've also picked up a new opportunity to help a UK
based group by sponsoring the travel costs for a core CPython
developer to join them for a sprint.
As far as the continued activities for the month, he reported:
None
On his report of the new activities for the month, J. Noller said:
PyCon UK, PyCon Finland, and the Boston Twisted sprints all occurred
this month, and we've received UK's reimbursement request which we're
processing. Finland and Boston occurred just a few days ago so we're
waiting to receive their details.
We're also working out the details of sponsoring a sprint for Python
Sheffield in the UK. The user group and myself have talked with
CPython developer Tim Golden about travelling from London to Sheffield
to educate them on the processes and examples of contributing to core,
and he's on board with doing it. There's no set date yet, but we'll be
working with Tim on how to cover his train expense to get there.
Since there was no "new business" to be discussed or voted on in the October
2011 board meeting, S. Holden took the opportunity to extend a hand by asking
fellow board members and officers if they had any specific issues they wanted
to discuss.
The board meeting ended with a brief discussion on the available space and
the floor plan at the convention center in Santa Clara, CA where the 2012
PyCon will be held.
Other Business
===============
None
Adjournment
===========
S. Holden adjourned the meeting at 16:33 UTC.
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