Minutes of the board meeting of July 8, 2019

[philip chimento gmail com]

Wiki location: https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minutes/20190708

= Foundation Board Minutes for Monday 8th July 2019, 15:30 UTC =

== Attending ==

 * PhilipChimento
 * CarlosSoriano
 * RosannaYuen
 * FedericoMenaQuintero
 * TristanVanBerkom
 * BrittYazel
 * NuritziSanchez
 * NeilMcGovern
 * RobertMcQueen

== Regrets ==

 * AllanDay
 * KatGerasimova

== Agenda ==

 * Approve minutes of June 17
 * Approve minutes of June 24
 * Delayed officer elections
 * Committee membership confirmation
 * Impostor's Syndrome workshop costs
 * GUADEC travel sponsorship status
 * Note of thanks to outgoing board members

== Minutes ==

 * Approve minutes of June 17
   * Philip: One possible correction: I wasn't sure about whether Federico was present or not, because he didn't speak during the meeting, and I was attending by phone and so didn't see the list of attendees.
     * Federico was there.
   * Rosanna: Can we email the draft minutes with the agenda next time? If they are in Etherpad it's difficult to see if anyone changed anything since the last time we read it.
     * '''ACTION''': Philip - Change the guideline to say that the draft minutes should be emailed along with the agenda.
   * June 17 minutes are approved.

 * Approve minutes of June 24
   * June 24 minutes are approved.

 * Delayed officer elections
   * Nuritzi: The proposal is to reappoint the current officers for now, since it is required annually; and then elect new officers when Allan returns from vacation, likely in the meeting of July 22.
   * '''VOTE''': Re-elect current officers to their posts.
     * +1 unanimous

 * Committee membership confirmation
   * Neil: Committees are appointed annually like officers, so this is similar to the previous item.
   * Nuritzi: The only committee that has been inactive is the Sponsorship committee. We also wanted to re-evaluate the membership of each committee and remove inactive members.
     * Neil: It's possible to remove inactive members at any later time, such as at GUADEC.
     * Britt: I'd prefer to wait to remove inactive members until GUADEC when I have a better idea of who's doing what on each committee.
   * Britt: Should it be a public announcement so that committee members can decide to withdraw themselves if they are not active?
     * Rosanna: It is up to each committee's liaison to talk to their members.
   * '''VOTE''': Re-appoint current committee members to their respective committees.
     * +1 unanimous

 * Impostor's Syndrome workshop costs
   * Nuritzi: As a part of improving diversity and inclusion initiatives at GNOME, the GUADEC organizers wanted to have some sort of workshop for the participants to attend. Kristi Progri found an impostor's syndrome workshop including also a portion on unconscious bias and how to combat it. The workshop leader is willing to give the workshop for free if we reimburse the flight costs. The reason we are not requesting this through the travel committee is because it should come from a different bucket, e.g. the same way we approved training for the code of conduct committee. Proposal is to approve up to EUR 500.00 for this expense.
   * Carlos: Why does this not go through the travel committee?
     * Rosanna: It's the same rationale as for keynote speakers.
  * Federico: Does lodging not need to be included?
    * Nuritzi: The workshop leader didn't request it.
   * '''VOTE''': Approve up to EUR 500 in travel costs for the workshop leader to attend GUADEC.
     * +1 unanimous
  * '''ACTION''': Nuritzi - Communicate the approved costs for the workshop to Kristi.

 * GUADEC travel sponsorship status
   * We've received a mail from Meg Ford from the travel committee asking us to discuss three questions in the board meeting:
     1. Is the money that Google sent for mentors available to pay for GSoC student travel?
     2. What is the current travel sponsorship budget from GUADEC, which depends on the conference's sponsorship income?
     3. A proposal to spend USD 3000–5000 of the travel committee's annual budget on the GUADEC travel budget.
   * Rosanna: The biggest issue currently is not knowing whether they can use EUR 30000 or EUR 35000, based on the figures from GUADEC budgets with low, expected, or high sponsorship income. They hope to use leftover budget for visa fees; the priciest people to be sponsored right now come from GSoC. Some people who requested financial assistance didn't specify a number; they just asked for the package itself. They are currently hoping to spend an additional USD 731 for visa costs and USD 544 for financial assistance costs.
  * Philip: To clarify, financial assistance is about extra expenses like food. This is not about "pre-imbursements" which is a different program.
  * Philip: What do we normally use the mentor money for?
    * Rosanna: It goes into general funds and has already been for accounted in our budget.
    * Carlos: So using the regular travel committee budget is equivalent to using the Google mentor money.
    * Rob: Yes, questions 1 and 3 are equivalent. The answer to question 1 is "No, ask us question 3 instead."
   * Neil: The funding level of GUADEC is currently at the expected budget level, not the high budget level. Making an estimate at the current time, it would be more prudent to have EUR 30000 as the travel budget for GUADEC.
   * Rosanna: The travel committee is expressing frustration because the new travel policy is more lenient but the budget is unchanged.
     * Nuritzi: We had talked in the past about changing the budget based on the travel committee's recommendation.
   * Nuritzi: Is LAS in next fiscal year?
     * Rosanna: Yes.
   * Federico: Has the travel committee said a number they would need to receive in extra budget?
     * Rosanna: I'm not entirely sure. My last question was if they were able to use the EUR 35000 budget would they be okay. The answer seemed to be yes.
   * Carlos: In the past we've seen that people are frustrated with a funding level of 80%, and sometimes it's better to be clear about not being able to sponsor someone. Sponsoring fewer people is also an option.
   * Nuritzi: We need to factor this into next year's GUADEC budget and operating forecast.
     * Rosanna: We do want our conferences to be self-funding.
   * Rob: Although the money is there, using the general budget on the GUADEC travel is something of an accounting fudge. We need to just acknowledge that the new policy means more money is needed, which wasn't reflected in the original budget, and re-allocate the funds.
   * Britt: Many of the board members have requested travel sponsorship themselves and could be benefiting from this decision.
     * Rosanna: It's definitely due to the new requirements of visa costs and financial assistance, rather than the board members.
     * Rob: In any case, the board members can choose to apportion funds under e.g. the Foundation travel policy, provided we are acting in the interests of the Foundation.
   * '''VOTE''': Move up to USD 5000 from the travel committee's budget to the GUADEC travel budget, noting for future that the new travel policy will require conference travel budgets to be higher.
     * +1 unanimous
   * '''ACTION''': Philip - Communicate the results of the vote to the travel committee.

 * Note of thanks to outgoing board members
   * Neil proposes a vote.
   * '''VOTE''': To thank outgoing board members for their time and dedication on the Foundation.
     * +1 unanimous

== Actions ==

 * '''Philip''' - Change the minutes guideline to say that the draft minutes should be emailed along with the agenda.
 * '''Nuritzi''' - Communicate the approved costs for the impostor's syndrome workshop to Kristi Progri.
 * '''Philip''' - Communicate the results of the vote to reorganize travel sponsorship funds to the travel committee.