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ClojureBridge / Workshops

A history of ClojureBridge workshops. Issues are used to request website updates for upcoming workshops.
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Clojure Bridge New York City June 2nd - June 4th #52

Closed delaray closed 7 years ago

delaray commented 7 years ago

Event title

clojurebridge-gocard-front

June 2nd: Install Fest (evening) June 3rd: Workshop Day (all day) May 4th: Application Day (optional)

Capacity: 200 participants.

Location

New York City

Locale:

Venue:

Shareablee Inc 123 William Street, 19th Floor New York, NY, 10038

Description

ClojureBridge is a free computer programming workshop for women. This hands-on course teaches participants the paradigms of functional programming in a professional and empowering environment. The event has two tracks catering both to novices as as programmers familiar with imperative languages such Python and JavaScript. During the two-day workshop, participants use the Clojure programming language to build working applications in a friendly and collaborative setting. Professional developers and experienced instructors are on hand to throughout the workshop. Clojure Bridge NYC 2017 is open to over 200 participants. Breakfast, lunch and refreshments are freely provided by our sponsors. The event takes place at the Shareablee Inc. Offices in manhattan.

Additional Info

Event Registration

Will be handled through evenbrite and will start on Monday April 24th

Organizer details

Name

Principal organizers

Pierre de Lacaze, President, Lisp NYC, rpl@lispnyc.org Heow Goodman, Vice President, Lisp NYC, heow@lispnyc.org Yulia Shea, Founder, Zolly, yulia.shea@gmail.com

Additional organizers

David Bachowski, CTO, Shareablee Inc., david@shareablee.com Katherine Appelian, Insights Analyst, Shareablee Inc., kat@shareablee.com Evan Misshula D Schmüdde Stuart Sierra

Sponsors (optional)

We have gotten verbal agreement on sponsorship from a number of well known businesses. We are waiting for website completion to formalize these arrangements. We have compiled a list of over other 25 companies that we are planning on reaching out to for sponsorship of this event.

clojurebridge.lispnyc.org (this is now public) www.lisp.nyc

We have designed a custom logo featuring Ada Lovelace in parentheses for this event. We also intend to include the official Clojure Bridge logo and Lisp NYC logo on all printed materials and on the website.

We are planning on printing Go Cards, Stickers, T-Shirts and Brochures for the event. Sponsorship funds permitting we may also print posters and booklets for the event

yokolet commented 7 years ago

🎉 Welcome to ClojureBridge @delaray ! and thanks for organizing the NYC chapter!

I hope things will go well. But, I have a couple of questions.

  1. Do you have a plan to improve attendance?

I see @stuartsierra 's name among additional organizers, so I think you have heard he experienced awful attendance. After his chapter, ClojureBridge discussed how to improve attendance without charging any fee. If you haven't, go over the document, https://github.com/ClojureBridge/organizing/blob/master/How-to-Improve-Attendance.md . Boston chapters also experienced bad attendance. After the discussion, they organized once and one is scheduled. They may have successfully improved the attendance. If you don't who they are, let me know. I'll give you contacts.

  1. What of underrepresented group(s) will you focus on?

ClojureBridge is open to all underrepresented groups. But, it is still controversial to invite all. In the end, the decision is on the organizers' hands, but please think the workshop should be a safe place to attendees. From the title, my guess is the workshop focuses on women. If I'm correct, you should add checkbox to the subscription form, such that, "I'm identified as a woman." Also, it's better to clearly say in the description or other, "this chapter is for women."

  1. Is this a three-day workshop?

I see May, 26, 27, 28 - 3 days in total. Is this correct? or days are selective? Normally, ClojureBridge's schedule is: Friday - installation, Saturday - workshop. In some chapters, it is an one-day workshop mostly because of improving the bad attendance. In my sense, requiring attendees to come all three days sounds tough, especially in NYC.

You have enough time, so, go over documents at https://github.com/ClojureBridge/organizing repository, at least, README and linked documents from README. 😃

yokolet commented 7 years ago

BTW, ClojureBridge is one word. Delete spaces between Clojure and Bridge!

delaray commented 7 years ago

Hello @yokolet ! Nice to meet you and thank you very much for your comments.

  1. I do have a plan to prove attendance. a) Increased Registration Limit: Both prior ClojureBridge NYC events suffered from not allowing a larger number of folks to register. Typically only 50% of the people who register to free events actually show up. By increasing the registration limit to 200, I feel confident that at least 100 people will show up. Naturally we will be prepared to accomodate 200. b) Advertising: I feel that the first two ClojureBridgeNYC events were not sufficiently advertised and announcements were mostly made through various meetu.com mailing list (Clojure NYC, Lisp NYC etc). This time in addition to those mailings lists we will physically advertising at Columbia, NYU, CUNY, a host of boot camp schools like General Assembly, The Recurse Center, The Flatiron School, etc.. We will be printing Go Cards, Stickers and Flyers and having them physically distributed at these places

  2. We are focusing on women and the theme and motto of the workshop is "Empowering Women in Technology". Your suggestion for adding a checkbox to the subscription form, such that, "I'm identified as a woman." is excellent and thank you for bringing that up.

  3. It is a 2-day workshop with the install fest taking place the night before. So basically: Friday May 26th: Installfest 6:00-9:00PM Saturday May 27th: 9:00AM - 6:00PM Workshop, 7:00PM-10:00PM Workshop Party Sunday May 28th: 9:00AM - 4:00PM Workshop

I have been reading through the docs and have so far recruited 8 motivated organizers, 3 of whom are women. Depending on the scope of the organizational work, I may recruit a few more organizers. In [2012 and 2013, I organized 2 5-day Lisp Conferences in San Francisco and New York respectively, so I do have a good sense of the amount of work involved. My immediate focus is the website and the syllabus. I'm also putting together an organizational road map and completion timelines for various organizational task. I plan to to update this issue with status and progress reports.

davidchambers commented 7 years ago

This is an ambitious undertaking, @delaray! I commend you. :)

I do share @yokolet's reservations about the length of the workshop. I'm concerned that some people may decide not to attend the workshop at all due to unwillingness or inability to devote a whole weekend to the activity. I also worry a little that attendance will drop off on Sunday due to people being tired from a full day of learning (and a party!) the day before.

For a two-day workshop I wonder whether it might be better to have the install-fest on Saturday morning. It's just an idea. :)

I hope my comments don't come across as negative. I'm just sharing concerns for you to consider. I'll be supportive of whatever workshop format you decide is right for your community.

delaray commented 7 years ago

Hi @davidchambers : Thank you for your comments which are well merited. It may very well make sense to skip Friday altogether. I will certainly discuss this with the other organizers.

My concern (playing Devil's advocate here) is that I would like to ensure that participants have sufficient time to learn the material and produce a small app.

The nice thing about the Friday Installfest model is it also involves a meet & greet with the instructors so that participants feel more comfortable when the workshop actually starts. This approach had a really positive impact at the first ClojureBridge NYC that Dennis Heihoff organized.

I am also planning on structuring things in such a way that folks could just attend for one day.. What I was really hoping to do with this is have the first day be instructional with small coding exercises and then have the second day focused around building a small app.

There are a lot of Hackathons in NYC that are weekend long events and there is a part of me that feels that one day isn't long given long especially since the applications stacks we end up using are not standard. Five of us are meeting early next week to start planning and organizing the syllabus and I will certainly bring this up.

Finally one thing that has concerned me about past workshops I don't feel there has been adequate follow-up and I feel the participants are somewhat left dangling after the workshop. We (Lisp NYC) has two ideas to address this. One is to schedule one or more meetups (and maybe Clojure NYC can also help out here) in which workshop participants can present their projects. The other more ambitious idea is get to a number of companies to provide sponsored internships to workshop participants that have successfully completed the workshop. The head of marketing at Shareablee has agreed to help with this and at the very reach out to Shareablee's customers and Shareablee itself has to provide a couple sponsored internships.

davidchambers commented 7 years ago

I am also planning on structuring things in such a way that folks could just attend for one day.. What I was really hoping to do with this is have the first day be instructional with small coding exercises and then have the second day focused around building a small app.

This would address my concern. Having Sunday be an optional day for those who enjoy Friday and Saturday and are willing and able to devote an extra day to the workshop sounds like the best of both worlds. If you and the other organizers decide to do this it'll be important for the promotional material to make it clear that Sunday is optional (but that Saturday isn't, presumably).

delaray commented 7 years ago

it'll be important for the promotional material to make it clear that Sunday is optional

Agreed!

delaray commented 7 years ago

@yokolet : I am in process of making "Clojure Bridge" a single word. Thank you for pointing this out.

heow commented 7 years ago

ok, looks like we got it, here is the gocard

davidchambers commented 7 years ago

@heow, it's worth considering simplifying the second sentence. Perhaps:

This hands-on course teaches participants the paradigms of functional programming in a professional and empowering environment.

If you don't want to imply that the course teaches everything there is to know about functional programming, consider:

This hands-on course teaches participants the paradigms of introduces participants to functional programming in a professional and empowering environment.

More importantly, the dates are confusing. It's described as a "two-day workshop" yet a three-day range is given at the bottom. I think it would be helpful to describe each of the days:

yokolet commented 7 years ago

@delaray Sorry for the delay. You have a good strategy and sense of organizing this sort in NYC. For us, it will be the first attempt: expecting 50% (or less) attendance. Let's see how this approach will work for our workshop. It will be another addition to our organizing documents.

As for reaching out efforts, you said a couple of university names. I'm not sure NYC is the same or not. Normally, students leave town in late April to early May for internships or other summer curricula. The chapter is the end of May, so you'd better consider a summer factor.

@heow when you have a time, look at the comment @davidchambers said.

yokolet commented 7 years ago

@delaray @heow , ClojureBridge takes a mentorship style to answer questions and access ClojureBridge's resources. @davidchambers will be your mentor. He is now located in Berlin, but was an organizer of the second San Francisco chapter. Please connect!

delaray commented 7 years ago

That sounds great. Thank you @yokolet . I will reach out to him.

heow commented 7 years ago

Thanks @davidchambers, great ideas which we've incorporated. Couldn't easily fit the schedule on the go-card though

yokolet commented 7 years ago

Hi all,

Is this ready to create a web site? All fixes are included in the first original issue message?

yokolet commented 7 years ago

Hi NYC organizers,

Your chapter is coming closer to closer. So, I created the website, http://www.clojurebridge.org/events/2017-05-26-new-york-ny . I do know there will be a couple (few) of updates. Ping me if you had some. Just updating the first issue entry doesn't send me notification.

Please check the website. If you find typo or such, let me know.

delaray commented 7 years ago

Hello Yoko,

I apologize for the delayed response, things have been a little crazy recently. First of all thank you for creating the website. The most most notable change is the date. We decided to move the event to the weekend of June 2nd - June 4th, mainly because the original dates are Memorial Day weekend and too many people go out of town with their families.

I'm also attaching the official announcement and CFP which was sent out to Lisp and Clojure meetups last week as well the stickers we printed which will also be on the front of the T-Shirts.

We are in the in process of finalizing the syllabus and I will post that later this week.

This week I'll be specifically working sponsorships. I plan on contacting Women 2.0 as they help promote and organize many events in thee NYC area.

I'll also post an updated image with the correct dates.

CLOJUREBRIDGE STICKER (3x3 inches)

ada-sticker

clojurebridge-nyc-2017-call-for-particiaption.txt

yokolet commented 7 years ago

Hi @delaray I updated the website. Please check all.

The image on the New York chapter (picture above) was simply deleted. The previous one had details in it, but the new one is not. The picture was pasted in tricky way, so it's not easy to replace. Besides, this picture doesn't have much info. So, I decided to just delete.

BTW, would you attach gravatar image to rpl@lispnyc.org ? Then, top page automatically grabs it.

delaray commented 7 years ago

Hi @yokolet Thank you very much for updating this so promptly. I updated the picture at the top of the issue. BTW: There are two different images, one is a sticker (no details) and one is a Go Card (with details)

GO CARD FRONT

clojurebridge-gocard-front

GO CARD BACK

clojurebridge-gocard-back-black

delaray commented 7 years ago

Monday, 2017-04-24 Update

davidchambers commented 7 years ago

Thanks for the update, @delaray! It sounds as though most things are going very well. Don't hesitate to contact me if you run into any problems.

delaray commented 7 years ago

Thursday , 2017-04-26 Update

delaray commented 7 years ago

Saturday, 20`17-04-29 Update

davidchambers commented 7 years ago

Thanks for the updates, @delaray. If even half the registered guests attend you'll have a large workshop!

delaray commented 7 years ago

@davidchambers : Yes, exactly. I'm actually pretty excited that we have this many registrations this early on as we still have all of May to further promote and advertise the event.

k4y3ff commented 7 years ago

a wild @k4y3ff appears

We decided to move the event to the weekend of June 2nd - June 4th

FYI, entirely coincidentally, I'll be in NYC from May 27 through June 4. If any of y'all would like help onsite, let me know!

Not sure if we've ever met before, @delaray, but I've organized and taught a handful of ClojureBridge workshops over the years--and I was on the ClojureBridge and Bridge Foundry boards for a few years, as well.

davidchambers commented 7 years ago

a wild @k4y3ff appears

:laughing:

delaray commented 7 years ago

Hello @k4y3ff! I believe we have actually met. If I'm not mistaken, you gave a wonderful talk at the Conj in DC several years ago. It would be fantastic if you cculd participate in this year's ClojureBridge NYC. I will go ahead add you to the list of volunteers for the event and will be in touch shortly! :-)

delaray commented 7 years ago

Update: 106 registrations as of this morning.

delaray commented 7 years ago
delaray commented 7 years ago
davidchambers commented 7 years ago

@delaray, do you intend to contact those who've registered a week or two before the event? I think this would be beneficial. It's wonderful that so many people have registered; let's do what we can to encourage them to actually attend.

delaray commented 7 years ago

@davidchambers : Hi David. Your point is well taken and I did actually think about that and had Yulia prepare a Google Form last week. I plan to email the registered attendees about 2 weeks before th event and ask them to fill out the form, which includes fields for confirmation number, attendance days, which track, dietary restrictions, t-shirt size, etc...

I will also contact them later next week once the schedule and list of instructors is posted on the website so that they can make a more informed decision as two which track they should attend.

delaray commented 7 years ago

Update: 160 registrations as of this morning.

delaray commented 7 years ago

Andy Parsons, CTO of Workframe, has generously agreed to host the pre-ClojureBridge instructors and volunteers meeting. This will take place on Monday, May 29th from 7:00PM – 9:00PM at Workframe. This is a mandatory meeting for instructors as we will be assigning and going over syllabus sections for both days and both tracks.

delaray commented 7 years ago

Also, 50 T-Shirts without sponsorship logos are being ordered this weekend. 200 T-Shirts with sponsorship logos will be ordered soon.

delaray commented 7 years ago

Update: CLOJUREBRIDGE SOLD OUT. Released a few more tickets... 200 Attendee T-Shirts ordered Operations Meeting: Thursday, May 25th 7:00PM-9:00PM Volunteers Meeting:: Monday, May 29th 7:00PM-9:00PM The Ladders confirmed as a sponsor.

delaray commented 7 years ago

Hi @k4y3ff, what is your email so I can include you in emails to instructors and volunteers. Thanks.

delaray commented 7 years ago

Update: We held an ClojureBridge Operations meeting on Thursday with Stuart Sierra, Yulia Shea, Katherine Apelian, David Bachowski, Arthur Smyles and myself to plan and decide on the operational aspects of the workshop.

We decided among things that we will have to sell the T-shirts rather than giving them away for free otherwise we will not be able to cover the caterings costs. Thee volunteers & instructors T-Shirts will be $20 and all instructors and volunteers will be strongly encouraged to by one. Participant T-Shirts will be $5 and their purchase will naturally be optional. We also came up with a contingency plan in case 200 participants actually show up. We are estimating 120 based on free event statistics.

Attached is the meeting's agemda. ClojureBridge-Operations-Meeting-Agenda.docx

davidchambers commented 7 years ago

All the best for the event this weekend! :unicorn:

davidchambers commented 7 years ago

I hope the event went well, @delaray! Please share your experiences on the ClojureBridge Workshops mailing list. :)