Regular Meeting of the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors, 15 June 2023, 17:00 UTC

Attending

• RobertMcQueen

• MartinAbenteLahaye

• PhilipChimento

• SammyFung

• RosannaYuen

• JeremyAllison

Regrets

• ReginaNkemchorAdejo

Missing

• ThibaultMartin

Consent Agenda

• Acknowledge receipt of
  • Executive Committee Minutes
  • Governance Committee Minutes
• Approve the minutes of the April and May meeting
• Acknowledge that the following written motions have passed:
  • Request to increase the budget for GUADEC travel by $10K
  • Board approval to form Flathub LLC
  • Proposal for GNOME Asia 2023 from Nepal

Discussion Agenda

• Updates on hiring a new Executive Director
  • Rob: We are screening candidates. Initial interviews to happen in ~2 weeks.
  • Martin: I saw some social media campaigns.
• Updates on Foundation Staff activities and requests
  • Rosanna:
    • Staff has been working on GUADEC. Social events were posted yesterday. We are looking for ways to let sponsored folks go for a reduced price, but that depends on whether we can make it happen.
    • We are going to FOSSY (Portland OR, USA) in July.
    • Request from Kristi, who helped plan an open source event in Albania prior to working at the Foundation and has submitted a request for sponsorship. I will forward it to the board. It could be useful for contact with local teams, and outreach for students.
  • Rob: Does the request have a budget?
  • Rosanna: Yes. The cheapest sponsorship level is EUR 650, just logos and signage. The next level up is EUR 1600 and includes a demo session, and may include a booth - we'd have to check.
  • Rob: Can Kristi staff the booth?
  • Rosanna: Yes, she's not also organizing this edition of the event.
  • Rob: What are attendance levels normally?
  • Rosanna: 100-150 participants, 60-70% of which students. The rest are tech workers.
  • Rob: Is there a nonprofit rate?
  • Rosanna: We're unlikely to get a discount, but we can see what is possible.
  • Philip: Last time with OSCAFEST we said we could do this incidentally, but we'd need to make room in the budget to do it regularly. It seems like this is a good activity for us, so should we check what to remove from the budget?
  • Martin: Agree, is there a financial check we can do?
  • Rosanna: If it were budgeted, we wouldn't need a check.
  • Jeremy: Is there a policy for these events?
  • Rosanna: Not currently. It would be helpful.
  • Jeremy: What policy do you think would be helpful? You're closest to this.
  • Rosanna: It depends on how the board wants to pivot what we do with programming. It's good for outreach, but really depends on the board's priorities.
  • Rosanna: Speaking of priorities, some staff raised concern about the diversity initiative not moving forward; groups were created but no actions have happened. Should this still be a priority?
  • Philip: Can we add "Next steps for diversity initiative" to the agenda?
  • Rosanna: I'd prefer to discuss that with Regina here.
  • Rob: Let's create a ticket for it on the agenda next time.
  • Rosanna: Continuing the staff update: Working with bookkeepers, hope to get a draft of the taxes back from the accountant before the end of the month. Due date is August 15th.
• Catching up with board requests
  • Annual review of conflict of interest policy
    • Please see thread on Discourse.
    • Rob: Was it a year ago that we reviewed it?
    • Philip: We haven't reviewed it during this board term in any case.
    • Zana will find the previous forms and send out to the board.
  • 2023’s Board of Directors election timelines
    • Handled by executive committee.