 Yes, I welcome to the the the SPI both So even though it's a both I'm basically just following B here. So he's been doing that stuff forever. So Seems to be working So he usually gives a presentation So I put together some slides So I Assume everyone here knows what SPI is but basically when Debbie and needed some you know a organizational structure They didn't create the Debbie and foundation But they created SPI to provide such services to Debbie and but also to other projects So the the current that's the the current SPI both Even though we actually host a lot of We don't actually host the project, but we provide services to a lot of associated projects The people involved in SPI are still mainly Debbie and people And then we have the you know the SPI both at depth conf We've been trying to change that over the years, but it's just extremely hard for people who are not Debbie and to be elected Which to some degree is because the the membership of SPI are Debbie and people And so as new projects get affiliated with SPI We do encourage them to tell their people to join SPI as members so they can participate in the elections So hopefully that's going to change over over the years, but right now most most people are In some way or another affiliated with with Debbie and the the only exception is Andrew Tritchell And again, he is a big name so that probably explains why why he was elected Yes Yeah, we had some non-deviant people that's right so the elections so when when B Dale talked last year He said that the nominations are over. So I'm actually covering the elections from last year and this year And last year was a was a big election. We had a lot of Turnover and we actually had a lot of interest so last year I think we had 13 nominations and and a lot of them were from from other projects And so we had Luca Who's who's here? We had Jimmy who used to be With with SPI return So they're here and then Andrew Tritchell as I mentioned Rep who's Affiliated with the autopilot project, which is a new project affiliated with SPI and then Valerie Young Who was actually I think recruited at a depth on last year And then this year So Dimitri Yeah Well that makes I was actually gonna thank you, but I can see So Dimitri who was actually doing really great work, unfortunately Doesn't have a lot of time anymore and so he decided to resign and then so basically we have nine board members and Usually what happens is that we have staggered board terms so every year free people get elected So so the board doesn't you know not the whole board changes at the same time But because of resignations and and just because of history that those staggered board terms got sort of out of out of whack and so Andrew Tritchell actually resigned voluntarily just to allow for free board seats, but then he ran again And I was the only one who was really up for for elections. So and then I don't know it's it's very strange because last year we had 30 nominations It really if you look at the past years It always really fluctuates a lot and this year we had free slots and we had free nominations And and the third one was really only because I I had to ping people and say hey, we only have two candidates and free slots So so so this year we didn't actually have a have a vote which which is quite a shame because we actually Sorry Yeah, I was just gonna say because because we actually that's what I wanted to ask. Did you implement the new vote? Well, that was waste of time we actually changed to new voting system and and noodles kind can implemented it And now we we didn't well at least you're ready for next year obviously when you'll have 13 Well, I was just gonna say next year. We're gonna find the box. We could have found this year And and so like I said, so over the last few years, we've had quite a bit of of turn A lot of people have been involved for a long time Left So Robert Brockway solver He used to be really active and he's done a lot of work over over the years But he did really have much time so so he resigned and then Gregor's Patterson also resigned into lack of time And then Joshua Drake His term ran out And the same with B Danes for his term ran out and he finally said, you know, I've had enough after many many many years of serving as SPI president and Then and then I mentioned him before who who couldn't stand it There's just too much So these are the the current officers, but I should say we we are having officer appointments on Monday so that that may change So the the membership Basically everyone who contributes to free software and open source can can well actually everyone who agrees with SPI's mission can can join And then everyone who has actually done work in the area can can be a contributing member and one one of the things we've been talking about for several years is is that a lot of the the members are active and and That normally doesn't cause issues, but we're actually trying to get new bylaws Adopted and and there we we need need to reach quorum to to get those adopted And and that's really hard with a lot of inactive people. So again noodles kindly did the work to pink people Who hadn't voted so participate it in a long time and and and made sure that the members are active Of course since then we haven't actually Put put the no put the the bylaws to a vote yet So maybe we need to re-run that again Just for clarification this work was done by human this noodles, that's a real person not a bot Yes For those who don't know in the room for a number of months, I thought the username noodles on IRC was a bot Because because when you join Yeah, because when you when you join the meeting it says You know if your tenants won't if you want your tenants to be recorded message the secretary who for a long time Used to be noodles and he would you know just reply. Okay noted So Bradley thought that it was a pot Yes, like I mentioned the membership is opened everyone who Who agrees with the principles can join and then becomes a non contributing member and then if you've done anything You know significant for the the free software source world you can be a contributing member So everyone who cons contributes to Debbie and or or another SPI affiliate project automatically, you know can can be a contributing member So we last year we had a lot of new projects That they listed here and they're quite quite very it's quite interesting Maybe I'm gonna highlight X org so they actually had their own foundation their own Non-profit and they basically said, you know, we we don't want to deal with with the paper filing and stuff And so we just gonna join SPI and and close it down So here the the project so we have about 46 projects right now Some of them seem defunct so so that's something we actually need to to figure out what what do we do with with that so we've been Trying to improve a lot of the the governance and and one of the things we realized is that Where when so when we accept a new project, you know We have a conversation with them just to understand what they need what the relationship is gonna be But one of the things we have historically not really done is is to put provisions in place What's gonna happen when the project can't be contacted if it you know if it becomes defunct? So we have been doing some work in that area and and some of these probably aren't very active or aren't active at all And we we should probably remove them. So that's something that's gonna happen at some point But but obviously some of them are quite significant. So we have Debbie and with Postgres Libre Office does Uses SPI for for some of the work in the States. So I think that that's also something unique with SPI is that we don't Projects can affiliate with SPI but also with other entities. So for example Libre office They have the document foundation Which is the main home, but then they still use SPI for for some of the The donations and reimbursements So one of the things we we started doing So obviously because a lot of the board Debbie and people So we often meet the depth con but but we we decided in 2016 To have a proper face-to-face meeting with with the board and and there was really To talk about sort of big pictures stuff in addition to the operations. So it was about, you know, what's the vision? What's the what's the mission? What's the strategy? What's the roadmap? It's really good to be face-to-face and then also obviously, you know focus on operations and just get stuff done So we had one Last year and then we had another one earlier this year And and this year we're actually gonna have two And that's just because we decided to move it to like the September October Time frame because we always have the elections in July And so it really makes sense to do it just a few months after that to meet the new board members and and to also get them involved And the the other thing is that I should highlight that so the SPI So we hold money in trust for other projects So we have you know Debian earmark postgres earmark, but then we also have the general fund which is You know SPI is money and and and it's actually a question about what we should do with the general fund Because it's getting quite quite big And and it's getting quite big because of some generous donations for the Craigslist Foundation has donated a Significant amount to us several times and Google also gave us some money And so we decided you know having having a face-to-face meeting Makes us more effective get stuff done and we intend to keep that once once a year So the financial status So so we actually we published an annual report is here So if you want to have the details you can take a look at that, but the the basic summary is that The income was about 400k. So those are donations to either Projects affiliated with with SPI or the the SPI general fund Expenses were around 200k Leaving it says net income, but but it's really just a surplus of 220k and so did the total assets that SPI holds so both for the projects and for ourselves Is actually over a million now. So it's it's quite quite a significant sum which also shows that You know, it's not just the toy project anymore. We really need to get serious about doing stuff properly We really need to improve a lot of processes Get more rigorous and organized about doing things So the the bookkeeping process So that's that's really one of the the major areas where we want to improve because that's really the main SPI does a number of things so we hold, you know domain names trademarks Projects can apply for trademarks through SPI with the help of SFNC We do a number of things but the the main task is really Accepting donations for projects and then doing reimbursements when when they spend the money So so that the core is definitely around, you know, the finances and and those Have been lacking in a number of areas. So for example various projects have been asking for more detailed information about, you know, regular reports and and and more and more detailed view on which money is being spent on on on their behalf And and so basically what we've been doing for for the last one or two years, I guess is is to try to move into a proper Accounting system and and basically we chose lecture CLI, which is a command line based tools and that may sound weird but what we found With the website is that because the I mean, I should say that SPI the board is really Really the people who do stuff. It's not just the board is not just there for oversight But it's also the people who do a lot of the work and hopefully that's going to change in the future, but That's how reality is at the moment and and and again most of the board you know Debbie and or Linux people and If we use tools which Linux people like then it's more likely for people to actually do stuff So when we moved away from like the clone website, which was like a CMS to something where you can just you know commit to a git repository and and and the website comes out We saw that people became much more actively involved and we are basically trying to do the same with the Financial process having you know text files where you can record stuff and command line tools and and it also makes it easy to automate Yes And we also Moved to a sort of Bookkeeping not not a huge spreadsheet, but to author to these t-based accounts and And So it's like a proper double double entry bookkeeping which helps us also to To see that We also have it quite easy now to see which assets on which bank accounts Do they match to the ledger CLI that that we are using? Yeah So so so we're hoping to improve the the whole financial process And one of the outcomes is going to be to have more regular reports which May sound quite ironic because since we've been working on the new process the the The the frequent reports stopped for a while But that's as we as we migrate But in the future once we adopt that process You know, it's much easier to produce regular reports and it's also much easier to actually give access to the projects to You know, whatever fine level of details they care about either we can do You know custom reports for them or we can actually give them you know access to the to each Transaction and and that was something which we couldn't really do before The other thing we're improving and and I should I should say so I should mention a few names cuz cuz So so Dimitri who is unfortunately leaving so he did a lot of work as well as as Martin sober And the treasurer my cursor ties has been really involved and helping to to move to that system I guess the key benefits that we found out from moving to the system was that we were able to Automate the import of bank statements such that there is a reduced amount of manual work We do have to keep constantly fix the scripts to import the Transaction data from the bank online banking into the CLI ledger But at least once we fix the scripts we import six months worth of data at the speed of your CPU, right? And that improved a lot Especially since we could import all of the bank accounts and the people data and the click and pledge data such that all of our Revenue streams can be at least automatically allocated majority of things The reimbursement process still needs more work, but yeah, you will talk about it later But at least we now saving time for the treasurer because before treasurer had to do everything manually But we now automated even like the checks deposit by hiring a service to process manual checks, right? And that helps to save time to do better stuff elsewhere Yeah, no definitely. I mean, that's the nice thing a lot of that work can can be automated with with the right tools Which which we know how to use So the other thing we are trying to improve is the reimbursement process And that's really where you know a lot of most of the work is and so so Luca has been Improving the the RT workflow by by having a more guided process and by capturing more details Which again Once we do that we can you know, it makes it easier to generate the like the ledger transactions and stuff like that long term We need some proper reimbursement system and there has been talk about adopting the one being developed by software freedom Conservancy, but that's not quite ready yet. So The the other thing we're doing and and that's really going to help is to to get some paid help for reimbursements That's something which has been requested for for a long time So we basically Initially gonna have someone who's gonna just check reimbursements to see, you know, is the information complete Do we have bank details things like that all the receipts attached to the numbers match the receipts Those kind of things because then it's it's it's much easier for for the treasure and to actually do the payment That might sound strange strange to a few people here. Why is that such a huge problem SPI is doing a lot of reimbursements that are not going to people living in the US or in somewhere in Europe which makes it sometimes quite hard to get the Additional forms some some banks require additional forms for transferring money to a Person living in Brazil Argentina or wherever and that is the thing that's most time-consuming and We hope to get that a little bit more streamlined by having someone helping us actually doing collecting all this information so Michael in the end just only needs to do the real transfer of the money right So basically in terms of improving the accounting process what we're really working on is also to to get away from a single point of failure and unfortunately SPI currently has has quite a few of those so in the You know the the treasure area so Michael has been, you know, I mean fantastic because Most people aren't aware of how much work he does because most of SPI is reimbursements and all of them You know have been done by Michael But at the same time it's it is a single point of failure and and we need to to to get away from that model So we need to understand what the process is we need to document it and just be more rigorous about it And that's what what we are trying to do and and by moving to the lecture-based Process that's a good way to understand, you know, how things have been working what needs to be done and Using that as an opportunity to document things The other thing we need is so SPI for example, we don't really have a expense policy So the various projects like Debbie and they may have an expense policy Although some projects don't But we need to give some some guidance Both for projects that don't have an expense policy and also now that we have face-to-face meetings So we actually spending money we just need to have some Guidelines or framework The other thing we've been talking about is so I mentioned that we have over a million dollars now So we should probably work on getting our financial Data reviewed or go through a proper audit. I don't think we're quite there yet But but but we are moving to a system where that can be done and and I think we we probably You know talk to a professional soon to see you know to get some advice on improving our system So we can pass and an audit in the future Background to that is that also to due to some laws within New York We at one point need to have the financial audit right and review It's definitely something we will need But even if even if it wasn't required, you know, we it's something we want to do So back on your point about the single 40 failure and mentioning Michael doing the reimbursements I I just want to let everybody in the room know where in case you don't follow SPI general There there was a rather nasty thread in December about about the delays of reimbursements and I commented on that thread and I'm not just trying to promote my post but but if you want to read a non-trolly Email in that post that may be one of the few But my the point that I made in that post was that the SPI's run completely by volunteers and all the work is done by volunteers As you know, I'm involved with software freedom Conservancy that has four employees We get complaints that we're take too long for reimbursements. We generally always get them within 30 days, but people still complain So the fact that you all have been doing reimbursements all these years as volunteers It's an incredible tribute to the volunteers that you have and it was very distressing to see people Complaining it and people who aren't even heavily involved in SPI coming in and piling on or who weren't even able to reimbursement So I so I we have your back on that if it comes up again Certainly and I'll do that again if necessary But I just want to let other people know that threat happened and watch out for stuff like that with SPI being criticized We have set expectations for a volunteer or it's doing a great job for a volunteer work. Absolutely excellent job On the other hand can understand people waiting for money and People also Needing that money because not everyone has the financial background to cover for over several months The cost of several flights. I'll agree completely and we deal with that at Conservancy as well But what I found is people will always be stressed out about that, right? And we get people complaining in 10 days, you know, even if we're hitting 15 days It just always happens that way. So it's understandable. But we have to be fair to the org. It's a volunteer org This is our number one service and SLA on our number one service could be improved So this is for us to strive to be better and and like if SPI can get quicker at expense reimbursement The the whole everything else people will be happier in general, right? So sure But for us, I don't know. I don't know how it compares to Conservancy, for example But in SPI we really do have people who take out loans To pay for flights, which they then await reimbursement for and then they're charged interest and and when you hear that It's just it just starts to be mind-boggling We started doing a couple years ago Conservancy is pre is telling people they can pre-book flights with us So we started doing that a lot and from my point of view if people don't identify themselves They were told when they were given the equivalent of bursary and told we can pre-book your flight And then they don't take advantage of that I don't have a tremendous metasympathy if they turn around and say well now three embersments less than 30 days The hard part about that by the way is you'll need you'll need a credit card for the org Which is very hard to get Conservancy's credit card actually still has my personal credit on the line Because it's very hard as a nonprofit to get credit So so somebody's willing to do that then you could do it that way Yeah, right now we have a debit card which can be used for the same purposes, but it's not a credit card Yeah, that's a great idea for Helping those cases where people need a loan. I think the difference between what the complainants on the list were saying and what Dmitry is saying is the difference between blame and accountability as a volunteer or were very much doing our good-faith best and in that sense blame and You know couple of judgment of culpability is not appropriate, but as Dmitry says we could still strive to do better and That's a continual improvement effort. These are both compatible and Probably also to the background from From those complaints. I think they were mostly from that comes 16 visitors The depth comes 16 bursaries team was was Telling people that they get reimbursed within 40 to 60 days which Well, they at least told that to the people requesting the money and didn't knew about the the other backgrounds that The expectations were misadvertised Yeah, and about the credit card stuff Maybe SKI could get a secured credit card, which effectively is a debit card because you freeze the money ahead of time Yep, that's probably an option and we can also gradually build Credit on behalf of the entity There are ways to solve the problem. Yeah, yeah to do So some of the the progress updates I did talk about the finance financial improvements We still have a long way to go, but we've really made a lot of progress on that We also have annual reports again, so we are supposed to present an annual report for our H&M in July and For a few years we haven't really done that but but now we do And then as I mentioned before we switched the the voting algorithm So thanks for Ian Jackson for leading the the discussion around that and for and to to noodles for actually implementing it Next year we're gonna try it maybe and Then again in terms of moving away from a single point of failure, so we actually in the so we have had a PO box Which is basically Located near our treasure And recently we we signed up with one of those virtual address services We just scan your mail and which can deposit the checks And again that just allows us to be more independent of specific people and and and finally when you send money to a New York Registered charity you sent the check to New York Previously you would send it out of state which did raise questions Yeah, and we also have a phone number thanks to to look up it because some of the you know the signing certificates Actually require you that to have that Because of the face-to-face meetings I think we have some more clarity on on the mission of what we actually trying to do because sometimes You know people ask what about you know hosting mailing lists or git repositories for projects and things like that and And and and we decided that's not you know there are a lot of solutions for that out there It's not really what we want to do And then also in terms of how how do we you know work on our mission? You know should we be running projects ourselves, you know, maybe outreach or whatever or should we be working through our? Associated projects and I think there is more agreement that we should really be focusing on on the associated projects and helping them You know achieve what they want to achieve And then so various governance improvements I mentioned, you know moving away from single point of failure also Making it easier to contribute so we created some on-boarding information both for new directors But also for you know the secretary for the liaisons of the associate projects So just making it easier to actually contribute to join to know what's going on another Another thing we've been talking about for years may be longer Decades, well, what I have when was SPI created? right Is is to have directors and an office as liability insurance? Just to make sure that the the people, you know willing to to contribute that time are protected and It's actually not such a big deal because New York has has pretty good regulations in that area, but it's still Again as a serious organization and not you know a toy It's something that we we need and we actually made a lot of progress we joined and NPCC and PCC which is like a nonprofit in New York which helps nonprofits and for them we have obtained a quote and And I just need to actually get around to signing it The other thing that Jimmy has been working on is getting new bylaws So the the the current bylaws don't actually describe how SPI operates So actually I should mention be there so he's been leading that effort and then after he left the board It's it's now Jimmy And and I think we are the stage where we can put them to vote fairly soon So in terms of getting involved so I think there are some people who think that oh I have to be on the board To volunteer but but that's definitely not the case. I mean we obviously we want to have You know candidates for the board so we can actually run an election and test noodle software But but there are a number of people who are volunteers now and actually noodles is a great example. So he's been Yeah, I mean, I just want to chip in and go I stepped down from the board realizing that I was sort of not doing as much as I thought I should do as a Board member but still felt that SPI is an important organization that I wanted to contribute to and As a non-board member I can get everything I both have the time and the inclination to do for SPI done In terms of you know been helpful in the member system being helpful on the website I know that you can step up and do stuff without having to be part of the board and if people have Something to offer feel they can they should even just being active on the mailing list and getting involved in the discussions that go on in General and private and you know making it known that there is a community around SPI and I don't know if anyone from other Organizations or who's going to watch the stream, but they should get involved too. There's no need to be a board member to be helpful to SPI We were also just discussing board internally whether Dimitri for example may still have read access to the treasurer Repository because he was doing quite a lot of work and identifying where I started to print money within ledger And that was very very helpful to Get that review from someone who is also who had also doing professional work on Accounting Yeah, so we we definitely open for any help so if people hear people watching the the recording We also very opens our meetings on ISC We publish minutes. Thanks. That's secretary And we we have various mailing lists, so it's very easy to get involved So any so that's it for me. So any any questions any comments any Flame walls tomatoes I Think only valley heard my answer to this so I should repeat it for the group But when you asked when was STI created apparently 20 years ago this summer happy anniversary Yeah, so definitely not a toy anymore So we should you know, we should get serious about doing stuff properly and and I think we are moving in the right direction Yeah with that. Thanks. And also. Thank you to be there who ran for president was president for ten years So half of the existence