diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 795bd42..f379023 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -1,9 +1,8 @@
 # TO EDIT
-TAG ?= v0.25.0rc0
-GH_USERNAME ?= TomAugspurger
-
-PANDAS_VERSION=$(TAG:v%=%)  														   # like 0.24.2
-PANDAS_BASE_VERSION=$(shell echo $(PANDAS_VERSION) | awk -F '.' '{OFS="."} { print $$1, $$2}')  # like 0.24
+TAG ?= v0.25.0
+GH_USERNAME ?= WillAyd
+PANDAS_VERSION=$(TAG:v%=%)
+PANDAS_BASE_VERSION=$(shell echo $(PANDAS_VERSION) | awk -F '.' '{OFS="."} { print $$1, $$2}')
 TARGZ=pandas-$(PANDAS_VERSION).tar.gz
 
 # to ensure pushd and popd works
@@ -107,7 +106,6 @@ doc:
 upload-doc:
 	rsync -rv -e ssh pandas/doc/build/html/            pandas.pydata.org:/usr/share/nginx/pandas/pandas-docs/version/$(PANDAS_VERSION)/
 	rsync -rv -e ssh pandas/doc/build/latex/pandas.pdf pandas.pydata.org:/usr/share/nginx/pandas/pandas-docs/version/$(PANDAS_VERSION)/pandas.pdf
-	sudo chgrp -R docs /usr/share/nginx/pandas/pandas-docs
 
 link-stable:
 	ssh pandas.pydata.org "cd /usr/share/nginx/pandas/pandas-docs && ln -sfn version/$(PANDAS_VERSION) stable"
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 8a5eb80..8b558cd 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -3,10 +3,16 @@ Release automation for pandas.
 ## Steps to a release
 
 - [  ] Manually update 
-  - [  ] `PANDAS_VERSION` in `Makefile`
+  - [  ] `TAG` in `Makefile`
   - [  ] `GH_USERNAME` in `Makefile`
-  - [  ]  `version` in `recipe/meta.yaml`
 
+If running for the first time be sure to initialize repos
+
+```sh
+make init-repos
+```
+
+And fork pandas-feedstock and pandas-wheels to your GitHub account.
 
 ```
 # Update repos
@@ -22,6 +28,7 @@ make docker-image docker-doc
 make pandas/dist/<>.sdist
 
 # Final Pip and Conda tests. Do these in parallel.
+# You can optionally do make doc here as well
 make pip-test
 make conda-test
 
@@ -34,7 +41,18 @@ Now manually create a release https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/releases
 Make sure to upload the sdist that's in `pandas/dist/` as the "binary".
 Conda-forge uses it.
 
-Start the binary builds
+On pandas you should also now create and tag a new branch, so
+
+```sh
+git checkout -b <TAG>.x
+git push upstream <TAG>.x
+git checkout master
+git commit --allow-empty -m "Start <NEXT_TAG>"
+git tag -a v<NEXT_TAG>.dev0 -m 'DEV: Start <NEXT_TAG> cycle'
+git push upstream master --follow-tags
+```
+
+Start the binary builds.  **For Mac users** you may need to download the GNU version of sed before running this scripts via `brew install gnu-sed`
 
 ```
 # Binaries
@@ -44,6 +62,8 @@ make wheels
 
 Open PRs for each of those.
 
+Note that `make wheels` actually pushes a job to MacPython to produce wheels which we will download later.
+
 Docs. You can cheat and re-tag / rebuild these if needed.
 
 ```
@@ -51,7 +71,8 @@ make doc
 ```
 
 Once the binaries finish, you'll need to manually upload the
-wheels to PyPI
+wheels to PyPI. Assuming the job which `make wheels` triggered on MacPython completed successfully (you may want to double check this)
+you can download a copy of the wheels for Mac / Linux locally.
 
 
 ```
@@ -71,12 +92,32 @@ Finalize the docs
 ```
 make upload-doc
 make website
-make push-website
 ```
 
-The website script is currenlty broken. You may need to manually
-add the next (dev) release, and remove any pre-releases.
+You also need to make edits to the pandas-website to appropriately display items. 
+Ideally this could be done via `make push-website` as the rule exists but the
+intermediary steps aren't fully automated yet.
+
+```sh
+pushd pandas-website
+mv latest.rst previous.rst
+# Recreate latest.rst to match release notes from GH in earlier steps
+# Update pre_release.json and releases.json
+git commit -am "Your updates"
+git push
+make html
+make upload
+```
+
+To make sure /stable and the latest minor revision point to the new release run the following from root
+
+```sh
+popd  # should bring us back to root from pandas-website
+make link-stable
+make link-version
+```
 
+Now check pandas.pydata.org and ensure the sidebar and links are correct!
 
 goto announce.
 
diff --git a/docker-files/conda/Dockerfile b/docker-files/conda/Dockerfile
index 4b9422b..710f12f 100644
--- a/docker-files/conda/Dockerfile
+++ b/docker-files/conda/Dockerfile
@@ -3,4 +3,4 @@ FROM condaforge/linux-anvil2:latest
 RUN conda install -y conda-verify && conda clean -tipsy
 WORKDIR /pandas
 
-RUN conda build conda.recipe --numpy=1.11 --python=3.6
+RUN conda build conda.recipe --numpy=1.13.3 --python=3.6
diff --git a/recipe/meta.yaml b/recipe/meta.yaml
index 40094b8..d7544a4 100644
--- a/recipe/meta.yaml
+++ b/recipe/meta.yaml
@@ -47,3 +47,4 @@ extra:
     - msarahan
     - ocefpaf
     - TomAugspurger
+    - WillAyd