10 September 2025

Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Admin 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”).

September 10, 2025

**Attending:**Sanket Verma, Julie Hollek, Rosie Pongracz, Mridul Seth, Mir Mueller, Jim Weiss,

**Executive Director: **Rachel Kerestes

**Not attending: ** Andy Terrel

Information:

• Topics for a future meeting:
  • Sept 17 -> Rachel’s 1 month memo
  • Fundraising
  • Meeting minutes
    • Philosophy & Legal requirements
    • What was discussed, decision points reached, resolutions voted on
    • Public vs “executive session”

Discussion Items:

• Updates
  • Schedules
    • Rosie out Sep 17
    • Sanket will probably be out on the 24th September
  • EU Cooperation Agreement
    • NF US board agreement was signed
    • EU board will need to ratify the agreement
  • Election Committee Notes
• 2026 Budget Timeline
  • Built on work from last year
    • Putting dates in!
  • Goal -
    • have a balanced budget for 2026.
    • Status quo budget for a “working” year
    • Not taking on new initiatives
      • E.g., lots of new projects, conferences
    • Should be using 2026 to work on our overall strategic plan for the organization
    • Strategic plan will take a year to get done, need to create committees, get feedback
  • We have a calendar year fiscal year, so budget needs to be approved before then
  • What are the steps and what will happen next?
    • Mir - Get budget requests in from all the departments - ongoing right now
    • Mir + Rachel - Draft the budget - September
    • Mir + Rachel - Socialize draft budget with Finance Committee before the meeting
    • TSC review
    • Finance Committee - vote to advance the budget - Nov 24
      • When the FC votes, it then goes to the board for review
    • Finance Committee - sending to the full Admin board with a motion and second. Discussion + vote - December 3
  • Q&A
    • What does getting budget requirements from departments mean?
      • This is the budget for my department, not including payroll
      • For events, what is the budget for SciPy, PyData XX, etc?. This is what my functional department needs to do? This is what we’re expecting to do on revenue, expenses? What does the marketing department need to do for next year?
      • For the programs, it’s not payroll, it’s about operations
        • E.g., Finance (this is what it costs to pay the auditors)
        • Admin budget has payroll
  • How are we addressing the community? Office hours? Cadence going?
    • Project summit
      • One place we’ll talk
    • One more project call
    • More touch points
    • Board needs to approve strategic planning
    • Plan + schedule and communicate that out
• Strategic Planning Committee
  • What representation do we want on that?
  • We should draw from committees
  • What elements of the community?
• Board retreat
  • This board hasn’t had one, but does meet weekly
  • Would have to be virtual
  • In January, board planning session?
• TSC Charter
  • Next meeting is Sept 18. Would like to vote and approve it in that meeting
  • Is it true that we will always need an EU citizen/resident on board?