 meeting. Uh, we, uh, as you may or may not know, I'm Naomi Cedar. I've been on the, uh, board of directors, uh, last year and this year, uh, and joining me is Lorena Mesa, who is new on the board of directors this year. So she's right down here in the corner. Yay! Um, for, for reference, by the way, I've put a, uh, a shortened link to the slides down there. It's in the bottom corner of every, of every slide, if you want to go look at them. Uh, unlike most of my slides, this actually contains a tiny, tiny amount of information. Most of my slides are devoid of information, but I do have some things that have some, some information on them, so you may want to refer to that. Um, so, and I just, in, in case you've forgotten, because I know most of you have memorized the, the PSF mission, but for the Python Software Foundation, the overall mission is this. Uh, it is to protect and advance the Python programming language and to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Python programmers. Um, what that means is in fact that we do not, and some people wonder about this, we do not have anything to do with directing the course of the language or anything like that. We cannot go to the core developers and say, do this. Uh, that's not what we're there for. Uh, we basically have, in, in general, three functions that you, you could talk about. One of them is taking care of the intellectual property of, of Python. So somebody needs to hold all of the licenses so that this can work and this can be shared and this can be handled the proper way. Uh, somebody needs to hold all of the trademarks. And that's one of the things that the PSF does. Uh, and in fact, if there are trademark disputes or arguments or things like that, it is the PSF that engages legal counsel and deals with those. Uh, also, and this is probably a far more common use case, say you want to make a t-shirt with the official Python logo on it. Okay. Uh, that's something that the Python Software Foundation also worries about. If you're going to be selling anything, bearing that logo, you're supposed to get approval through the Python Software Foundation and the trademark committee before you do that. If you're using it just to represent the Python language, then you can use it. And in fact, if you search for this on the website, uh, python.org, you can find this policy as well. So, um, it's a pretty mundane thing, but in terms of intellectual property, I would say more often than not, that's what the PSF hears about. Hey, I'm going to sell t-shirts. Can I use the logo? Or, uh, I'm going to do a modified version of the logo. Can I do that? And in fact, modifying the logo is where you get in trouble. Uh, we have to defend our mark as it is, or we lose it. So, just, just so that you know about that, this is, these are things that people don't know. Um, we also, of course, have members and I promise you very soon I will tell you how to become a member if you're not already. And then, uh, we also manage, uh, a certain amount of money. Uh, on the one hand, the PSF is directly kind of behind the, uh, North American PyCon, uh, which is a, a big, big conference, at least by, by my standards. Uh, it sits somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,500 people every year. Uh, it usually makes the money that sort of powers the Python Software Foundation for a lot of other things. And I say usually because in 2009, we had a very, very bad time when the whole everything crashed. And that was sort of the problem. But since then, it has actually been providing income. Uh, on the other hand, the PSF then distributes that money. Uh, and in the neighborhood of about 180,000 to $200,000 a year comes from the Python Software Foundation, roughly equally split for, um, workshops, tutorials and meetups on the one hand and for regional PyCons on the other hand. Uh, and that, that sort of, uh, covers the range from, you know, longtime establish events like EuroPython all the way to ones that are just getting started up. But, um, there are, and I was trying to count this up, on the PSF website, there are 30 regional PyCons listed. That number has to be way low because just looking down the list, I could think of four or five more off the top of my head. So I would say we must have somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 to 50 regional PyCons going in the world. I mean, I, I do think that probably it's theoretically possible to go to a PyCon a week. I'm not sure about that. Uh, like Larry Hastings claims that he almost did it. Um, so it's, I don't know. It's, there are a lot of them in any case. So, uh, that, that's part of what we do. Um, so this year's board, uh, there are 11 members on the PSF board of directors. Uh, and that is, is one of the things that the members do every spring is vote for, uh, who's going to be on the board. Um, and it is that long list. Uh, the officers, uh, this year Diana Clark is the chair. Uh, Van Limburg and I are, uh, vice chairs. So you'll notice that, uh, Van, uh, actually stepped down from being chair. He had been chair for a number of years. Um, communications officers are Lorena and Krushaldas. Uh, Treasurer is Kirk Kaiser. Evie Adloska is our secretary. Assistant secretary is Betsy Wallachewski. She's new since last September, working as an employee for the Python Software Foundation and conference chair for 2017 for PyCon, as well as for 2016 is Brandon Rhodes. So, those are the ones that are there. Um, I will, uh, communications officers, I'll call that out Lorena. We'll talk about that in a second since that's her thing. Uh, that, that deals with getting word out about, um, Python, uh, activities. Uh, the chair and the vice chair, these are not, and I don't want to take anything away from, from Diana. I'll say that the vice chairs certainly are not that grand. It basically means that I can stand up here and call a meeting like this. That's about it. So, you know, it's kind of like you have the second set of keys in a way. It's, it's, it's just, just that sort of thing. Um, we normally, uh, meet every, uh, two weeks. We have an hour long meeting, uh, where we start to deal with, uh, the things that we're doing. A lot of it is doing grant requests and things like that, as you might imagine as that in our meetings since we have a lot of money to give away. Um, also the PSF has, uh, increased the number of employees that it's got. So, uh, Ava is our director of operations. Uh, Betsy, as I say, who is new with this is now sort of assisting her and trying to manage more things dealing with the events like PyCon and other things. Uh, we now have a dedicated employee as our infrastructure manager. So, we had up until that point, three or four people who are managing the PyCon's, uh, Python's infrastructure, uh, on a volunteer basis and, um, or, or being paid by their companies, but not being directly paid by, uh, the PSF. So now we actually have somebody who is, uh, for a half-time position actually watching those things and actually spending some time and doing some planning and organizing, which is something that we have not had the, uh, the manpower juice. So that's Mark Van Gogh, but he has been working for us since, I believe, April. Um, my memory is failing, so I might be wrong there. And then Kurt Kaiser, who has been, uh, our treasurer for a long time. So, in fact, if you're dealing with any funding requests, it's Kurt that actually writes the check, or does the, the money transfer. So, this change has been in a place for a while, but I wanted to kind of go through the, um, the membership model just to make sure that people are clear on this. There are a number of ways that you can be involved as a member of the PSF. Um, the, the simplest and the easiest is to be a basic member. And, uh, what that means is that you are officially sort of declaring your association with the PSF. Uh, to do that, you go to the website. There's a little link that says membership. You click on it, you fill out a form, create a username and password, and boom, you're a member. Okay. Very easy. There are not, you know, it's, uh, it, it does not carry voting rights, but, um, we then encourage you to become part of the PSF community list. And, um, you know, you're, you're counted. And in fact, if you do nothing else, that's still useful because it gives the PSF a way to, to gauge the amount of support and where people are at and, and just sort of that count of who is actually part of our community. So it, so it is very useful. Uh, there's a supporting member, uh, which you can also find in the membership page there. Uh, and that is, um, a donation of $99 a year. Uh, I do know some people who say, you know, I really don't have time to do anything else for the PSF, but I make my living through Python to, to get something back. I will do this as just sort of a professional thing. So I've seen that. Uh, and that carries voting rights. Uh, there would be a managing member who would work at least five hours a month, uh, on a PSF working group. And, um, I think Lorraine is, am I going to talk about working groups or are you? You can. I'll talk to myself. Okay. All right. Yeah. So we're, we're going to talk about working groups in a, in a second, although since here at EuroPython, you, you were ahead of us in, in pioneering working groups. Uh, it would be a familiar concept. Uh, and those members have voting privileges. Uh, and basically, uh, the way you do that as well as the next one is just to declare there is a form that you fill out to declare that you've done it for the year. So there's that. A contributing member is five hours a month or more to any Python related software project or community project. And this is really an actually a very, very underutilized membership form. Uh, in that there are a lot of people, if people are organizing a meetup, even a monthly meetup is going to take a person at least five hours to set up by the time you arrange for the venue for, for any refreshments. By the time you get the word out to members, you select a talk, then you actually are there for the time. You're going to be way beyond five hours a month. So pretty much anybody organizing any sort of community thing should be a contributing member. And again, there's a form that you go to. It's the same form you go and say, I do this for five hours a month. And then you are a PSF voting member. So, uh, really want to encourage anyone who is not, uh, to do that. Uh, and basically for those two managing and contributing member, uh, first thing you need to do is go be a basic member so that we've got a username created on the website. We then match that up against the little forms. You're a voting member. When time comes to vote on board directors and anything else that we vote on, uh, you would be a voting member. And then, uh, there are fellows which are, uh, voted by, uh, the member community. That was, we have not done, uh, fellowship votes since we went to the new membership model. Those are, uh, so anyone who is a fellow would be somebody who is voted on, uh, before we went to the new membership model a couple of years ago. So, so that's kind of an outline of the membership. I want to call out a few changes, things that have gone on at the PSF, uh, just recently. So, uh, this year, and I think it was the case last year as well, uh, the board of directors was 50% new people. And in fact, the past couple of years, the board of directors, there have been, uh, a fairly good number of people who've actually been standing for election to the board about twice as many as the, the slots that are available. I call this out because this is a very, very healthy thing. We have people who want to serve on the board. We actually have people who are able to vote in new people to get serve on the board so that we can actually get some sort of progression and new voices in there so that we can share this leadership. So, so this I think is, is a very good thing. Um, this is almost a year old. The old PSF members mailing list was retired and replaced with two lists because we actually had two different things that needed to be done. Uh, so there's PSF community which is open to anyone who is a basic member or above, uh, to basically post anything of community interest. So we will post the minutes to the board meetings there. People can talk about this. Uh, it's just a way to, to have a sort of a, uh, kind of a low pressure informal environment where people can communicate and then if you're a voting member, we really, really, really, really want you to be a member of PSF vote which is the mailing list that basically has announcements of membership and things like that. Oh, by the way, we sent out an email ballot. If you didn't get it, you better check to make sure your membership is working and those sorts of things. So, uh, so that's, that's a change that's taken place over the last year. As I say, we've hired two new people. So we actually have more people working for the PSF. Uh, this was getting to be basically the amount of email traffic and things like that that the PSF gets was starting to be unmanageable. So, uh, and anybody who has, has been on the board will tell you this, you don't think it's going to be that bad and boom, your, your email box explodes. So, uh, so we've got some more people working on that. And then the most recent change is that we used to have sponsor members who, by virtue of being a sponsor, had votes in the PSF. Uh, this is getting to be kind of cumbersome as, as the PSF evolved and got bigger. So, in fact, we checked with the existing sponsors. Anybody have an objection if you just become sponsors rather than members? Not, everybody seemed to be fine. The bylaws committee looked at it and, uh, made that change to our bylaws and the board approved it. So those are, are things that we've had, uh, happening in the past, uh, over the past year. So again, calling out the mailing list that, that you'd be on PSF community, PSF vote. If in fact you want to get some sort of question or information to the board, uh, PSF at python.org is an address you can use that then goes to the board. So, um, the working group thing, I was going to talk about just a little bit. Um, as I say, EuroPython has sort of developed the working group model and, and really the, the PSF kind of borrowed it from, from here. Uh, we have several working groups now. These are basically people come together to concentrate on doing a particular thing for the PSF. So right now we have an education working group, which is, uh, aimed at coming up with some practical solutions for some practical problems and using Python for education. And I've sort of, that's indistinction. There has been for a long time, uh, an education SIG, eduSIG has been a mailing list of, of the Python, uh, on python.org, which tends to have much more general discussions about education. Whereas this is a working group that's focused on doing some specific things, uh, developing curriculum, uh, partly in connection with the micro bit, uh, but also in terms of other things. Uh, how can we make a version of idle that is improved? It's better for education. Uh, what can we do with lesson plans? How can we do all of those things? So, uh, that is, is one that you might want to do. Uh, another new one is grants. And this is a working group that we started, uh, not a little, not quite a year ago. It was last fall we actually started using this. Uh, since we do such a volume of grants, we were spending a lot of time, the board was spending a lot of time approving them. And there would be this delay until a board meeting and all of that. Now for ones that are pretty clear, grant requests that are pretty clear and follow the guidelines, we have a working group that processes those. So they do about half of, uh, the grant approval that we do. Something like that. So in, in not quite a year, they've done roughly, uh, $50,000 worth of grant requests. So this is, is something, and it's again, we have guidelines, um, for a, a Picon. The guideline is $10 per person who's attending. If somebody were, if a Picon submits a request saying, yes, we're going to have 200 attendees, we'd like $2,000, please, blah, blah, blah, you know, and they fill out the whole request, then that's the sort of thing that the grant committee working group would look at and say, yeah, this is all fine, and we go ahead and approve that. There is a new group that is, is looking at, uh, sponsors. And in fact, if there is something else that you think should be done through the PSF, uh, it is possible for members to suggest, uh, and create a working group. Uh, the, the kind of two things there are, it does have to actually support PSF mission. Uh, and then, uh, we have sort of a sample, and I've included that link there in case anybody's interested, a sample working group sort of charter and, and page that you can go to so that if you want to a working group, we can do that. And certainly, um, those of us who've done working groups on the board or elsewhere are willing to talk people through, if you have an idea that needs to be, you know, sort of set up as a working group. And a good example of that actually is the education working group which Carrie Ann Philbin set up last year right before Europe Python, as I recall, because I, she announced it for the first time here. So, okay, I'm gonna hand it off to Lorena and talk about some of the other projects. So, I am also loud, but is this volume good or should I talk louder? Good? All right, sweet. Um, so some of the projects, uh, that I and other people on the board are working on. So, one of the first things, an organizer's guide, I think what's been really surprising to me, even just in some of the discussions with people like talking with Diana and what kind of work she's done, a lot of the labor that goes into things that maybe people may not know about. So, if you're a new organizer, how can I do a Python? That's been a common theme and I'm sure it has historically been a theme. So, we're gonna be working on creating an organizer's guide. This is very new, uh, so what that format will be and how we're gonna publish it, uh, we have not yet exactly defined that. But the idea and I think some of the, um, idea is let's look at some of the historical projects, let's look at lessons learned, why have those projects not worked, and how can we make something more sustainable, maybe house it on GitHub and invite people to participate with it there. Um, I know that we really like the Django Girls organizing, uh, the organizing, uh, book that they have for Django Girls. So, there's some discussion about maybe looking at the way that that's been packaged. So, that is something that we're gonna be working on for, um, for the PSF board. In regards to communications, so I know sometimes there's been one person who has communications. This year we have two people. So, uh, actually Kushal and I decided to split up the work. Kushal's actually going to be working with communicating with the PSF community, uh, let's serve talking about what grants have we approved, um, and here's the link to things if you have more questions about that. So, that we'll be following, um, roughly speaking every, every bi-weekly meeting, and then what I'm actually gonna be working on, and some of the things that I actually have a lot of questions about is, well, you know, if you don't know about the PSF, like, what is the PSF? Like, what do they actually do? Like, what kind of things can we do to better illuminate the projects and initiatives we have? So, I think that the blog, um, has been great, but I also think that there's people who may not actually know how to get to to that material very well. So, there's a, um, one of my big things I'm trying to work on is just making sure we have more content that answers some of those basic and simple questions like, what is the PSF? What do we actually do if you want to get involved? How can you do it? Um, those are really good questions, and I think we have to continue to work on making sure that people are able to find resources and to understand how they can participate as well. So, some of that's going to be coming from the blog, some of that from the organizers guide, and I think we're going to kind of keep thinking about these broader questions and think about how we can surface this content better. So, these are some ideas to get started. In regards to what Naomi had been talking about with new working groups and new committees, two examples of some new committees that have popped up. We have one that's a compensation committee. So, the discussion about, you know, how do we, as a, as a foundation, as a nonprofit, actually manage the, um, paying the people that work there? Like, what should that, what should that actually look like? How should we be understanding what it means to think about change over time and understand what compensation is? So, I know that, um, I don't know if the first meetings yet happen, but that is something that is a work in progress. And then the Code of Conduct Committee, which is conduct at python.org. Again, the Code of Conducts are great. We want to make sure that people actually have a place to go to say, hey, I've seen something. I want to make sure this is being addressed. So, right now, um, we are working on drafting a policy for what that looks like, and we are working on drafting, um, kind of the, the escalation policy, if you will. And we will be making sure to publish that in the coming weeks so that people, if they do have questions, you can actually, right now, reach out to conduct at python.org to at least begin a discussion, but we are, um, currently working on making sure we have a policy in place that is agreeable to all, so that's kind of some of the projects right there. And I'm going to turn it back over to Naomi. Okay, yeah. And this is just a quick thing. And I think one thing that we want to, oops, what, crazy there, sorry about that. One thing that we want to mention here is that, um, the PSF is trying to evolve to a more mature, non-profit model. In the early days, the same small group of people did everything. And now, as we continue to grow and as, as, you know, pycons sprout up, as pygon meetups, as, as various things happen all over the world, that's not really working out as, as anything that, that is sustainable. So, um, you know, we're trying to, to figure ways that we can mature as an organization and actually, um, you know, sort of follow the best practices of other non-profit foundations. And, and I think in general, what that means is that the board will become much more of a supervisory thing. And, you know, we will have a staff that handles the PSF stuff, but then a lot of what needs to be done will really be, I think, devolved down more to the regional and local level. And that's, that's not like an official policy. That's just kind of my observation as to where that would go. We cannot and should not be managing everything that's going on. So again, a reminder of ways to support the PSF. And, and here this is a list of links that, that may help you out. As I say, these, these, that's why I gave you the link to the slides so that you don't need to worry about all of the other links. You can just go look at it. And that's really what we wanted to present at a high level, but there may be questions or comments that, that you would have. So really the rest of the time is set aside as much as there is. And if we, if we finish early, that's fine too. But if anybody has any questions or comments or anything that they would want to, to bring up that relates to the PSF, right ahead. I think in general, you know, when we say like, yeah, Python OSS projects, it's really anything in the Python ecosystem. Again, the, the intent of those guidelines is not to be exclusive, but to be inclusive. So are you working on something that is, is within the Python ecosystem? Then fine, it counts. I think the other thing too is, are you, you know, are you spending four and a half hours or four hours and 45 minutes a week? Fine, it's close enough. Again, the idea is that we want to, to include people rather than shut people out. Yes, sir. There isn't right now a working group that is focused on diversity. There was a group that was called Outreach and Education that eventually just sort of ran its, its life cycle. I think that particularly around the area of best practices for having, you know, organizing diverse events, for finding, you know, reaching out to different groups of people, I think there certainly could be room for that. You know, it's, it's a case where for the board members at this point, I think we're just getting a new set of board members on board. So it's possible that something like that would happen, but it could certainly be driven by somebody who is not on the board. What it comes down to honestly is a lot of times it's how much time and effort people have to put into things. So it's almost one of these things where if, if somebody wants it to happen, they have to provide the, the extra oof to get it started. So, you know, I think we would be really open if somebody was at all interested in, in stepping up with that. We have, and let me actually back up so that we can see those. So Ana Furnina is in India. Carol is in Southern California. Carrie Ann is in England. Diana is in Canada. Jackie is in Washington D.C. Cushal is in India. Lorena and I are in Chicago. Trey is in Southern California. Jungun is in Korea and Van is in Dallas, I think. So there is a certain preponderance of us in the U.S., but we are sort of spread around. So this has been our first big challenge, is how we can find a meeting time that does not have somebody staying up till 3 a.m. in the morning to, to actually be on the meeting. Because our bylaws say we have to have both a phone call and IRC discussion for meetings. So yeah, it's a challenge. But I, I think we actually are interested in having more global representation. And the grants working group, by design, we have one person at least from each continent. Other than Antarctica, we're fine not doing that. We've had no requests from there, strangely. But otherwise, yes. I think that, I think that's part of the discussion for the Euro-Python Society is, is how that might become a possibility. Is that fair, Mark? I mean, it's a, right, and, and so, you know, it's, it's certainly possible to donate to the PSF. And, you know, PSF money goes all over the world. The problem is that since that's, you know, an American entity, you're probably not going, you're going to have, it's not going to be efficient in terms of it being a completely tax-free and easy transaction, I'm afraid. So yeah, we don't have a good solution for that. Have you tried to reduce membership fees for non-U.S. people that you pay taxes to? And, you know, that's, that's a fair point to bring up. I mean, I, I certainly wasn't around when that, that fee was discussed, so I haven't been part of any discussions on that. But yeah, it's certainly a good point. Yes, sir? For the board elections? Yeah, that's, it's actually a very simple process. And there isn't at the moment anything that, that takes into account geography at all. It's really just a, either you vote yes, or you abstain for each member. Now in the most recent election, there was actually a no choice. That was because we had somebody new who didn't understand the software. All of the no's were counted as abstains. And, and there have been long discussions. You can imagine that Python people liking to discuss all of the ins and outs of these things. You can have endless discussions about what is exactly the best way to vote. But the, the way that the PSF has done it is just you vote for the people you want and nothing for the people you don't want. And then whoever gets the most votes actually is, is selected at the top 11. And then if there's a tie for that 11th spot, they use import random. Honestly, anything else? And your memory may be better than mine. I thought it was actually discussed maybe a year ago and then nothing happened? Right. We used to have lots and lots of these, these votes for new members. And starting with new files, we now don't have these laws anymore. So the recognition that people should be getting for doing a lot of work in the plan for community, that it's not going to be there yet. No, I tend to agree. Like it was, it was only for each other. So we ended up with people, us that weren't part of the members before the new membership model came along. I felt it was like a club, like a clique. And I think that's why it was stopped. I'm trying to caress people going through, that way, through the difference. And I think that was also another discussion. It certainly could have been part of it. I mean, I think as the Python world expanded, that whole model of just voting for fellows was pretty clearly not going to be sustainable. And that's why we moved to the new one. It's a fair point for discussion though. Anything else? We do have cute little PSF member stickers. So if you're willing to go sign up on the website, we'll give you a sticker. How's that for a deal? I mean, you can't lose this. Anything else? Yes, sir? I'm from the group. And one of the things we really want to do is broaden the activities of that group, broaden it in terms of topics, and also broaden it in terms of the kinds of people that one can get involved. We're new to this. I'm new to this. So I would love it if everyone here has some experience or ideas of what vote for them, do the votes at the moment. I'm very much in listening mode. So I think there's a future around you who may have done that kind of activity and also a lot of it can be done. I can definitely help you. Thank you. Very good. Yes? The last community is in Python. They're used by them. There's a little stuff that's not like this. And I'm just wondering if you've been talking about that. Excellent. To reach out to people who do other things with Python by creating musical arts. But it's difficult actually to find it and get them to get involved. They really are a challenge. Anything else? All right. Well, thank you.