28 July 2020
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”).
July 28, 2020
Participating:
Board Members: Jane Herriman, Lorena Barba, James Powell, Stéfan van der Walt, Katrina Riehl, Sylvain Corlay, Andy Terrel
Executive Director: Leah Silen
Not attending: NA
**Email/Github Voting: **
June 2 minutes – Approved (4-0-0)
June 16 and 30 minutes – votes needed.
Discussion:
a. Q2 Budget Review:
We spent the first ~hour of the meeting discussing the budget. Both our “good” and “reasonable worst case” scenarios take us into the red, but to very different degrees. The biggest knob for us to turn is our corporate sponsorships. In Q2 the onset of the pandemic created much more uncertainty than there is in Q3, so hopefully we can pull in more sponsorships prior to the end of the fiscal year.
b. Strategic planning meeting:
i. Organizational Challenges: What can the board of directors do?
a. Formalizing of our committee structure
b. In our bylaws: The corporation shall have such other committees and
councils as may from time to time be designated by resolution of the board of
directors. These committees and/or councils may consist of persons who are not
also members of the board and shall act in an advisory capacity to the board.
ii. Ideas/Proposals:
a. Committee/Task Force(?) ideas:
i. Development/fundraising
Purpose: to expand corporate connections and resources for NF development director
ii. Members
James
Katrina
Additional volunteers will be added along with participation by Advisory
Council members
b. NF Academy - looking forward to project’s course content
i. Can we bring in other educators/trainers to get their perspective on
interfaces?
ii. Current focus is on events; eventually will focus on larger cohorts.
c. Board Selection Process
Typically new selections are only necessary if one or more board members
want to step down, opening up a seat.
Are these “elections” or “endorsements”? “Board selection”?
We don’t have voting members, so these are really “selections” not
“elections”.
d. NumFOCUS restructuring with creation of NF EU
i. Current Board becomes Global Board
ii. NF EU: currently mostly French, but the important part is that we can now
accept money from within the EU
iii. Want to have a system whereby we can create other Boards as necessary to
receive money from other international entitites