2021 01 20

Board of Directors Meeting

Directors in attendance: anddone asai bencuan bernardzhao hexhu kmo ncberberi njha ronitnath snarain ziyaoz

Guests in attendance: cooperc ethanhs

Guests marked with a * were appointed to BoD.

Quorum for this meeting is 8

Meeting Started at 20:10

Action Item Updates¶

Goals from last semester
- Improving recruitment during the fall semester
- Improving inclusivity during the fall semester
- Solidifying software decisions for OCF organizational/administrative use
- Opstaff decisions during COVID-19
What are our long term goals?
- Improving staff retention during the spring semester
  - Carried out by applications + family system
- Streamlining OCF operations (responding to help tickets, managing administrivia + technical issues)
- Increasing overall involvement at the OCF (having more staffers attend BoD)
How does this influence our processes for making tech decisions?
- Same as before, but incorporating feedback is important
  - Try to make get all staff in the loop on projects @ the OCF, but introduce it so that participation is not intimidating
    - Kubernetes may always be intimidating, but you can teach it so that all staff get what they're doing
How does this influence our processes for making administrative decisions?
- Making BoD more accessible to new staff
  - Invite new staff after the application form to their first board of directors meeting
What's the vision and structure for BoD meetings?
- Same as always
  - Organizational updates (through committee system + urgent announcements)
  - Important decisions and votes
- Will make an active effort to ease new staff into BoD
Feedback
- Any concrete goals?
- Making computing more accessible in a world where a lot more people have access to computing.

Scheduling meetings with Megan, Eleanor, and Liam
- with Megan: mostly decided to be around Friday afternoon (~11:00 AM)
- with Eleanor: undecided
- with Liam: any day after 5
- with opstaff: kdr sent out a when2meet, will update later

Socials, events, etc.
- Events calendar: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1m4QMsp1kkepTgYfPJDr5xZYn3wjtVp67r8xc0vRsTR8/edit#gid=0
Need to plan for first staff meeting
- Can we decide on a time to do a dry run?
Next meeting?

One of the two biggest new changes to OCF this semester
- Will be rolling out this form at first staff meeting
- All staff (including veteran staff, regardless of position) will be required to fill out an application every semester
- Won't reject anyone unless the application is severe cause for concern (really, really concerning)
  - What if instead: "Won't reject anyone. We may reject you later."
Planned version includes important features
- when2meet for staff meeting + BoD
- technical interests for this semester
- other questions from the "Get to Know You" form from last semester
- will send a follow-up form to complete the application after acceptance
  - will confirm details on how to contact over Slack/IRC/Matrix/Discord/etc
Staff form (Get to Know You Form) made in progress
- Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1HVBT-QXbD8BWJKHY6DEVsQewiyVqCf2WTek1ZVrRG7E/edit
- Questions? Concerns?
Changes to be made:
- Remove mandatory requirement for new staff to fill this out
  - Username + checkbox only (BoD votes yes in favor - 8 yays)
- Rename the application form?
  - Mimick "Get to Know You" (not voted)
Other explorations
- Adding an exit survey to ask everyone how the semester was
More discussion at the bottom of this document

The other big change to OCF this semester
- We will experiment with bringing back the family system this semester
Changes to this term:
- Making families larger (two big families)
Let's decide concrete target goals for the system:
- (replace this with a goal)
Family heads for this semester
- Who is interested?
Ideas for family activities?
- Movie nights
- Game nights

What types of events can we do this semester?
- Would be nice to have a few virtual tech talks

Meeting Adjourned at 21:07

Notetaker: kmo