3 November 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”).

November 3rd, 2019 (@ NumFOCUS Summit)

Participating:

Board Members: Lorena Barba, James Powell, Andy Terrel, Sylvain Corlay, Jane Herriman, Stéfan van der Walt, Katrina Riehl (called in partway through)

ED: Leah Silen

Not attending: NA

Discussion Items:

1. Changing board meeting schedule, with goal of allowing for more time to discuss strategy and vision, rather than being overrun with operational details.

   a. We agreed to introduce quarterly schedule for project applications

   i.  Improve the documentation for the process of approving new
       projects (on the website) - and take this occasion to
       introduce the schedule / deadlines.
   
       1.  Assign a deadline to submit applications \~3 weeks prior
           to the Board meeting where we decide on applications,
           allowing time to assign champions and review
           applications.
   
       2.  Notifications will go out \~1 week after the meeting
           where we decide on project acceptances.
   
   ii. Urgent project applications: We may occasionally be able to
       make exceptions to the once-per-quarter cycle, but well-
       organized projects should in general be able to work with
       and plan according to this schedule.
   

   b. Other ideas: i. Introduce quarterly schedule for longer (two-hour) strategy meetings.

          These ideas were proposed at the outset of the meeting, but 
          was not discussed much after we realized we should be able to
          make time for strategy discussions during regular meetings by 
          treating new project applications in batch.
       	  
    ii.  Introduce yearly board retreat for strategy discussions
   

2. Education Initiative (from Jan 2019)—NumFOCUS Academy

    We discussed the value that a NumFOCUS educational platform might 
   offer and who/what organiziations might be involved. Possible 
    contributors/partners:
   

   a. Universities/university professors

   Partnering with us would allow universities to avoid having to 
   maintain their own OpenEdX site and could provide revenue streams
   to professors who have content but are otherwise not teaching 
   over the summer.
   

   b. DataCamp instructors

     This platform could provide an alternative to (previous) DataCamp 
     instructors.
   

   c. IBL

   We’ve previously talked to IBL about using their services in
   creating a platform/handling some of the technical details
   of creating a platform. In fact IBL can provide full vertical
   support; for example, they offer studios and can handle 
   videography.
   

3. We discussed ways (for example individual or NumFOCUS blog posts) that board members might voice/publicize the initiatives they would like to undertake to further the organization in the coming year.