Executive Council Key Activities Report

The Carpentries Executive Council is the highest leadership body of The Carpentries, to whom the Executive Director of the Carpentries reports. The work and engagement of the Executive Council is performed via the following committees: Officers Committee, Governance Committee, Finance Committee, Communications Committee, Program Committee. Current members of the Executive council are:

Cedric Chambers, Jump Recruits, USA
John Chodacki, California Digital Library, USA
Konrad Förstner (Secretary), ZB MED - Information Centre for Life Sciences and TH Köln, Germany
Paula Andrea Martinez (Vice Chair), Australian Research Data Commons / Research Software Alliance, Australia
Lex Nederbragt (Chair), University of Oslo, Norway
Aleksandra Nenadic, The Software Sustainability Institute, UK
Michael Smith (Treasurer), D.Eng., The PEER Group, USA
Sarah Stevens, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Masami Yamaguchi (Code of Conduct Committee Liaison), Griffith University, Australia

The Carpentries Executive Council would like to give an overview of its activities and to make its works transparent to the community. Therefore, it has written a report of what happened between February 2021 and July 2021.

Officers Committee

Current members: Lex Nederbragt, Paula Andrea Martinez, Konrad Förstner, Michael Smith

The Officers Committee meets when needed. Over the reporting period, the key activities included:

Formation and structuring of the Executive Council Standing Committees
Wrote the Committee’s charter

For the remaining period of this Executive Council’s term, we will focus on:

The Officers Committee will work on improving the operation of the Code of Conduct Committee, as well as start preparing the road towards the Carpentries becoming its own independent non-profit organisation

Governance Committee

Current members: Paula Andrea Martinez (Chair), Sarah Stevens, Cedric Chambers, John Chodacki

The Governance Committee meets when needed. Over the reporting period, the key activities included:

Organised and ran the Executive Council Annual Meeting in June 2021
Surveyed key elements of decision making transparency rubric between the EC and the Core team, proposed a motion and published consensus via the handbook
Reviewed internal election documentation and updated it as needed

Finance Committee

Current members: Michael Smith, Cedric Chambers, John Chodacki

The Finance Committee meets the second Thursday of each month. Over the reporting period, the key activities included:

Review of the treasury reports, including financial statements and current budget status for January - June 2021. (Each month the committee reviews the reports for two months prior to the current meeting month, based on complete report availability.)
Created, reviewed and approved the Finance Committee Charter
Reviewed and provided commentary on The Carpentries 2020 Financial Report (public).
Reviewed the current financial policy of The Carpentries.
Review FY2021 budget and approved budget increase to accommodate an increase in a standard monthly expense that was not accounted for in the original budgeting cycle.
Reviewed the updated Sponsored Instructor Training proposal to incorporate our regional and diversity growth goals. The Executive Council approved the following motion: I move to approve the sponsorship limit of 250 seats for sponsored instructor training in 2021-2022.
Began development of The Carpentries Business Sponsorship Program Project Plan and core implementation elements for finalization and approval in Q4.

Communications Committee

Current members: Konrad Förstner (Chair), Aleksandra Nenadic, Masami Yamaguchi

The Communications Committee meets once a month. Over the reporting period, the key activities included:

Setting up the Values Alignment Task Force - the objective of the Values Alignment Task Force was to deliver a set of recommendations (a due diligence process) on how to identify whether an organisation or service is acting in accordance with The Carpentries core values. The work of this Task Force was concluded in September 2021.
Development of a rubric for handling public statements from The Carpentries together with core team members.
Announcement of the new Executive Council’s Standing Committees, including updating the Handbook. Generating a template and workflow regarding the Executive Council’s biennial reports.

Program Committee

Current members: Sarah Stevens (Chair), Lex Nederbragt, Aleksandra Nenadic, Masami Yamaguchi

The Program Committee meets once a month. Over the reporting period, the committee has worked primarily on developing a lesson program governance policy and supporting the reactivation of the Curriculum Advisory Councils (CAC).