17 Nov 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”).

November 17, 2020

Participating:

Board Members: Jane Herriman, Katrina Riehl, Sylvain Corlay, Andy Terrel, Stefan van der Walt, James Powell

Executive Director: Leah Silen

Not attending: Lorena Barba

Email/Github Voting:

Outstanding minutes from 6/30 and 10/6.

October 20 minutes: Approved 4-0-0.

Executive Director’s Report:

Q3/November Budget —

It’s still not clear how we’ll end the year since there are a few unknown variables. We’ll probably net +/- $80K. We’ve avoided worst case scenarios, largely due to the forgiveness loan and the success of PyData Global.

In 2021, we will need to take a three-pronged approach:

1) We need to recreate the PyData Global success.

2) We need to revisit NF service fees. 

Some projects are still grandfathered in at 7.5%. We need to increase 
to 10% or 15% to not lose money. Projects that are causing us to lose
money might need to be cut. Leah thinks many of our projects understand 
our costs and are ready to pay higher fees.

3) We need to bring in more corporate sponsors. (We had no new corporate
 sponsors this year.) 

Discussion

a. New Project applications

We began discussing new project applications for those than were reviewed
 by board members:
 
 1. OpenKIM: Requested some follow up information.
 2. ARC: Rejected 0-4-0.
 3. Pyiron: Approved 5-0-0.

*Note*: Sylvain had to drop off and James was in and out of the meeting, such
that total participation in the meeting isn't reflected in the voting tallies.

b. CoC guidance for Stan

Stan requested guidance from us on a CoC-related issue. After reviewing
the provided information, we decided to request more details on the kind
of advice/guidance desired.