Minutes, August 20, 2009

Minutes of the Plone Foundation Board of Directors

Housekeeping

Attendance

Attending: Jon, Matt, Alex, Geir, Steve, Nate
Absent: Darci (unexcused)
Advisory Board: Mark

Minutes for July 23rd


Jon moved approval, Nate seconded

Unanimously approved

Business Items

Final approval of logo guidelines and variance/review process


Jon moved approval of guidelines and review process docs.
Matt seconded
Unanimously approved

Discussion: Upcoming conference logo was an approved variation. Board will need to designate the approval group.
Jon noted that this policy is about the future — not the past.
General agreement that “group” mentioned in the policy is the board until we appoint another group.

Final approval of marketing plan docs (short-term goals already approved):

Long-term marketing plan
Event promotion plan

Jon moved, Geir seconded approval of both as circulated.
Unanimously approved.

Allocate budget to marketing plan

Draft budget of roughly 10,000 USD for production of initial marketing materials.

Jon moved allocating this from this year’s budget. Marketing committee will have discretion, and should keep board appraised of progress and changes.
Matt seconded
Unanimously approved

Events Budget

Tentative budget for events from Marketing Committee is 10,500 USD and has several events divided by tier. Board will approve final list. Jon suggested that they’re nearly certain to find more and suggested raising that to 12,000 USD.
We’ll need to develop a process for allocation of these funds. Near-term plan is for board to manage this; there may be delegation in the future.

Jon moved allocation of $12,000 from this year’s budget for conference marketing fund with board approval required for individual event allocations and process.
Nate seconded.
Unanimously approved.

Discussion: noted that this is a milestone in the plone foundation’s history to be making substantial allocations for marketing.

Address London and Australian conference support requests.

IMS Expo  / London deadline is coming quickly. A major CMS vendor event that will have an open-source track this year. This is the only European event currently in the queue; it was marked tier 2 and Matt is asking to raise it tier one. $1,500 was already budgeted. This would be matching money.
Mark: raising this makes a lot of sense.

Steve moved approval as a tier one event
Jon seconded.
Unanimously approved. (Matt abstained.)

This will be our first test of the process. Matt will get us firm details as an e-mailed application.

Virginia Choy at PretaWeb identified a similarly high profile event in Sydney. Web Directions South.
Booth price is high ($4,000) and there was general agreement that this is too high for the foundation. We discussed requiring matching funds. Steve noted that this would probably be all we’d be spending in Australia and that there needs to be agreement and participation. among other Aus. vendors.

Alex will check in with other Aus. vendors about this point. Jon will write back to discuss that this would need matching and must be the high priority event for Australia.

Review decisions made via email

Various relicensing requests from Wichert - addressed via email
plone.protect, plone.scale, plone.keyring
Unanimously approved via e-mail.


Purchase a SurveyMonkey account for WPD, marketing, other uses. - addressed via email, $200 per year.
Also unanimously approved by e-mail.

Approve Plone 3.3 release invoice from Wichert.

Plone 3.3 is released, and the release manager has invoiced the foundation $2,500 USD.
Jon moved approval
Steve seconded
Unanimously approved.

Discuss Membership committee status, approve new members, future steps.


Limited process by Membership Committee (four members reporting), all positive for:
Clayton Parker
Eric Steele
Erik Rose
Rob Gietema

Neutral feedback for:
David Brenneman

Geir recommended that the board discuss this, as half the membership committee did not respond.

Unanimously approved for membership (Jon moved, Matt Seconded):
Clayton Parker
Eric Steele
Erik Rose
Rob Gietema

Did not approve David Brenneman, but noted appreciation for the work he’s done. (Same motion)

Membership Committee Chair

Darci has been unavailable for Membership Committee chair activities.
Jon moved, Matt seconded motion to name Geir chair of membership committee.

IP Committee

Paul has indicated that we should be working on finding a new chair for IP Committee. Informal discussion of possibilities.

Renewal Process for Members

Process needs to begin at least 30 days before conference.
Geir and Steve will collaborate on getting this going and will try to do it quickly.

Jon adjourned us at 1:20pm PDT