7 Feb 2019

Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of NumFOCUS. All votes are reported in the form “(Y/N/A)” (in favor-Y‚ opposed-N‚ abstentions-A; e.g. “4-1-2” means “4 in favor, 1 opposed, and 2 abstentions”).

February 7, 2019

Participating:

Board members: Lorena Barba, Katrina Riehl, Jane Herriman, Stéfan van der Walt, Andy Terrel

ED: Leah Silen

Board Members Not Attending: James Powell, Sylvain Corlay

Approval of Minutes from last meetings:

January 24 minutes – Approved, 4-0-0

Resolutions Voted on by Email or Github: NA

Executive Director’s Report:

Sam Brice from Two Sigma will be joining NumFOCUS for one year, starting likely at the end of February 2019. Gina and Leah put together a project feedback survey for Board review.

Discussion Items:

a. Project application submission for FS Grantor/Grantee Model

The Board discussed oTree, a potential new NumFOCUS project under the FS Grantor/Grantee Model.

b. Small Development Grants

The first round notifications need to be sent to projects by 2/18. 25K USD will be available for each of three rounds of small development grants. Grants will be allowed to request up to 5K USD (increased from previous 3K USD cap). Aside from the 75K USD total to be awarded via the three formal application rounds, another 10K USD will be available; projects can apply outside the standard cycle.

c. NSF Grant Update

Andy has been helping to prepare a grant to support maintainers of the PyData ecosystem. This led to a discussion of whether the Board should need to approve NumFOCUS participation in grants requiring greater than some threshold of NumFOCUS resources. The Board may need to lay out parameters (including use of staff time and monetary value of grants) for NumFOCUS involvement as collaborator or subcontractor on grants

d. The survey mentioned in the ED report was reviewed and will be dispatched after finalization by Gina and Leah.

e. Collaboration and partnership

The Board discussed a services agreement for the Max Planck Institute.

f. Tabled topics

i. Discuss SciPy FS project application
ii. Corporate sponsorship updates
iii. Strategic Direction - vision, mission, values