The Carpentries Executive Council¶

About the Executive Council¶

The Carpentries Executive Council is the highest leadership body of The Carpentries. It is responsible for strategic and organisational planning, selecting the Executive Director and evaluating their performance, financial oversight, identifying revenue streams and resource development, approving and monitoring The Carpentries programs and services, and enhancing The Carpentries public image. Members of the Council also serve as advocates and ambassadors for the organisation, leveraging their networks to benefit the organization’s reputation and fundraising. The Executive Council executes these responsibilities through a combination of monthly Executive Council meetings and regular correspondence and collaboration via email and online platforms.

The governance of The Carpentries by the Executive Council is outlined in the Bylaws.

In addition to publicly posting meeting minutes, the Executive Council reports on its activities periodically in Carpentry Clippings (the organizational newsletter) as well as through blog posts. The council also prepares Yearly Summaries of its activities.

Contacting the Executive Council¶

If you have a question or concern for the Executive Council, there are three ways for communicating with Executive Council Members:

File an issue in this repository. This is appropriate if you would like to solicit additional community feedback on a topic of general interest to the community.
Send us an email. This is appropriate for communicating directly with the Executive Council but not the rest of our community.
Submit this form. This is preferable if you would like confidential communication with the Executive Council, or if you would like to remain anonymous.

The Carpentries Executive Council Documentation¶

The information below describes all procedures, routines and resources relevant for the Executive Council. This information is added here as onboarding information for new Executive Council members, as well as to provide transparency for the community.

NOTE that a number of links lead to pages for which access is restricted to Executive Council members. We wish to be as transparent as we can, but sometimes we need to choose to withhold information from others.

Responsibilities of all Executive Council Members¶

The Carpentries Bylaws describe the formal responsibilities of the Executive Council from an organisational level. This text describes the current implementation of the tasks described in the bylaws and represents flexible guidelines that may be adapted as the Executive Council deems necessary. In addition to documenting Executive Council standard operating procedures, it is also intended to clarify Executive Council function for the broader community and help potential members understand the commitment to serve on the Executive Council.

In practice, each Executive Council member is responsible for the following general tasks:

Supporting the Mission and Vision of The Carpentries
Exemplifying the Code of Conduct
Ensuring The Carpentries’ adherence to legal agreements and standards
Offering their expertise to help ensure the health and success of the organization
Actively participating in discussions about strategic and financial decisions
Providing feedback and voting on formal motions within one week of their posting
Attending (in person or by phone/web-based) at least 75% of the meetings held each year
Dedicating at least three volunteer hours per week toward Carpentries activities (including meeting attendance)

The specific commitments expected of Executive Council members include monthly meetings (1-1.5 hours, online) and a once-yearly face-to-face meeting (expenses covered by The Carpentries). Minutes for these meetings are published to a GitHub repository after approval by Executive Council members. We may periodically schedule additional virtual meetings to address particular topics. Officers and Executive Council liaisons to Committees or Task Forces may have additional commitments for meetings. Asynchronous commitments involve suggesting agenda items for meetings, responding to email requests for opinions, and formal voting on resolutions (as issues in this repository), and work resulting from being on a task force or committee representing the Executive Council.

Officers¶

Executive Council officers are selected at the first regular meeting following election and appointment of new members and serve one year terms. Officer positions include:

Chair
Vice Chair
Secretary
Treasurer

General tasks for each officer position are described in the bylaws. More detailed descriptions can be found on the page describing the Executive Council officers responsibilities.

Communication¶

We use two mailing lists:

executive-council@carpentries.org: this is an internal list, and includes Executive Council and Executive Director; this list can only receive messages from list members
carpentries-executive-council@carpentries.org: recipients are Executive Council Chair and Vice Chair; anyone can send to this, allowing the community to communicate directly with the Executive Council (but not the rest of our community)

Meetings¶

The Executive Council generally meets once monthly (we are required to hold at least 10 meetings a year, either in person or online). Smaller groups of Executive Council members may hold additional meetings when needed.

Publicly available meeting minutes
See the Agendas and minutes folder^* in the Executive Council Google Drive. We use a single document for meeting agendas/minutes for the entire year (meetings from February - January)
Our Meeting conduct document^* describes how we prepare for and conduct regular meetings, see the Google Doc in the above-mentioned folder (folder Agendas_Minutes --> Meeting conduct.gdoc)
Scheduling is done through our Google calendar^*
Executive Council members are invited to attend the Core Team meetings whenever they desire

GitHub¶

We maintain multiple repositories with variable permissions (some public, some restricted to Executive Council and/or various Core Team members).

Under https://github.com/carpentries¶

This is a GitHub organisation 'owned' by The Carpentries Core Team. Executive council members have access, as well as members of the Core Team and some community members

https://github.com/carpentries/executive-council-info

public repository
used to publish information intended for the community, such as our monthly meeting minutes
also used for voting on our our motions (our decisions)

https://github.com/carpentries/executive-council^*

private repository
used for discussions between Executive Council and Executive Director that require broader direct feedback from the Core Team
issues for approval of meeting minutes are posted here

Under https://github.com/carpentries-ec¶

This is a GitHub organisation 'owned' by the Executive Council, used for information or documents that only Executive Council members should have access to. Optionally, the Executive Director can be given access by inviting them as collaborator.

https://github.com/carpentries-ec/conversations_ec_ed^*

private repository. Executive council members have access, as well as the Executive Director (but not the Core Team)
used to
- discuss issues between Executive Council and Executive Director outside of the Executive Council monthly meetings
- storing relevant information that needs to be private to the world, and necessary or OK for the Executive Director to have access to

https://github.com/carpentries-ec/minutes-private^*

private repository, only Executive Council (not Executive Director or the Core Team) have access
used for
- those parts of the minutes that only Executive Council should have access to
- voting on motions that should only be visible to Executive Council. Examples of such discussions and motions:
  - hiring of a new Executive Director
  - salary discussions/decisions

https://github.com/carpentries-ec/financeviz^*

private repository, Executive Council, Executive Director and the Core Team have access
used for visualisations and plots for communicating The Carpentries finances

Google Drive¶

We use a private Google Drive folder called Carpentries_Executive_Council^*, see its README for orientation to contents.

Yearly Timeline¶

Additional annual tasks:

in-person (face-to-face) meeting
reassessing the strategic plan
annual financial report

Additional recurring tasks:

every second year, starting 2020: revision or reapproval of the bylaws

January¶

Review previous year’s minutes, ensuring all are approved and posted
Onboarding meeting for incoming Executive Council members with current Chair and/or Vice Chair and Executive Director
Overlap meeting of outgoing/incoming members
Logistics of offboarding outgoing members
Logistics of onboarding new members
Solicit nominations for Executive Council officers
Suggest annual goals for new Executive Council
Assess availability of incoming Executive Council Members for in-person meeting
Review Q4 financial report
Publish Q4 Code of Conduct Transparency Report

February¶

New Executive Council officially takes over
Reassess meeting procedures, including methods for setting the agenda and taking minutes
Select new officers
Select Executive Council liason to Code of Conduct Committee
Finalise annual goals for Executive Council

March¶

Review and discussion of strategic plan activities
Review draft financial report for community (the draft may first be available early April)

April¶

Review Q1 financial report
Publish Q1 Code of Conduct Transparency Report

May¶

June¶

Review and discussion of strategic plan activities

July¶

Review Q2 financial report
Publish Q2 Code of Conduct Transparency Report

August¶

September¶

Assign individuals to reassess bylaws (required in even-numbered years, due in November)
Review and discussion of strategic plan activities

October¶

Assess desired skills for incoming Executive Council members
Announce opening of self-nomination for Executive Council
Solicit nominees for community awards
Review Q3 financial report
Publish Q3 Code of Conduct Transparency Report

November¶

Executive Director evaluation
Solicit nominations for appointed members
Nominations for Executive Council elections close (at start of first community call)
Community call for Executive Council nominees
Vote on reassessed bylaws

December¶

Announce community award winners
First full week (Monday-Friday) in December: elections open
Selection of appointed members
Ratifying community-elected positions and council-elected positions (private GitHub repo)
Ratifying the new Executive Council members (public GitHub repro)
Announcement of the new Executive Council
Start organising dates for face-to-face meeting in first half of year
Review and discussion of strategic plan activities

Elections¶

Details about how Executive Council Members are elected and their terms of service are available in the bylaws. Elections are currently administered by an Executive Council Member (who is not up for re-election) via ElectionBuddy.

A checklist for the Executive Council election process is available as a Google Doc^* in the Executive Council Google Drive (folder Election --> EC Election Process.gdoc)

An overview of whose council member's seats are up for (re-)election can be found in a Google Sheet^* (folder Elections --> Year-of-term for executive council members.gsheet).

Transitions between Executive Councils¶

The transfer of responsibilities to the incoming Executive Council includes

onboarding new members to Executive Council processes
updating access to resources
selecting members to serve in specific roles

A checklist for the transition process can be found as a Google Doc^* (folder EC_processes --> Onboarding_offboarding members, ED.gdoc).

Onboarding new Executive Council members¶

New (incoming) members (both Community-elected and Council-elected) are announced in late December/early January. The official term of office for incoming Executive Council members is February 1. We ask that incoming members attend the final regularly scheduled meeting of the current Executive Council in January, prior to taking office, to learn how meetings operate, and to prepare for formal transfer of responsibility.

The outgoing Chair and/or Vice Chair should meet with the incoming Executive Council members and Executive Director in January to discuss the following key points:

The general workflow of the Executive Council
- monthly meetings
- as-needed special meetings and yearly in-person meeting
- asynchronous communications
Where different types of information are stored
Responsibilities and expectations for all Executive Council members

Access to resources¶

Executive Council members have access to the following resources:

Google Drive folder Carpentries_Executive_Council
GitHub organisations, teams, and repositories
- Organisation: carpentries
  - Team: carpentries/executive-council
  - Repo: executive-council-info (public, this repository)
- Repo: private (Executive Council + the Core Team)
  - Team: carpentries-ec/ec
  - Repo: Executive Council + Executive Director
  - Repo: Executive Council only
Mailing list (listserv)
- executive-council@carpentries.org
Executive Council Google Calendar

Incoming Executive Council members should be granted access to these resources in January. Outgoing members' access to these resources should be removed in February.

Additionally, The Carpentries' website that includes the Executive Council Members/Officers should be updated.

Transfer of member responsibilities¶

The following Executive Council roles should be assigned at the February meeting (these require formal voting by Executive Council members):

Officer positions:
- Chair
- Vice Chair
- Secretary
- Treasurer
Committee representatives (these may continue from previous terms as applicable):
- 2 x 2 Committee representatives
- CoC representative
- Representatives to Community Initiatives (CI)

^*Access to this information is restricted to Executive Council members.