Plone Foundation Board Meeting Minutes, October 30, 2025

Call to Order

  • Meeting started at 20:01

First meeting of the new board - Welcome!

  • Congratulations to our new board members, and thank you for serving!
  • Martin led initial introductions and went over the standard meeting format.

Attendance

  • Present: Rafahela Bazzanella, Eric Brehault, Gildardo Bautista Garcia Cano, Brian Davis, João Henrique Gouveia, Rikupekka Oksanen, Martin Peeters, and Steve Piercy (Interim Treasurer)
  • Excused: None

Approval of the minutes

  • October 2, 2025: Brian motions to approve.  Eric seconds.  All in favor.
  • October 16, 2025: Annual meeting: Brian motions to approve.  Eric seconds.  All in favor.

Action items

  • None
  • Looking ahead: Martin will setup new Board members with the access they need
    • Quaive
      • Ask Guido to add Gildardo to Quaive
      • Remove Mikel and Guido from Quaive Board Workspace
    • What else? (email addresses, plone.org permissions, etc.)

Incoming Correspondence

  • Multiple reimbursement requests
  • Sprint Funding Request Stellenboch
  • New GitHub sponsors
  • Shared drive about Board vote
  • Sponsorship program
  • Emails from Treasurer

New Business

- Selection of officers
  - President: Martin Peeters – Brian motions to appoint, Gouveia seconds. All in favor.
  - VP: João Henrique Gouveia - Brian motions to appoint, Martin seconds. All in favor.
  - Secretary: Eric Brehault - Brian motions to appoint, Gouveia seconds. All in favor.
  - Interim Treasurer/Assistant Secretary: Steve Piercy - Eric motions to appoint, Gouveia seconds.  All in favor.

- Selection of chairs/liaisons
  - Marketing Chair: Rikupekka Oksanen - Brian motions to appoint, Martin seconds.  All in favor.
  - Membership Committee Chair: Rafahela Bazzanella - Brian motions to appoint, Gouveia seconds.  All in favor.
  - GSoC Liaison: Eric Brehault - Brian motions to appoint, Martin seconds.  All in favor.
  - Security Team Liaison: Martin Peeters - Brian motions to appoint, Eric seconds.  All in favor.
  - Admin Team Liaison: Brian Davis - Eric motions to appoint, Rikuepkka seconds.  All in favor.
  - Conference Team Liaison: Rikupekka Oksanen - Brian motions to appoint, Gouveia seconds.  All in favor.

- Sponsorship program
  - Martin: We received an email from Mikel with the proposal.  Are there any questions?
    - Brian: Why did we drop the University sponsor level?
      - Martin: We didn't have any University sponsors for the past few years
      - Brian: The PloneEdu community used to be strong.  This was a major on ramp for bringing new people into Plone, both students and staff.
        - Rikupekka: It is often complicated for Universities to give/receive funding.  But I can ask around.
        - Martin: Most of the time, universities typically can't sponsor directly, but could receive recognition for community participation.
      - Brian: There are 2 new board members who work at Universities.  Can we put some effort towards re-establishing University connections?
        - Martin: Alexander Loeschel led a reboot of PloneEdu during PloneConf2024.
  - Martin: Regarding the proposal, I feel we are missing a top tier 4th level above the $3600.
    - If companies may want to give more, we shouldn't limit them.
    - However, what additional benefits could they receive?
        - Martin: Could it be a footer link on plone.org?
        - Brian: Woah.  Footer link is really valuable.  But I'm not sure if that is design/UX friendly for everyone.  Yet, it would be really SEO-valuable for a sponsor to go from 1 backlink to thousands of backlinks.
        - Martin: Just an idea to consider.  I will recommend to Mikel to add a top tier 4th level.
    - Eric moves to approve the Sponsorship proposal.  Martin seconds.  All in favor.

- Sprint funding request
    - re: Stellenboch
        - This will be a Marketing sprint
        - Venue is covered.  Cost is mostly catering and facilitating key people.
    - However, we haven't received sprint funding requests from the other sprints yet, so it is hard to assess total budget.
    - Plus, there are other new sprint funding possibilities:
        - Colonia in June - Reactive
        - Bucharest
    - Brian: Should we wait to coordinate them all at the same time?
      - Martin: Since this is scheduled for January, we should expedite it.
    - Brian: Can we call it a community sprint at $300, then later upgrade it to a strategic sprint?
    - Martin: I think we should just go with strategic sprint now, and assess additional budget later.
      - This is Astrid's first sprint.  We want to reassure her that we support her.
    - Eric motions to approve the Marketing Strategic Sprint in Stellenboch and to allocate $1500, Rikupekka seconds. All in favor.

- Priorities for 2025-2026
  - Please review last year's priorities and brainstorm what priorities you would like to see for this year, so we can begin work on this document.

- Treasurer Report
    - Steve: Should we try nl.net? = offers grants to develop FOSS
      - Steve is already involved through icalendar
      - Doesn't put any risk to those who apply
      - People who do the work, receive the donation. Straight from grantor to grantee.
      - Simple to manage
      - Steve: Can someone manage this for Plone?  Get PLIPs listed?
        - Martin: Should be led by release managers, Steering Circle
      - Eric: How do we apply?
        - Steve: I'll write something up, then have Steering Circle and Board review
        - Martin: We can consider a motion to approve/reject after the proposal is written
    - Forming the 2025-2026 budget
        - Steve: Who's responsibility is this?
        - Martin: It's the Board's responsibility, but we'll need Steve's help for last year's numbers
    - Updating accounts with the Admin Team
        - Steve: We made some progress at PloneConf, but more work needs to be done.
        - Martin: Let's wait until Brian meets with Fred
        - Brian and Steve to help.
    - Reimbursing people
        - All of these are preapproved
          - Malas: $1500
          - Astrid: $4000 (travel, lodging, flight, train, no food)
          - Steve: $1500 (exceeded allotment, needs to be reviewed)
        - Board dinner is not approved
            - But Martin would like to change the process of how we handle this
            - Martin and Gouveia to send receipts
              - Can someone please review?
    - Document the process for reimbursements
        - Steve: I would like to establish a better process to know what transactions I can reimburse when.
          - I sent an email asking if there was a specific dollar amount that would need additional approval
        - Martin: Let's discuss more later.  Martin can help, knows the rules/amounts.

Continued Business

- PloneConf25: Tickets & Sponsors
  - Attendance: 120 on Wed-Thurs, 180 on Fri.
  - Revenue: 40% ticket sales, 60% sponsorships
  - Rikupekka's analysis:
    - Based on budget calculations, the conference was a couple of thousands under budget.
    - But we will need to draw money from the Foundation to get everything paid for.
      - When we run out from ticket sales, then we will pay from the Foundation.
    - Biggest bills are hotel payments for trainers and hotel for PyCon speakers.
      - Were promised funding, but EuroPython hasn't yet paid.
      - When we used the money, we said we would bring from developing countries. We had 2 speakers from India, I promised to pay flights up to $1500.
      - Big chunk of money goes to catering ($20k), but I haven't yet received an invoice.
      - University to make an invoice to the Foundation.  Then the Foundation will pay there.  Good news is, the University isn't looking to make a profit.
- Zope Foundation Funds
    - Spoke about it at Conference.  A Foundation Member from Texas has offered to help.
- Steve: I also emailed about two possible money management proposals
    - Martin: Discuss later, until after we have a budget.

Review Ongoing

- Martin: Lots of board members from different timezones.  Do we need to reschedule this meeting?
    - Give it some thought.  To be discussed next meeting.
    - Steve: Is there a scheduling availability app that would make this easier?
    - Martin: If you know of something, please suggest
- Brian: New Board means new Board page on plone.org and news article
  - Rikupekka and Gildardo to send Board Member profiles to Brian
- Brian: For things like this, I would like to propose a Google Calendar for a Board.
  - Without notifications, internal tasks are easy to miss.  Like we missed the Ambassador program in 2025.
- Steve: Can we have a secretary@plone account?  Can the Secretary create/share the calendar?
  - Brian to talk with Fred.

Adjournment

- Eric motions to adjourn, Brian seconds.  All in favor.
- Meeting adjourned at 21:43