Reorganize "Workshop Planning Timeline"?

[k4y3ff]

Can we reorganize the "Workshop Planning Timeline" and "Finding space, sponsors, volunteers, and students" a bit?

As-is, the latter page says that organizers should

1. Identify existing communities to collaborate with;
2. Find a space;
3. Find a sponsor;
4. Set a date and time; and then
5. Recruit volunteers to teach, TA, and help you organize.

Based on this past ClojureBridge in SF, I'd suggest we reorder the timeline to

1. Identify existing communities to collaborate with;
2. Recruit volunteers to teach;
3. Find a space;
4. Find a sponsor;
5. Recruit volunteers to TA and help you organize; and then
6. Set a date and time.

Priorities-wise, I think it's far more important to find teachers early-on than to find a space. The curriculum should ideally be planned out and made reasonably stable a couple weeks prior to the workshop, itself, so that it can be clearly presented during T.A. training. That requires giving teachers a week or two of additional notice relative to T.A.'s--and having a space, sponsors, etc. is irrelevant if no one is around to teach the curriculum, anyway.

That said, the ordering of 5 and 6 depends on what we mean by "set a date and time, I think"; I've reordered them here because I think that setting the date and time of the TA training should be considered in that event. As in, it'd probably make sense to send out a survey to TA's about which day would be more convenient for TA training, to get maximum attendance--and that would require having already found TA's.

[seancorfield]

:+1:

[transistorize]

I concur with the re-org. It's the process I'm taking here in NYC. After speaking with Bridget, I really want to find the right communities and people to teach before I set a date and time. Implicit in step 1 is encouraging other people to help solve GitHub issues and finishing the community docs.

[k4y3ff]

Awesome! I'll make the changes listed above, then.

Looking at the "Workshop Planning Timeline," though, I noticed another thing: it has a section titled "First steps once the major details are ironed out" that includes

• Join the organizer's listserve
• Confirm dates & details with the hosting venue -Meet your workshop mentor, if first time organizing
• Add your event to the ClojureBridge events web site

...we should probably change that, too, I think.

Potential organizers should really join the listserve first thing, so that they can potentially find a co-organizer (as suggested in other parts of the wiki) and find a workshop mentor before recruiting all of the volunteers.

Could we then reorganize it to be something like

1. Join the organizer's listserve;
2. Meet your workshop mentor, if first time organizing;
3. Identify existing communities to collaborate with;
4. Recruit volunteers to teach;
5. Find a space;
6. Find a sponsor;
7. Recruit volunteers to TA and help you organize;
8. Set a date and time;
9. Confirm dates & details with the hosting venue; and then
10. Add your event to the ClojureBridge website

?

I think it's a mistake to list "Join the organizer's listserve" as something to do after the major details are ironed out. I'd argue that working out the major details should happen on the listserve, or at least with help from a mentor.

[transistorize]

Looks good to me. I guess 'step' 11 should be to advertise the date to all the existing communities, or some such.

[k4y3ff]

Cool, cool. Wiki updated!