 Awesome. Hello everyone and welcome to our 2023 Board election open community forum. We're very excited to have you and we're looking forward to getting to know the candidates better and answering some of the questions from the community. Just as a reminder, this forum is to serve as an opportunity for folks who need a visual. Learning opportunity and to learn more about the candidacy. So we're going to start out first by each candidate introducing themselves. So if you could say your name and your pronouns and take about 15 seconds. Me first, I guess. Yeah, anyone who wants to volunteer to go first. I don't know how everyone's camera so next to me. Carlos Espina and he him, I guess. I'm Matthew Solders. I'm he him as well. I'm then I am failure and I use she they pronounce. I'm Mark Dorson. My pronouns are he him. I'm John Doyle. My pronouns are also he him. I believe that was all of the candidates. So community members just as a reminder we want to hear from you all so if you have any questions please put them into the chat. Or you can send them directly to Von and I if you want to remain anonymous. Awesome. So we have a few prepared questions in the meantime. Before any of the community questions come in. So once again, I'll ask the question and then we can kind of just bounce around. So if anybody would like to volunteer first, just jump in. So our first question is, what is your approach to nonprofit fundraising and philanthropy? I can jump in this one real quick. So, I think my, my approach approach to nonprofit fundraiser philanthropy is really threefold. I think first you need to be active instead of passive. I think we can't be passive to our approach and fundraising. It powers the triple project in the community. And if we're looking to actively engage in this initiative, we really need to go out to the community and. Go out to the community and be proactive in this. I think secondly, we need to look for alternate funding sources. Right now it's, we're really heavily looking at events and community contributions and I think there's other options that we can explore. You know, grants and other things are available to nonprofits and I think there's additional opportunity out there that we can look to the industry to kind of get ideas out of. And lastly, I think just building, continuing to build on the community's message and what the triple project is and really focus on values for the community. And to the people who are going to contribute back and give money, the values that they get out of it as opposed to the need that we have as a project for that money. I think if we can focus on the outcomes, I think we can, can do a lot more for engaging so really I just think we need to take a more active approach to fundraising and that'll help us drive the success of the triple project. That's great. My, my, my, my approach is, is, is really, is really driven from my experience on other nonprofit boards and, and also working for nonprofits as a, as an employee. And I like to think that these experiences have given me some insight into effective fundraising philanthropy. I think the first thing is that an organization needs to have a cure, a clear vision mission that donors will understand why it matters to them. And I'm proud to actually have been one of the people that have that helped craft the associations mission 10 years ago. So I'm pretty, pretty familiar with it pretty familiar with with with with with how the how the association is approached that over the last over the last 10 years. I also think that building relationships is more important than nearly anything else. We need to be connected and people need to trust the organizations that they donate to. I agree that we need to diversify diversify our funding sources. Transparency has done some of this, done some experiments in the past, but those experiments seem to have sort of gone to the sidelines, things like tried to pull and so forth. It's at different points where we're, we're providing different kinds of funding sources, but I agree that we need to diversify transparency is really important. When we're dealing with with our communication to make sure that it's consistent goes right back to trust. What we're very good about is is events right events and campaigns drive donors and supporters. We're pretty good about that. And I think I think that with some additional partnerships we can get better. And I also think that there are two other bets. One is long term planning. I've been engaged in long term planning and I know the association does this. I've done this with multiple nonprofits in the past, and I've also in in the past done long term planning with the association itself. And the last thing is, we need to make sure that we're in legal compliance, right, like we there there's there's there's this assumption that that that fundraising can be almost anything, but it has to be significantly associated with the organization. Otherwise, you can get in deep trouble with the IRS, lose your use your exempt status and so forth. And I've got extensive experience around that legal compliance piece as well in us nonprofits. Hey everybody. I'm going to go. Yes. I think I'm very close to what John was saying. We usually have put our fundraising and the main source of money for the Drupal Association on the event. I think we should be in membership, but we should be more active and not only active looking for new sources of grants outside of what we're getting right now. But also on what people can get from that money from the nonprofit in this case, the Drupal Association. Drupal has grown immensely, but as we grow, the challenges are bigger and bigger and we've been working out the Drupal Association has been working on fixing them, making it better. And those outcomes is what it's going to drive. We saw a fantastic example. I think it's a fantastic example, Drupal Pishpo, where we got some money raised for a couple of projects and even on the spot. We have like $3,000, $5,000 extra and then somebody after that added WordPress, I believe added more. And the reason is because the projects that were proposed were very valuable for the community, for growing Drupal, growing the community and that is important. So I think it's important to focus on that part as well. I would add on to what Carlos just mentioned. I think the two of the main ways to improve and drive fundraising is we need to think about how we're going to deliver value. I don't think it's enough to expect people to donate to get a good feeling out of it or for the kindness of their own hearts. It's great if they do and that's great if that is a byproduct, but I think when people are looking around for how to spend their money and where to contribute, they're looking to see what are they going to get out of it, and I think there are various organizations that are looking for exposure, whether it's tied to a specific purpose or a specific project. I think Pitchburg was an example of this. Pitchburg showed what could be done when we're tying it to very specific projects. People got excited about that. I'm not actually skeptical about the Pitchburg idea, but to be in the room and to see the excitement that people got, people adding on and continuing, that really showed that when we can draw a direct line between someone's contribution and as specific as possible to the effort, I think that really motivates people to give as opposed to a more general fund where we hope it's going to end up in the right place and we know that there are more general needs. But I don't think it elicits the same visceral reaction from folks when they're deciding whether to contribute or not. So I think those two pieces tying it as directly as possible and that goes into transparency, but also just marketing as well, and figuring out what the Drupal Association can deliver a value to whether it be to an individual or to an organization. I kind of would like to piggyback on that. I know personally from all my companies, I've had a hard time convincing them to do the top dollar donation because they don't see the value in it. And something I would like to say, I don't even know if it's possible if it counts as like another event, but you know, if we could organize any kind of like training, so you know they pay this top dollar event. And it comes with a few hours of training with talking with the Drupal expert, it may help get, you know, kind of some of the questions that Mike have just posted, you know, the Drupal community has gotten smaller and it's getting smaller. As Drupal gets more complex. I think events where people can get trained up on how the new process of Drupal is going may get, may spark interest for more people to join. Also with the training, you know, companies can think it's like a, you know, a spreadsheet person would see value with that immediately and you may get more companies willing to donate that way. And then you just, you know, upgrade from the, what is it the bottom tier like $1,000 to the next tier like $10,000. Almost like swag for companies. Yeah, yeah, you know, I think it would just any kind of like some kind of initiative of training could just hit a hit a number of buttons, get more interest, get more interest from companies who, you know, aren't technically, you know, I say spreadsheet people it's a term someone in my company use like they're not developers they don't care about that they just need to see value in the money they spend and like trying to explain to them open contribution. You know, we all know the value, but a spreadsheet person doesn't. And I think showing like, oh, you know, also by donating we get our net you get your name out there you get you get involved in the community, and you get some little bit of training, you know, at the same time so you know, I think something along those lines I think could help, especially in the future where, you know, if the community continues to shrink may help boost those numbers. I'll stop now. Go ahead. I was going to time it I'll be I'll be quick. I, I laughed when I saw this question a little bit I've done just a very small amount of fundraising and so my first thought was, was my approach is my approach is gratitude for the people who are putting the work in because it can be really exhausting and you know based on the answers I think visible that there's a lot to it. There's a really, you know, multi year strategic plan that goes into building something. And, you know, in my experience, I've seen two different strategies one is you can cast a wide net cold call a lot of people and hope that you know people are going to fight. And the other strategy is that you can work really hard to build something meaningful that people are going to want to support. And so, you know, Stephen listening to what you said about companies might not want to donate that much money because they just don't see value in it but you know I think it's really important to emphasize the value of the work that we're doing here and the value of the community and this really beautiful thing that we're building. And that's not easy. So, yeah, I think that was the gist. So, support the people who are who are doing that work. And give my response as well. So, the Drupal Association is a really big deal, and I feel like they don't position themselves effectively as such Drupal is the livelihood of so many individuals but also so many companies. And as many people have said here, companies want to see value or direct map to the money they donate. They want to see what happens with it. And then they also want to, in some cases, to get approval from, you know, higher ups in their company they might want to map it to a business outcome. And again, the Drupal Association is a big deal is powerful. I think, you know, training is a good option you can say training by the Drupal Association by the official, you know, Drupal organization, etc. So, it's good to help your team members get certified or whatever it may be. But also, we've got Drupal.org, the whole contribution credit system, and the fact that some companies do employ full time contributors. So, if you think about that some of the core contributors, they're hopefully some of the best paid developers right so just the fact that companies are employing core contributors here and there shows that they are willing to invest a lot of money in that relationship in the, in the that many contribution credits from a core contributor maintaining Drupal. I think that really should be made accessible to a lot of other Drupal companies, you know, smaller Drupal companies that maybe can't afford to sponsor a full core contributor. The Drupal Association could be the middleman for that process, the middle person for that process. For example, solicit donations from various mid, you know, small to mid sized Drupal companies, and essentially say you are donating specifically for core contribution. The Drupal Association could, for example, hire the core contributor themselves, and hopefully, you know, raise above and beyond the expenses. And, you know, the, the companies who are doing the donations can get the contribution credits from from that core contributor. Just one example of, you know, the fact that the Drupal Association does obviously have a significant standing in the community, and does have the power to deliver value more directly I think at a larger scale than what many of the initiatives are doing. And more recently we have seen the Drupal Association go with this migration program where people pay to have their companies listed. I think that's great. It's another example of them raising funds and delivering value back to the company. It's a very, you know, direct path and a very impact in a very impactful way. So, you know, more of that. And, you know, again, that was just one idea. It's not the whole strategy. The real idea is more of, you know, delivering value in significant ways, and hopefully targeting organizations that can be paying the Drupals of employees salaries, maybe half of one employee, you know, two employees salaries worth, rather than looking for $100 per month for getting a listing on the website. So it's not easy. I know I'm making it sound easier than it is, but that's the type of thing I'd like to explore. I'll add my three points to the list. First one would be actions rather than words. So I volunteer for various events working for various non for profit organization. I help organize things like sporting events, technical conferences, moving festivals as well. So I know that, you know, there is a chain of command, but also there is, there's more you can do with showing what you're doing and what your role is rather than talking about it over and over again. Second one is education over enforcement being a teacher myself. I know the value of actually spending the time educating the person and seeing the result of that. So same goes for, you know, running the association of health association to reach particular goals. I had quite an interview interest in chats in Slack in Australia and Slack for Drupal and Australian channel over the last few days about what Drupal cessation goals are and what they actually do. And was quite interesting to see how many people don't realize what Drupal cessation does and what they don't do. So that was, yeah, quite an interesting to see that the, you know, community sometimes is not aware of what association do so I think that goal should kind of fall front and communicate it well enough. And the last one is clear direction communication. So it's all about openness, openness about direction, openness about where the funds go and openness about what the organization going to do with the funds once they collected them. That's me. Thank you. Awesome. So we're going to move into some questions from the chat. Shout out to my cursor. He put a lot of great questions in. We're going to start with the first. What does the DA do great and what could the DA do better. Anyone who would like to jump in. I think. I've been in talks on things that the day can do in different times. Moments of time. And when we were doing Drupal con Latin America back in 2015, I was very lucky to be part of the Colombian team. Even living in Houston. At the time to do it. And before that, the, every time we talk about the Drupal association, the community feeling or what it felt like the community feeling is like Drupal association. You focus on Drupal con Drupal.org. Do not interfere in Drupal. And today that has changed, I believe. I think Ryan's drama on the drop time, put it in a better way that I can put it, but there is so much that the Drupal association can do for Drupal. I mean, we've been interfering, but just interfering the future of Drupal. The other question that Mike is bringing is how do we stop the community? How do we grow the community again? How do we bring new people again? How do we facilitate everything? Like all that has been done with GitLab facilitates that box actually move forward in an easier way, which is fantastic because we have too many patches moving around in real projects. So I think the position of what the Drupal association can do for Drupal is every time more clear, we still have things that one may like or not, and what the decision can do. But moving from being the maintainer of Drupal.org and the host where Drupal core is to a more Drupal association is an association to increase the community. Drupal and maintainability and sustainability of the project is fantastic. What we can do better is still work on the contribution credit scale, which is one of the reasons that I especially joined this election. Because I have some, we'll talk about that later, but to make sure that that credit system is not about who pays more or who has more developers that they pay just to contribute to, you know, climb. But, which is as well, but that is, it shows Drupal knowledge and for the external world, it becomes like, if you are on the top and I need a project, if you are in the, in the list, I can trust you know Drupal. You're going to do a good project in Drupal and I can, my company that doesn't know anything about Drupal can trust you. So, I hope I explained it well, but the right now is a good system, but it still needs tweaking. You know, I think we need to be very careful about about expanding the boundaries of what the association does and doesn't do. We have to be very careful to understand that the association really is around governance of the project as a whole. And if we try to, if we try to put ourselves in a situation where the association also becomes an arbiter of contributions and a de facto contribution set of code contributors and so on. I think we're going to find ourselves expanding beyond what an organization of its size can effectively, effectively govern. We really should be looking at how we facilitate others to do the work that needs to get done around, around, around core work and so forth. And I think the association has done a pretty good job around those kinds of activities over the years. They've done a very good job around organizing events and so on. I would agree that the credit system still needs some work. It is so much better though than it was even four or five years ago. You know, I haven't done much coding in quite a long time. I'm a hand waver and a paper pusher these days. But I am extraordinarily involved in organizing events and I'm on the, you know, in the events organization working group and so on. And having, having the opportunity to get credits for those kinds of contributions that aren't code contributions has been really, you know, kind of, kind of awesome because when I started in Drupal in 2006 for, you know, I think it was 4.7.4 or something like that. It was all about code. It wasn't about community as a whole. So I think one of the things that the association has done a great job of is fostering that community and creating opportunities and environments in which that community can flourish and do amazing things. I agree that, you know, from again, what what my, my, my cursor was saying around, around shrinking community, what we can do to, to, to reverse that that goes right back into what what the association does well. And could do better. And that really is reaching out to honestly younger folks. One of the things that I've noticed is that we've aged right when I started in Drupal, you know, the sort of the median age was like 28 29 years old. And now you see a whole bunch of people like me with gray hair, who, who are kind of the old timers now. And you're seeing fewer and fewer younger people coming in part of that is a function of of younger age, he is being cool, right, despite the fact it's a really, really solid solid framework. One of the things that I discovered when I started working with like with my, with my, with my niece and a few other folks who are young and my nephew who, who, who, you know, didn't think that Drupal was particularly cool to see young guys like 24 or 25 years old. And it really was outreach it was really talking to folks about what Drupal can do how you can use it to build almost anything, showing examples spending time with, with younger folks, I'd love us to be reaching out to universities and colleges, community colleges, and, and seeing whether there are any opportunities for partnerships within computer science departments, where, where, where young folks can can can start to get a sense of, of the power that this tool has. And furthermore, we could, we could extend that to, you know, working, working with, with, with some of these young folks in paid internships, they don't need to be paid very much, but paid internships around around how to contribute and get them into some of these contribution sprints, get them, get them involved. We know that when people get involved younger, they tend to, they tend to be involved for the rest of their lives. I think the number one thing that the Drupal Association does well is that they do a lot with a little, you know, I think, and that sort of, you know, goes over all of the other things that I think the da could do better. I think the da could do better with communication and transparency, being more open to the community of what's going on what's being discussed and, and not just from a, you know, allowing sunshine on on all of those pieces but also I think it's a way to get more people involved if people don't know what's going on and what's being discussed what's being debated. It's really hard and, you know, to get them excited and interested and involved. I think the da has been good about reinventing itself and reinventing what they're spending resources on we, I think it needs to do an even better job I think that we've seen that this with the get lab transition. I'm constantly thinking about, you know, what if Drupal was being started today as a project. We wouldn't be using the same tools that we were using now we've the Drupal community and the Drupal Association have built a ton of tools that filled a need when they were created. We needed to build, you know, the issue queue system and the patch system, all the tools that involve that because they're weren't the same tools that are available today. We've now as a community looked out in the community and said, Well, we can use get lab, and it's taking us a while to get there but we can use get lab for for merger quest for issues. We can get this off of our plate, as far as maintenance and maintainability as a community the Drupal Association should not be spending a ton of its resources on maintaining those tools. When we could use very robust tools that the wider open source community has has developed and we need to continue to do that that's going to continue to change over time there's going to be new opportunities for that as the years go on. And last but not least the credit system was mentioned. There has been a ton of work over the last year plus maybe two years over improving the credit system. Pushing back against gaming of the credit system and I think all that I've been involved in many of those discussions all of that is very valuable. One thing that I am always thinking about when those discussions are going on is how to make sure that we are also considering how those changes impact new contributors. It's, it's a great thing. It's a great effort for us to try to make the experience better for maintainers and sort of protect them a little bit more from dealing with people trying to game the system. But if that results in even a few new people joining the community that hit a wall that wasn't there before or have an experienced people, you know, maybe they're mistaken for someone who's trying to game the system when they're really just someone who's newer and doesn't understand all those things. I want to make sure that, you know, people's entrance into the Drupal community and Drupal ecosystem is a great experience. You know, whether they're contributing to documentation events or code, or any other non code contributions that they feel appreciated and rewarded and hopefully that will keep them make them more likely to keep coming back. I'll go next. Yeah. John, you want to go? Yeah, go ahead, plan. No worries. So I think I'll be quick. So I think that will give you great ideas there and what can do better in my case, it's efficiency. I think efficiency is great currently at Drupal Association, what they do, how much they do on the shoestring budget and what they do with Drupal.org. There was plenty said about contribution credits on part of GitLab community as well and actually can approach contribution a bit differently. And that's kind of one of my things on my profile, if you want to read a bit more about that. But efficiency in terms of, as I said, the association did a lot of on the shoestring budget. They actually also organizing the events that are great thing, but also efficiency can be improved, always can. In my case, my small agency a few years ago were able to pay Drupal Association fees. So we actually took three months and pinged one of the males to get listed on Drupal.org. But once we stop paying Drupal Association fees, it only took a week to get the list, right? So basically three months versus a week. I think efficiency can be approved there just this little thing. And I'm sure this, you know, you can always improve efficiency on any level. That's me. And would anybody else like to share on that question before we move forward? Yeah, I can, I can throw in a couple summarizations real quick. I think most of most of this has been said, just rephrase it slightly. I think the association does an amazing job at running the infrastructure to support the community and running events. It is crucial that those things happen. And I don't think those should stop. I think what they need to improve on is marketing, promoting the project and engaging outside of just these, these two forums. I think the association has maybe a branding problem and doesn't have enough of a microphone to target the wider audience. I think a lot of our competitors do like a lot of other projects do, especially funded companies. And without that microphone and that connection to new audiences and new talent, I think the community will continue to shrink. And I don't think it's all in the DA, but the DA needs to be a crucial piece of this. There's a lot of ways to go about doing that. We talked about engaging new communities. We talked about engaging with younger talent, getting into universities, educating people just like, like, universities are full of JavaScript programs right now and react programs. And they think that this is the only way to get a job coming out because it's the new it's everyone's doing it right. And I think all of us on this call have had Drupal make such a big impact on our lives from our careers and we built businesses around it, right. I've gone from a developer to a CEO of running a Drupal practice through this community. And if we can engage people share our success stories and share the value of being a Drupalist and having Drupal in your skill set. I think that will drive more younger talent into Drupal and help us build that. And then combine that with building partnerships, right. Like, let's work with other open source communities. Let's work with other tools and platforms that we integrate with. Let's, let's spread the message and leverage channels that we can do to do that. And this all comes down to marketing. So I think the number one focus for the DA needs to be around brand and marketing and driving more people into the community more awareness of the Drupal project. And a lot of the infrastructure and things that we've already gotten placed that they're running really well. Of course it needs to continue needs, we can't stop what we're doing there. But, you know, I think this is, this is the primary thing that they need to focus on. I want to, I want to jump in and yeah, I think actually what I want to communicate is fairly aligned, but maybe through a different lens with what you just shared, John. I think the Drupal Association has done a really good job of emphasizing the values and principles, and I think that that is an incredibly important thing to do when you're building a community like an open source community like ours that is so value driven. You know, this is this is how we grow the community is by really leaning into those, those values and bringing in other people who are value aligned. And I think that the emphasis on the values and principles that at least from my perspective is great. But you're talking about communication pipelines and and the brand. I think that that's a really good point. And I agree and part of the reason that I'm here is because there is a communication breakdown between, you know, what's happening. The Drupal Association is doing strategic planning when they're when they're talking to each one. I understand that they're talking to each other about how to apply those values and principles and how to grow the community and how to do the right thing. Every single individual person who is either a board member or, you know, in any kind of leadership community leadership position has been so authentic. And they're in their desire to uphold values and to do the right thing and support people. But the communication breakdown results in sort of, you know, there's a there's a I think there's a lack of visibility into what different communities especially marginalized communities need to see and hear. And what action needs to happen and it doesn't even have to be huge. You know, sometimes it's just an acknowledgement of impact. And that's it and that can that can go a long way. But I think that there's a communication pipeline breakdown. That's making it so that people who are on the board people who are doing the strategic planning don't always have insight into what's happening in different sort of sub communities. Again, especially marginalized communities who who don't always get to have a voice who sometimes have to work extra hard to be heard or just don't have representation. And so I think that the Drupal Association could do better at really building and fostering and emphasizing those communication pipelines. But that's not, that's not a small lift, you know, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work to build trust and it takes a long time, and it takes a lot of dedication. So, you know, I hope I hope that this is something that that I can help with. I'm willing to do the work as as a DDI lead a Drupal diversity and inclusion lead. I recognize how big it is to say that I'm willing to do that. But I think it's really important we do need to build those communication pipelines we do need to show people that their voices can be heard. And so, yeah, I think that's a different way of saying the brand, the brand has been damaged, especially over the last, you know, year or so I think, and we need to work to fix that. I hear you entirely Faye right like one of the things is that it takes a ton of time to build trust, but it takes almost no time for trust to get to get to get damaged. We all know, you know, there's this elephant in the room Faye was just sort of insinuate, you know, about it around, around diversity and inclusion with some of our, some of our, some of our hosting partners and bad things that have been happening around around relationships between longtime, longtime Drupal contributors and those companies and communication breakdown and really, really startling things that that affect the brand as a whole, right. And, and I think, I think the, the, the association needs to be super careful about standing on the sidelines around these kinds of these kinds of issues that could affect the overall brand of Drupal. I, I've literally heard folks who have been looking at at Drupal is potentially a solution, amongst other solutions who've looked at the whole pantheon situation and, and, and, and honestly branded Drupal based on what they were seeing there and that's not fair to the community as a whole. But it, but, but sometimes things aren't fair, right. And, and we, we need to figure out as a, as a, as a, as a body as a community and the association needs to be in the center of it. How do we solve these problems. Yeah, I think it's also really important to emphasize that what happened at Pittsburgh this year and just before Pittsburgh this year is not the problem. And I think that hyper fixating on this one event is not healthy. It's probably just frustrating. We're burning ourselves out, but I do think it's a check engine. And the fact that we are still hurting as a community and the fact that the damage has not been repaired from this one event is really indicative of the fact that there is a lot of work that needs to be done here. And so yeah, I just, I just want to emphasize we can only face forward. And I want to face forward and I want to talk about how we can strengthen our community how we can do better how we can uphold our values and principles that we all truly do believe in so strongly. And how can we bring those marginalized groups and make sure that they get voices to moving forward so that if and when something in the future happens because things happen, things happen, we're not, it's not going to be happily ever after there are going to be challenges in the future. We need to be ready for it. Thank you all this is a very important conversation and I'm hoping that we can parking lot this now and come back to it, but we're going to get to some more questions from the chat but again thank you all for engaging in that question. So we're going to zoom out for a second and we're going to let me get to the question. We have tons of them in here. All right, so we're going to zoom out for a little bit and chat a little bit more about a board and its governance and how would you describe the role of a board member. How would you describe the role of a board member. So governance is the primary function of the board right. And I was the chair of the governance governance committee when I was on the association board the last time. And there are boundaries that you have to that you have to sort of sort of lay up lay upon for example. The board itself and board members are responsible for governance organizational partnerships. Operational functional functions and responsible for the mission values goals. The organizational health, the viability and survival of the organization. And then there's a partnership that board members have with the staff for things like strategic planning, organizational evaluation, finance policies membership. In terms stuff like that. And, and, and board members need to need to be in a position where they are falling falling within those those guardrails and not sliding over into the functions that that the actual staff are supposed to engage in. You know, at the, at the core of it, a board member. Their responsibility is to work with all the other board members with a single voice. They can have they can have a. Discrements within the board itself, but when the decisions made they act as a single voice. Once that decision has been made in order to ensure the survival of the of the organization. That's the core piece of it. I just want to add on, you know, specifically this board seat is elected by the community. So I think, you know, it's having the voice of the community that elected you just like any other elected position. You should make sure you speak on the like if there's problems in the community and it's not getting to the Drupal Association I think it's this particular board seats. role to make sure that it is heard. And things are going well. That should get brought up to the association but you know, and not saying like that's not happening by any means I'm just, I think that is the important role of, particularly this seat. Yeah, I think that's a really important thing to point out and also that we should emphasize that the role of the seat is not to show up and have an opinion. It is to represent the community which means doing the work to reach out to people in the community. I don't think that it's enough to say my door is open. Walt's in, because that is only going to result in more highly opinionated people sharing their opinions that have probably already been heard. So I think that this role, it's, it has a special importance, because you really need to do the work to be involved in the community and not just have an individual opinion about your section of the community or your own personal lived experience. I agree with all that's sorry. I agree that with all that's been shared I would add on top I think recognizing the difference in the lines the delineation between the work on the Drupal project versus the Drupal association as a whole staff and board and then the board itself. I think that it's made sometimes confusing for, for even people that are very involved since as far as I know all of us are, you know, community members, you know, and have opinions and voices about what the project should be doing where the project should go. It is valid and appropriate, but then, as a board member we're talking about what the association should be doing and that's in support of the project but it is not about influencing the direction of the project itself. So that's something that I think is important to keep in mind for whoever is going to end up sitting in the seat but also for everyone who is going to be voting on the seat. But it's a two way communication channel. So we basically need to listen to the community and their concerns and bring them to the board but at the same time we also need to funnel the board goals and align with them and communicate them back to the community as well so there is no misunderstanding between the two parties. I think, I mean, we're all going to be in agreement on the part that Matt said before, as well as he said, you know, we have to be part of the community we have to keep everything in the straight line. For lack of a better word help, you know, that's the board. But also, I do think we can have an opinion, but we need to make sure to have that that opinion is really shared by the community. It's really something it's not for my benefit, but as being part of the community and going to events and things like that. It's going to help guide whatever efforts we can because we cannot, you know, follow all every possible effort, you know, we talk about funding there is not enough money to do that, there is not enough staff to do that and and there are so many needs of the community. And I'm going to misbehave a little bit here. We've been talking on the chat and I think it's a good example. Because they don't know I got my son into Drupal finally this year. And I took him to Drupal come and I finally convinced him to do Drupal, you know, let's bring new people. And then I realized and today I realized that actually Astra has been thinking exactly the same that I've been thinking lately and talking with other people with the community. And that is our job as part of the board, you know, reaching out and see, hey, I feel this and I see the questions that are along those lines how do we bring new people. Yeah. And we've been talking about I did this election in 2014 when we were doing Drupal Con Latin America and one of the things that I was hoping to help at the time was to bring the other communities like this Hispanic community. I'm from Colombia. I'm actually, you know, I'm now a US citizen after 17 years of immigration stuff but I'm from Latin America and I know they don't feel completely adopted by Drupal and the Drupal community and the Drupal Association. We don't. There is no, they have so many weird ideas of how it is so I'm working with Drupal, which is a community effort from Spain about development with Mike and what I went back to my son I discovered by looking for a job for him. We do not have a space for these people. We do not have a space for that person that knows Drupal and but it still needs to call you like my son does on every little thing that we asked him to do it is that a CFS change is that a template. Most companies need a junior and a junior can be productive. That's a small task does other things that can be put in a project that is making money and can be productive. These guys can barely do it and some ideas were there. I have mentioned some of them. I, I, I have been working with Drupal arrows with my canela from the police on some ideas on that. And it's now that the credit system is getting more trust, which I think is part of the Drupal Association. Things that they can do, you know, the trust in Drupal and they know who is working in Drupal and who knows Drupal because they have Drupal.org. I mean, it's where we all, you know, put the code. And that's what the credit system is trying to do without discussing if it's good bad or not right now. As I mentioned that we've been talking about this as well. We need to find a way for companies to give them this space to these new people. And I wanted to talk about that because it's been discussed a lot in the chat. That's the way we bring new people. And I found something very interesting yesterday and I have this this I have this discussion with the Drupal arrows and the Hispanic community is a specific. Like 50 people there. And one of the questions is how can you not do it for your self motivation and being better. Not everybody self motivated. I am not self motivated. I told the story that I wanted to get an Amazon certification. Got one of those Udemy classes. I set the date. And then two days before I had to see that videos like 2.5x because I forgot completely I'm not self motivated. What can motivate somebody that goes through as a training Drupal is training Drupal arrows ladder they are creating that in the Spanish is, is I can find a job. I have to be the job of a senior and getting the money of a senior developer, but I can start keep training and living. One of the proposals of different or what we added our staff. I've shared the document with that story. If there should be a new category. And it's like the pre junior the inexperience. The need for a little bit more of pampering. And I tell this in terms of the board because this is the stuff that is an opinion of mine is an experience that I live with my son, or I'm living with my son trying to find him a job where he goes like I don't feel like I'm a junior. I don't feel like I can do what they put here for a junior jet. And, and then sharing it with everybody with the larger Hispanic community. And they all feel the same. Yes, I learned Drupal, but it takes two or three years to actually be able to say harm as a junior. And, and then talking to people that has been doing the effort actually and Mike, they both have issues getting those trainees into jobs, because they're not ready to be a junior. But what if we could, I don't know, leverage the credit system this trust that have been created to also just not contribute code contribute people by bringing new people. And I put a part of not my proposal, his proposal is pretty much the same on the chat at some point. But anyway, going back to the original point board. I think that's what we need to do we need to listen to that, but it comes from an opinion it comes from our experiences. It comes from talking to other people is seen what is happening around the community and help. We cannot tell the Drupal Association or the staff what to do, but we can help them guide whatever resources we got and work with it. I want to, I want to thank you for sort of emphasizing talking a little bit about the Latin American community. This is one of the communities that I've noticed there is a massive communication break breakdown and, you know, and this is exactly the what I'm talking about when I say, you know, it's the responsibility of the person who is elected to fix that pipeline because when we're talking about how to grow the community. There is like, all of Latin America. And a lot of the people who I've talked to when I say hey are you going to Drupal Con this year, my Latin American co workers always tell me immediately no. I have to kind of ask them questions like, oh, is it finances. Oh, I can actually help you get your ticket comp. Did you know you can volunteer. Did you know you can get a visa. Did you know that oh, here's a link to the visa information for your particular country. And then there's there's like this lack of belonging, almost that I'm hearing when you're talking about the Latin American community and I think that, you know, voices like yours, who can actually help speak to the challenges of the community and what the Latin American community actually needs to start breaking down the perception that events like Drupal Con are just completely inaccessible. This is critical. This is absolutely critical. So, yeah, if we want to grow the community, let's talk to the Latin American developers and say it is possible. I don't know Mauricio. Mauricio in Arte. Yeah, Mauricio, we started talking with Mauricio in 2013 and I remember I don't know if he's around, or if he remembers this conversation is the question that all the Latin Americans I was blessed when I got into Drupal because I was living in the States, and it allowed me to understand the cultural difference on how Americans, which is the largest part of the main Drupal community besides Europeans, of course, and how they think and it's different to our culture, which is, there are some things that do not allow what we do to be understood by Latin American. And he was asking how, like, how do you talk to the DA? They asked me questions like that and it's very easy to go to somebody of the DA and say, Hi, that's how you talk to them because in Latin America you don't go to the buses. That can be a problem. Interesting. And we were talking actually Mauricio started working with me, got it with some of my friends and then he did his own thing based on that. And I'm so happy every time I see him, he's a great friend because it's like, I told you it was possible. That was the path, but it's culturally really, really difficult. Sometimes I get so many good questions. I cannot remember on them, but from people that are thinking about that Drupal Association is doing something and the path of Drupal is going that way. And I'm trying to understand how the hell are you thinking that. Yeah. Not that we have said or done. I think that's what they feel. We're a little off topic, but my two senses. Just replace South America with global, right? I've seen this in South America. I've seen this even more in India. And these are two huge markets of Drupal that we don't have a conference and we don't have enough of a voice and support and and honestly it's, it's where more and more of the actual development of Drupal and usage of it is going. And I think embracing these communities and expanding the global reach is certainly a way to foster innovation and foster talent and foster more innovation and to really compete in what's coming down the pipe in terms of competition. So, yeah, I think it's a great thing to bring up and I think you and they said a great embracing those communities and getting outside of just what we're focused on right now North America and Europe, mainly, but If I can say something very quick, Matthew, for those who don't know in 2014, the American, the, the, the contribution day is known as one of the most productive days. And it was only 230 people. And what was amazing and that's something that came amazing from there for me is I sat down with Megan Sanik, she was the financial and I was asking, did we do good? I knew all the money I helped so I talked to the hotels I talked to everybody I knew whatever we were charged. I had the numbers in my head and my number set with so many tickets we sold and blah, blah, blah, we made money and they told me no we didn't make money. I was like, wow, we lost, why? Well, we charge the person that was organizing salaries fully to that event. Why? She just didn't work on every day. We did a lot of the work on purpose. And then I talked to her and I said we should franchise the Drupal Con. Now we have Drupal Con Europe that way. We're trying to get the Latin American community to eventually do a Drupal Con Latin America again in the next couple of years. So very similar happened in India, right? We're going to have to time block it because we're at 2 o'clock now so we have to be like parking lot this conversation and Joy is going to lead us into closing remarks. Thank you, Vaughn, and thank you to all the candidates for engaging in such a great conversation and like Vaughn said, we can just parking lot it. And if any of the community members, if you all have questions still, please head to the blogs on the Drupal website and you can ask questions to each of the candidates underneath their blog post. And just a few reminders. So voting has begun. It began on September 12 and it will close on October 5. So if you haven't voted, make sure to do that before October 5. And then after that, the board will ratify for about 10 days. So from October 6 to the 16th, the board will take that time to do some ratification. And then the new new board member will be announced at Drupal con Leo at the public board meeting. So make sure to look out for that. And then of course we'll post on our social sites. And thank you to everyone for joining us. And it was so great hearing more from you. Thanks very much. Thanks everyone. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks everyone.