Executive Council Key Activities Report

Summary Statement

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.

The 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

Officers Committee

Members: Lex Nederbragt, Paula Andrea Martinez, Konrad Förstner, Michael Smith

During the reporting period, the key activities included:

• Check-in on current standing committee project and action (GitHub) status via verbal reports
• Engagement with the Code of Conduct Committee regarding membership infrastructure and reorganization (potential change in number of members and EC liaison role).
• Initial discussions regarding The Carpentries as an independent non-profit organization (including the path to stand-alone status, potential timeline departure from CI relationship and pros and cons of the process).

Governance Committee

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

• Added decision making transparency to the handbook
• Expanded voting eligibility due to pandemic
• Updated Election description to include considering expertise needed for council elected positions
• Ran Election for 2022 EC Members
• Drafted Election Policy

Finance Committee

Members: Michael Smith (Chair), Cedric Chambers, John Chodacki

• Review of the treasury reports, including financial statements and current budget status for July 2021 - January 2022. (Each month the committee reviews the reports for two months prior to the current meeting month, based on complete report availability.)
• Review and approval of monthly financial reports, and ED expense reports (Treasurer)
• Continued development of The Carpentries Business Sponsorship Program Project Plan and core implementation elements, including review of key program documents
  • Model project plan
  • Sponsorship confirmation letter template
  • Sponsorship agreement template
• FY2022 Budget Development and Recommendation (Motion to EC)
• Jumpstart discussion regarding The Carpentries stand-alone 501(c)3 status process.

Communications Committee

Members: Konrad Förstner (Chair), Aleksandra Nenadic, Masami Yamaguchi

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

• Promoted the renaming of the “master” branch to “main” branch for all repos that are run by the Carpentries community.
• Published biannual blog post reporting EC activities for Feb - Jul 2021 Helped organizing the Values Alignment Task Force Proof reading of the blog post “Thank You! Values Alignment Task Force”

Program Committee

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

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

• Approval of the Trainers Leadership Committee (ongoing)
• Implementation of the new Lesson Program governance process
• Discussions around open individual membership model and different community roles as part of a potential new Carpentries-wide contributor recognition program
• Updates around Committee Policy wording in the Handbook (ongoing)