Board of Directors Meeting

Directors in attendance: asai bencuan bryli etw jyxzhang kdr kian kmo lmathias ncberberi ncograin rjz ronitnath snarain ronitnath

Guests in attendance: amyoh* rminjy

Guests marked with a * were appointed to BoD.

Quorum for this meeting is 10

Meeting Started at 19:15

Buy sheet

• NUC parts - tornado (NUC behind TV) died, we are buying a new one
• passed unanimously
• Supermicro front panel adapter for y2k
• passed
• kegerator (new fridge?!)
• memes, tabled

Operations Staff

• Hiring - 4 offers sent for OA, OM picked
• Hours for dead week / finals week updated already
• Retroactively making OM pay $3 more than OA (19 to 20)
• match old difference between OM and OA wages
• would cost $247.50
• unanimous pass

Committee Head Elections

• Structure: 2 min speech, 2 min Q&A, no deliberations

Internal

• bryli
• main focus: onboarding and retention
• work with external on socials and getting people to join
• have meetings with *Ms and project leaders to keep up with documentation
  • want to sacrifice some progress on projects to ensure future staff can stay up-to-date with our infrastructure
• allocating work to people / members having responsibilities - set clear goals for staff to work on
• Q&A:
  • how would you solve the staff retention problem?
  • onboarding is a big issue - people need to know how to solve problems and get things done, otherwise they lose interest
  • having clear responsibilities - give interested people purpose / tangible progress on tasks they're assigned
  • are you interested in managing onboarding as a more project-based system?
  • not just internal, need to collaborate
  • first step is to make people aware of the projects that we have
  • what do you imagine documentation looking like?
  • basics of what someone would need to finish a simple project in that area
  • tutorial? specific tasks that lead you to understanding a codebase
  • what events are you planning to hold?
  • more hack days would be nice (need to talk with people managing projects)
  • looking for more variety open to suggestions
  • thoughts on rafts/families
  • good way to get people involved and build relationships with other staffers
• kian
• perspective as first-semester staffer
• main problem is lack of retention - people aren't able to discover their place in the OCF
• need to advertise groups more, show people what the OCF has to offer
• give hands-on experience with the interest groups / committees at general meetings
• socials (like joint social) went well, more of this + opportunities to get involved
• Q&A
  • what would "hands-on" look like?
  • e.g. web team: showing the website, brief walkthrough of codebase
  • committees: giving walkthrough of how to plan socials / communications / etc. - give them a feel for what they do
  • thoughts on rafts/families
  • potentially implementing system for next semester - started in web group this semester
  • what's your theory of OCF recruitment and retention?
  • retention: let people find a place that they feel comfortable and belong in
  • recruitment: advertise ourselves as more than just free printing (technical stuff, graphic design, etc.)

External

• anddone
• pushing for lab improvements and maintenance: fixing shared storage, cleanup
• outlier as not CS/EECS who has an interest in computers - has perspective as a bit of an "outsider"
• lead external to bridge with other groups on campus by using this experience
• Q&A
• ncograin
• want to learn more and get involved
• advertise better - to greater audience, figure out what our target demographic is and target
• have some experience with sponsorships / industry relations already
• Q&A
  • what sponsorships in the past?
  • FRC in HS, managed sponsorship emails, etc.
  • how will you tackle diversity @ OCF?
  • look at who we want to target and examine why we aren't attracting them

Finance

• rayh
• have improved pace of approving PRs during current time as FiComm
• Q&A
  • what's your favorite part of CalLink?
  • it's responsive - however, not fully responsive :(
  • any new initiatives?
  • nothing in particular planned, but open to ideas
  • would OCF continue to advocate for things like STF?
  • not too familiar with ASUC affairs yet
• ncberberi
• before being GM, was FiComm head for 3 semesters
• done most of previous work with STF (STF on the ballot next semester!)
• Q&A
  • do we have a plan to spend our funds?
  • nothing particularly specific - can always buy more servers
  • any new initiatives?
  • not really
  • probably look into verifying / cross-checking opstaff hours again
• snarain
• potential for a lot of growth
• previous finance knowledge with ABSA / emergency funding
• Q&A
  • what are your plans for growth?
  • bi-weekly meetings / socials similar to industry comm this semester
  • reach out for sponsorships?
  • we should do that / don't do that enough right now
  • is merch shop on the table?
  • combined effort between FiComm and External

Decal

• laksith
• lmathias
• was ghost-facilitating this semester, took it previously
• want to expand - programming class for people who don't want to take 61A / jump right into Linux
• bringing people from decal to OCF staff e.g. OCF-specific section, units for working on OCF projects
• tie in to retention - make clear what projects exist e.g. writing content
• make sure we have facilitators / don't have gaps
• Q&A
  • what's the intended difference between beginner programming class and CS10
  • Linux/Python, no Scratch, no essays
  • is beginner programming a separate decal?
  • still in the air
  • what's the timeline on these improvements?
  • not next semester, targeting Fall 22 (programming would be Spring 23)
  • would we introduce people to Python ecosystem that we use e.g. Django?
  • maybe? don't know if there's time
  • thoughts on facilitator shortage?
  • lower barrier to facilitate - just go through the section, and make this more clear
  • keep more people active on decal

Election results: Internal: kian, bryli External: anddone, ncograin Finance: rayh, snarain, ncberberi Decal: laksith, lmathias

University affairs

• Meetings
• With Sarah:
  • Introduced new *Ms
  • PR deadline is December 7th (yesterday)
  • If alumni banquet PR (or other PRs) gets stage 3'd, they should still be able to go through before the end of the year as long as we fix it quickly
• With Eleanor:
  • Fire Door
  • Has been "permanently" unlocked
  • Temp Card
  • Has been picked up
  • Need the lockbox code
    • njha, etw have it
  • Eleanor will let us know when it is active
  • Emergency Access Transfer
  • Will tell Eleanor the new people who should have emergency access
  • All *Ms + 2 selected other people
  • Winter Break Access
  • Emergency access is unchanged, should still work over winter break to the 6 select people
  • Kaitlyn is temp interim executive director while a replacement for Bahar is found
  • Kaitlyn will be around at least until spring break; hiring process is slow
  • Kaitlyn is supposedly less strict compared to Bahar about building security; we should reach out to her
• New OCF-ATDP MOU - needs to be signed by OCF representative
• vote passes

Other committees

No updates

Constitution

• removing clause about restricting OM voting powers
• originally because of conflict of interest as paid position
• we will just leave conflicts of interest to BoD discretion
• opstaff have been on BoD previously, they're members of staff already

Operations Staff Treatment

• Private matters should not be brought up during BoD
• That includes mentioning particular staff members or opstaff members
• If there are particular problems, talk to a *M
• Opstaff are 1. human beings and 2. working paid shifts. Understand that they cannot leave in the middle of a shift. Please treat them with respect

Conclusions!

• first in-person post-COVID semester
• got emergency funding + STF on the ballot next semester
• room to improve with newstaff but on the right track

• good events

• administrative highlights: unique socials, alumni banquet, all thanks to great committee heads; committee consolidation

• technical highlights: bullseye upgrade
• room for improvement:
• staff recruitment - could benefit from opstaff-style recruitment pipeline e.g. interest form to better organize new staff, interviews for old staff to get to know newstaff
• diversity - reach out to more organizations, invite people to our lab space
• access - after-hours was important to social structure pre-COVID
• more committee meetings

Thank you everyone for a great semester!

• By bylaw #16, as of midnight the membership of BoD is as follows:
• amyoh
• asai
• bencuan
• bryli
• etw
• jyxzhang
• kian
• kmo
• lmathias
• ncberberi
• ncograin
• rayh
• rjz
• ronitnath
• snarain
• These Directors have confirmed their ability to serve as a Director during the following Spring semester.

Meeting Adjourned at 20:34

Notetaker: etw