Revisit JupyterHub Collaboration Cafe times and dates

[KirstieJane]

Update 24 September 2025

We're going to meet from 11am - 12noon Pacific on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of the month 🚀🌟

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UPDATE 18 September 2025 - please:

1. Read the suggested action in this comment
2. Fill out this table

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Hi folks!

At the moment we run collaboration cafe's once per month on the 3rd Tuesday of the month and alternate between 9am UK time and 9am Pacific.

The meetings that are at 9am Pacific are joined with JupyterBook.

Is this the right time? Is this the right cadence? Is there something that could / should change as a result of @minrk moving to the US?

@yuvipanda - there also used to be a clash with another meeting but I think I remember you saying that that meeting series has ended?

Lets use this issue as a place to just check in and see if we're meeting synchronously in a way that makes the most sense 💖

[minrk]

Past discussion on this has been in #738 and #684 which have some notes, but we have not reached conclusions on new ideas to try.

Is this the right time? Is this the right cadence? Is there something that could / should change as a result of @minrk moving to the US?

It's true that I won't be able to make the EU AM meeting anymore, but I don't think anything in JupyterHub should hinge solely on me. If enough folks want an EU/AM meeting, we should have it.

I do think perhaps more frequent / lower commitment calls might be an improvement, but I'm open to any ideas. I do want to in general prioritize asynchronous things for decision making, but synchronous meetings have their own unique value as well, while being exclusionary by definition.

[rgaiacs]

I do want to in general prioritize asynchronous things for decision making

I support the asynchronous decision making.

If enough folks want an EU/AM meeting, we should have it.

I volunteer to organise the morning EU meeting.

At the moment we run collaboration cafe's once per month on the 3rd Tuesday of the month and alternate between 9am UK time and 9am Pacific.

The last meeting was on Tuesday, 17th June 2025 on 09:00 Europe/London. My understanding is that the next meetings would be

Month	Day	Time	Zone
July	15	9:00	Pacific Time
August	19	9:00	Central European Time
September	16	9:00	Pacific Time
October	21	9:00	Central European Time
November	18	9:00	Pacific Time
December	16	9:00	Central European Time

@KirstieJane do you have 15-30min for a video call? I was absent in the last two months and I would love to ask you a few things.

[manics]

Is the proposal to change the Europe morning time to 09:00 CET (07:00 UTC in summer, 08:00 UTC in winter)?

[rgaiacs]

Hi @manics,

9:00 CET is a little better for me because on Tuesdays I need to go to the office and people might need my help. But I can also do 10:00 CET if this helps you and people at Pacific Time.

[KirstieJane]

@rgaiacs - yes! Super happy to chat! Let's coordinate on Zulip?

Thank you all for the engagement here - and sorry for missing the previous discussion!

All options are on the table - I think I'm mostly just trying to help get to the right decision (including keeping things the same if that's right!!)

[KirstieJane]

Hi folks - I'm sorry for dropping from this discussion over the summer!

I think we're doing really well having a bit more regular, synchronous time to check in and unblock each other's tasks.

Can I please suggest that we experiment with meeting twice per month starting in October? And also that we drop our meeting time down to 1 hour?

I'd also like to recommend that we have those calls at 9am California time which corresponds to 5pm UK time or 6pm Central European time.

@rgaiacs @manics @consideRatio - would you be able to make that time at least some of the meetings? Would later in the day be better? (I know for me I'm more able to join a late call at 9pm than at 6pm.... but I don't want to assume that about you!)

@rgaiacs - you'd offered to run a call at 9am CET - we could try to do that on the same day as the 9am (Pacific) call? So there would be two time slots.... but probably with limited overlap?

Here's my recommended next steps:

• I find a day of the week where we can have a 1 hour meeting from 9am - 10am Pacific that works for @choldgraf @minrk @yuvipanda @stefanv @rowanc1, the org mycology folks, and me.
  • We pick 2 weeks of the month (1st and 3rd, 2nd and 4th) and lock in those times.
• We experiment with a shorter meeting, faster cadence series for October and November and review in the first meeting in December (we'll skip the one that's close to the holidays).

Some open questions are:

• Do we have these meetings joined JupyterHub and JupyterBook?
  • I think there are enough overlapping people that it DOES make sense to have us sync up. I'm also the current chair for both meetings so selfishly it works for me to have them together 😁 I think it also is a reasonable use of @choldgraf's time AND I really appreciate the way that he keeps us connected with what the foundation board and executive council are thinking.
• Do we drop the European timed meetings or keep them?
  • If an evening meeting could work for the European folks then that would be my preference, but if we'll lose their input then I'd prefer to have two separate meetings on the same day.
  • I can join calls at 6am (and do for The Turing Way) but I don't think that works for others in California so you might only have me joining which is only a little bit useful! (I can NOT join calls from 7am - 9am as that's when Mackenzie is awake and having breakfast 🍳 )
• Is there anyone else whose schedules I should survey?

I want to note that its really uncomfortable to be scheduling these meetings around the schedules of a small number of people..... this is a huge part of why I dropped this over the summer. AND I think there are key questions that we struggle to make progress on if we fully rely on async discussions, if we meet without key maintainers, or if we're only meeting (effectively) once every two months.

So lets think of this as an experiment and see what we learn ❤️ Let me know what you think!

[consideRatio]

8pm and later CET time is easier for me than before since my kid is probably asleep then, but we can manage to make it work for monthly meetings anyhow at 6pm CET for example. I think between 3-5pm CET may be the hardest for me to make.

With regards to 1 or 2 hour meets, I don't have enough time-budget for 2hour meets in general I think.

[rgaiacs]

I'd also like to recommend that we have those calls at 9am California time which corresponds to 5pm UK time or 6pm Central European time.

Could we change the meeting to Monday, Thursday or Friday?

8pm and later CET time is easier for me

8pm CET is also easier for me.

you'd offered to run a call at 9am CET - we could try to do that on the same day as the 9am (Pacific) call? So there would be two time slots.... but probably with limited overlap?

Could I run this as an "office hour" instead of a meeting? No agenda. I would keep Jitsi / Zoom meeting and people can join to work together on something.

Do we have these meetings joined JupyterHub and JupyterBook?

Looks good to me. 👍

[KirstieJane]

Thank you so much for the replies @rgaiacs and @consideRatio ! Let me see if I can find a time that works for 8pm or 9pm CET.

@manics - can you make a call that's late in the evening? 8pm CET would be 7pm GMT etc ?

@rgaiacs - a european-work-hours office hour would be SO GREAT! Here's what you should do - pick an hour that you can commit to regularly at whatever cadence you'd like (monthly, every 2 weeks etc) and lets get it in the calendar. If its a time that @consideRatio and @manics can also make then that's even better 💖

[rgaiacs]

a european-work-hours office hour would be SO GREAT!

Wednesday and Thursday mornings are the time that works better for me.

[KirstieJane]

Right - I'm going to try to find a regular 1 hour time slot at 11am or 12noon Pacific which corresponds to 8pm or 9pm CET / CEST and 7pm or 8pm GMT / BST

I've started this table for a generic week - ❌ and ✔️ are obvious, and 😬 is a "I could do this but I'd have to make a change to an existing set of meetings".

Day	Time	@KirstieJane	@minrk	@stefanv	@choldgraf	@yuvipanda	@rowanc1
Monday	11am	❌	✔️	❌	✔️	❌
Monday	12noon	✔️	😬	✔️	✔️	❌
Tuesday	11am	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Tuesday	12noon	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Wednesday	11am	✔️	❌	❌	✔️	❌
Wednesday	12noon	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	❌
Thursday	11am	😬	❌	❌	✔️	✔️
Thursday	12noon	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Friday	11am	😬	😬	😬	😬	❌
Friday	12noon	😬	😬	😬	😬	❌