Plone Foundation Board Minutes August 7, 2025

Call to Order

  • Meeting started at 20:05

Attendance

  • Present: Rafahela Bazzanella, Brian Davis, João Henrique Gouveia (joining late), Mikel Larreategi, Martin Peeters, and Steve Piercy (interim treasurer)

  • Excused: Eric Brehault and Guido Stevens

Approval of the minutes of

  • July 24, 2025: Mikel motions to approve. Brian seconds. All in favor.

Action items

  • Contacting Beth

    • Martin tried to contact Beth, but no reply.

    • Beth did reply to Steve's text, planning to meet tomorrow.

Incoming Correspondence

  • pypi

  • Substack (not sure why)

  • esteele re: Zope funds

  • 2 emails from Steve

New Business

  • Steve suggests Google Voice number for 2FA

    • Martin to setup Google Voice with AI Team

    • Steve: Can we bind the phone number to the treasurer Google account?

    • Martin: Yes, makes sense. I will give Steve access after this meeting to admin Google Workspace and get started.

  • Steve suggests sharing Board notes before the meeting so they can be reviewed in advance.

    • Brian to publish notes to Quaive for collaborative editing.

Continued Business

  • Interim Treasurer Report

    • Treasurer as a Voting Board Member?

      • Martin: We are still working through different interpretations of bylaws.

      • Martin: Can Steve explain again what changes would make the treasurer role more appealing?

        • Steve:

          • First, less bookkeeping makes it appealing.

            • Martin: Historically it was a company in the U.S. in exchange for sponsorship. Not much overturn, 2 companies total have provided a treasurer.

            • Steve would like authority to make an RFP to hire a bookkeeper.

              • Can I seek proposals for this?

              • Martin: Yes, we don't need a motion, please do.

            • Second, it frees up the treasurer role to do more appealing things.

              • ie. working with sponsorship team, seeking funding, writing reports, and delegating tasks to the bookkeeper

            • Third, voting can make the permanent role more interesting and make it feel like they are participating more.

              • Mikel: I suggest let's keep it at 7, and 1 of the 7 can be treasurer, and we assign treasurer role at start of Board year similar to how other roles are assigned (president, vice president, secretary, etc.).
                Martin: Perhaps we can adjust the Board nominations form so that candidates can indicate their interest in the treasurer role.

              • Brian: I have concerns about what happens to future Boards if nobody of the 7 wants to be treasurer. Treasurer takes a certain skill set that a future roster of Boards members may not have.

              • Martin: By better defining/documenting the role, it make the role easier. Also a better defined role makes it easier for us to recruit.

              • Steve: If we remove the bookkeeping and have the treasurer focus on analytics and helping other teams, then more candidates (anyone, really) can fit into that role.

    • Current Event/Sprint Sponsorship payments

      • Astrid re: Tagung

        • Martin: Tagung expense comes out of the Marketing budget. Payment needs processed.

        • Steve to contact Maik.

      • Jacob re: Beethoven

        • Martin: 6k is fine. That is what was approved.

        • Mikel: Isn't this over-budget?

        • Martin: Yes, we will pay the 6k towards it. They will cover the rest.

      • Piero re: Axolote

        • Martin will contact and have all the information by the end of Friday.

  • Sponsorship management and levels

    • No news from the Sponsorship Team.

    • Steve corresponding with Vitaliy regarding Provider/Sponsor levels/details.

      • Martin: Back in the day, when you were a sponsor, you were on both pages, because that is how the code was written. Nothing has changed. They are not separate funding classifications.

      • Steve recommended that we all listen on Discord Marketing channel, because sometimes historical knowledge is not there.

    • Steve: There at least 3 revenue streams that are "sponsorship" (Github, Paypal, etc.)

      • I can generate a report, share it with the Board and eventually the Sponsorship Team.

    • What are the levels, how they are classified, and who fits there?

      • Mikel is still hoping to take initiative on this next year.

      • Mikel: The Board needs to decide what the sponsorship levels are and publish this info.

      • Steve: Sponsorship Team should just be a point of contact to enforce the document.

      • Mikel will get the current information and combine it with Erico's proposal to see if the details can be simplified. Hoping to have this ready by September.

  • Github security overhaul

    • No news.

  • Provider listing on plone.org: what to do as a company in the community, self-grading

    • Brian: Good, lengthy marketing discussion at Steering Circle today. Vitaliy spoke about provider listings.

    • Brian: We are starting to form a plone.org website team with 2 sub-teams for:

      • coding, upgrades, sysadmin

      • content renewal, information architecture, vertical/horizontal marketing, SEO

  • Alpine City Sprint Funding

    • No news.

  • GSoC

    • Martin to ping Paul & Eric re: mentor/mentee discussion.

    • We are pulling resources and working to help the mentee succeed.

  • Ploneconf

    • Rikpuekka is back. Things are moving forward again.

    • Erico deployed the new tech event content type to the conference website so it can be prepared with speakers and talks. Asko also working on this.

    • They have concerns about number of Plone talk submissions, but Mikel assured that is typical. Last minute proposals will arrive.

  • AI Policy

    • Mikel: I could not attend last meeting. Volto team currently reviewing. Classic team yet to review.

  • Zope Foundation Funds

    • No news.

Review Ongoing

  • Martin: I may not be at next Board meeting. Will ask Guido to run the meeting if so.

  • Steve: Python Foundation has suspended issuing grants as of August 1.

    • Ploneconf had applied. Rikupekka contacted them when he saw the message.

    • They told us the request was in, but no decision yet.

  • Steve: Large sponsorship came in recently, should we acknowledge them?

    • Martin: Yes, traditionally, sponsorship manager would send a thank you.

    • Steve: Treasurer may see the transaction, but sponsorship team may not see it. This can be coordinated better in the future.

Adjournment

  • Mikel motions to adjourn. Martin seconds. All in favor.

  • Adjourned at 21:14