Cleveland, OH Workshop September 5-6, 2014 (@pzula)

pzula commented 10 years ago

This workshop's going to be amazing!! Here's what we need to do!

A few months out:

[x] Find a venue (see http://railsbridge.org/help/host)
[x] Find sponsors for the workshop. This workshop covers Rails. Sponsoring the workshop costs between $900 - $1,500, depending on the size of the workshop.
[ ] Find two co-organizers. It's a lot of work, but always a lot of fun. No experience is necessary; checkout the workshop cookbook if it's new to you.

Leave a comment below if you're able to host, sponsor or organize! :smile_cat:

Once we have a a venue, sponsors, and organizers, we can:

[x] Work together to set an RSVP limit that works for everyone
[ ] Find a few people to offer baby-sitting in one of the rooms at the venue
[x] Make posters to hang up in prominent places at local colleges/universities
[ ] Contact digital arts and comp sci departments of local colleges/universities to forward announcement email
[x] Post the workshop to Bridge Troll
[x] Post the workshop to Meetup for publicity

One to two weeks out, we can:

[x] Plan a teacher training
[x] Order breakfast
[x] Order lunch
[x] Find a good place for the afterparty

After the workshop, we can:

[ ] Party! :tada:
[ ] Retro

:tulip:

joelbyler commented 10 years ago

I've already spoken to the folks at LeanDog and we're ready to sponsor. I'll put the date on our calendar tomorrow

pzula commented 10 years ago

@joelbyler Awesome! I'm excited that LeanDog is open to being the venue! I need to check with the RailsBridge folks to find out about how sponsorship (monetary sponsorship) of the event should be conducted. I'm also updated the checklist up top to include more marketing

jrgifford commented 10 years ago

I've got the following that I can assist with:

Contacts at John Carroll and Case Western (IT department, but they in turn know people)
finding teachers/assistants. My former contractors were good at teaching, debugging and troubleshooting. I know most of them will probably be free on weekends.
summoning power strips and other similar resources. I'm still part of a IT infrastructure team, so I can probably arrange for a collection of power strips to vanish for a weekend.
probably something else I can help with, but am not thinking of.

jrgifford commented 10 years ago

@pzula Any update on this?

pzula commented 10 years ago

@jrgifford -- I am coordinating website and poster design right now. As soon as we get the site up, we can:

get all of our volunteers together on a Hangout
assign tasks (such as the ones you've listed above) to volunteers
set a date for volunteer training
reach out to companies for food sponsorship

jacqueline-homan commented 10 years ago

This sounds like a really cool idea! I can teach for a weekend. :)

pzula commented 10 years ago

Here is the BridgeTroll signup page: http://www.bridgetroll.org/events/105

I bought http://clevelandrailsbridge.org and am going to add content to it this week.

tjgrathwell commented 10 years ago

The event is published and can now be seen on http://railsbridge.org and http://bridgetroll.org

jacqueline-homan commented 10 years ago

I already signed up as a teacher.

On Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 4:30 PM, Travis Grathwell notifications@github.com wrote:

The event is published and can now be seen on http://railsbridge.org and http://bridgetroll.org

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/railsbridge/organizing/issues/35#issuecomment-49088149 .

[image: --] Jacqueline Homan [image: http://]about.me/jacqueline_homan http://about.me/jacqueline_homan

rachelmyers commented 10 years ago

Just chiming in to say if you needed anything from people not in Cleveland, like questions about money or anything, feel free to mention some of us (me or @mfjenn or others) into the conversation. :dancers:

mfjenn commented 10 years ago

Thanks Rachel. Persa and I spoke yesterday.

On Jul 16, 2014, at 3:01 AM, Rachel Myers notifications@github.com wrote:

Just chiming in to say if you needed anything from people not in Cleveland, like questions about money or anything, feel free to mention some of us (me or @mfjenn or others) into the conversation.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

pzula commented 9 years ago

Hi Volunteers! I can definitely use some help with outreach & marketing!

1) We need help finding contacts at colleges, universities, libraries, coffee shops that will let us post up the posters that LeanDog's interns so kindly made for us.

2) We also need help emailing the local meetup groups -- this involves messaging the meetup group organizer and asking if they can email their group with a message along these lines:

Do you dream of someday writing software that helps people and improves the world? 
Led by an all-volunteer team of seasoned, enthusiastic Ruby and Rails developers, the Cleveland RailsBridge workshop introduces people of all backgrounds to the concepts, tools, and techniques of Ruby and Rails development. Our audience those with no or little programming experience that are underrepresented in the field of technology. 

This free workshop includes a Friday evening install-fest to get everyone's laptops up and running, and an all-day Saturday workshop. And yes, there will be food!

Sign up today at http://clevelandrailsbridge.org!

3) Any other forms of outreach that you can think of! Does anyone know someone at the local papers? Can we get an article written about this?

Let me know who can help! @jrgifford, @joelbyler, @jacqueline-homan

jacqueline-homan commented 9 years ago

Hi Persa,

Since I live 100 miles east of ya'll, I don't think posting anything locally to me would help, but what I can do is scoot over to Facebook and make a status post. As a leader in the HT survivor movement, I have quite a large following so anything I post and make global, reaches far and wide. Would that be helpful? Just send me a PNG or JPG/JPEG copy of fliers and I can upload them as status post pics and can help with posting the fliers electronically :)

On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 9:56 AM, Persa notifications@github.com wrote:

Hi Volunteers! I can definitely use some help with outreach & marketing!

1.

We need help finding contacts at colleges, universities, libraries, coffee shops that will let us post up the posters that LeanDog's interns so kindly made for us. 2.

We also need help emailing the local meetup groups -- this involves messaging the meetup group organizer and asking if they can email their group with a message along these lines:

Do you dream of someday writing software that helps people and improves the world? Led by an all-volunteer team of seasoned, enthusiastic Ruby and Rails developers, the Cleveland RailsBridge workshop introduces people of all backgrounds to the concepts, tools, and techniques of Ruby and Rails development. Our audience those with no or little programming experience that are underrepresented in the field of technology.

This free workshop includes a Friday evening install-fest to get everyone's laptops up and running, and an all-day Saturday workshop. And yes, there will be food!

Sign up today at http://clevelandrailsbridge.org!

Any other forms of outreach that you can think of! Does anyone know someone at the local papers? Can we get an article written about this?

Let me know who can help! @jrgifford https://github.com/jrgifford, @joelbyler https://github.com/joelbyler, @jacqueline-homan https://github.com/jacqueline-homan

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/railsbridge/organizing/issues/35#issuecomment-50991088 .

[image: --] Jacqueline Homan [image: http://]about.me/jacqueline_homan http://about.me/jacqueline_homan

pzula commented 9 years ago

@jacqueline-homan Thank you! I can't upload PDFs onto here, but here is a PNG of the poster! railsbridge poster

jacqueline-homan commented 9 years ago

AWESOME! I am saving that img now and making a FB status post. I can create an event page for it too, if that was not done already.

On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 10:15 AM, Persa notifications@github.com wrote:

@jacqueline-homan https://github.com/jacqueline-homan Thank you! I can't upload PDFs onto here, but here is a PNG of the poster! [image: railsbridge poster] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/1807290/3790762/668f1720-1b18-11e4-86ce-4abe666ab17a.png

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/railsbridge/organizing/issues/35#issuecomment-50991523 .

[image: --] Jacqueline Homan [image: http://]about.me/jacqueline_homan http://about.me/jacqueline_homan

pzula commented 9 years ago

Cool! Thanks @jacqueline-homan! The only thing I worry about with a FB event page is that we want to make sure we funnel all sign-ups to the BridgeTroll page and nowhere else (www.bridgetroll.org/events/105) -- otherwise we will miss out on knowing how much food we need/childcare/teachers, etc.

jacqueline-homan commented 9 years ago

I will add the link to the bridgetroll.org page so that people will know to go there to sign up.

On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 10:18 AM, Persa notifications@github.com wrote:

Cool! Thanks @jacqueline-homan https://github.com/jacqueline-homan! The only thing I worry about with a FB event page is that we want to make sure we funnel all sign-ups to the BridgeTroll page and nowhere else ( www.bridgetroll.org/events/105) -- otherwise we will miss out on knowing how much food we need/childcare/teachers, etc.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/railsbridge/organizing/issues/35#issuecomment-50991602 .

[image: --] Jacqueline Homan [image: http://]about.me/jacqueline_homan http://about.me/jacqueline_homan

jdantonio commented 9 years ago

We have a few UAkron interns at VHT and one of my coworkers teaches at UAkron part-time. I'll talk to them about spreading the word.

I recently met the founder of the Akron Software Developers Guild (dev boot camp). I'll reach out to him.

I'll also spread the word in the tech groups I'm part of.

pzula commented 9 years ago

Thank you @jdantonio! That will help us a bunch!

mfjenn commented 9 years ago

Hi Everyone! Yeah, I would not do a FB event. It’s better to funnel everyone to the Bridgetroll site to get an accurate count. I announced it on my own Twitter feed @maryfjenn & also on the RailsBridge Facebook page. I’m guessing whoever is manning the @railsbridge twitter account these days will pick it up and retweet it.

On Aug 3, 2014, at 10:09 AM, Persa notifications@github.com wrote:

Thank you @jdantonio! That will help us a bunch!

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

jacqueline-homan commented 9 years ago

I backed off from doing a Facebook event page when I saw that Facebook now charges you to do that. So instead, I've been posting the flyer and the link to the Bridge Toll page in every FB group I am in. And made a status post about it on my own wall page. I set my status post to global so that it is tweeted on my Twitter thingie. If Railsbridge has a Twitter, I'll grab that and retweet that, too.

On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 11:14 PM, Mary Jenn notifications@github.com wrote:

Hi Everyone! Yeah, I would not do a FB event. It’s better to funnel everyone to the Bridgetroll site to get an accurate count. I announced it on my own Twitter feed @maryfjenn & also on the RailsBridge Facebook page. I’m guessing whoever is manning the @railsbridge twitter account these days will pick it up and retweet it.

On Aug 3, 2014, at 10:09 AM, Persa notifications@github.com wrote:

Thank you @jdantonio! That will help us a bunch!

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/railsbridge/organizing/issues/35#issuecomment-51014031 .

[image: --] Jacqueline Homan [image: http://]about.me/jacqueline_homan http://about.me/jacqueline_homan

joelbyler commented 9 years ago

I'll make sure this gets on cleveland tech events. Are we keeping a list of which meetup groups we've contacted so we aren't trying to contact them more than once?

On Monday, August 4, 2014, Jacqueline S. Homan notifications@github.com wrote:

I backed off from doing a Facebook event page when I saw that Facebook now charges you to do that. So instead, I've been posting the flyer and the link to the Bridge Toll page in every FB group I am in. And made a status post about it on my own wall page. I set my status post to global so that it is tweeted on my Twitter thingie. If Railsbridge has a Twitter, I'll grab that and retweet that, too.

On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 11:14 PM, Mary Jenn <notifications@github.com javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','notifications@github.com');> wrote:

Hi Everyone! Yeah, I would not do a FB event. It’s better to funnel everyone to the Bridgetroll site to get an accurate count. I announced it on my own Twitter feed @maryfjenn & also on the RailsBridge Facebook page. I’m guessing whoever is manning the @railsbridge twitter account these days will pick it up and retweet it.

On Aug 3, 2014, at 10:09 AM, Persa <notifications@github.com javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','notifications@github.com');> wrote:

Thank you @jdantonio! That will help us a bunch!

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub < https://github.com/railsbridge/organizing/issues/35#issuecomment-51014031>

.

[image: --] Jacqueline Homan [image: http://]about.me/jacqueline_homan http://about.me/jacqueline_homan

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/railsbridge/organizing/issues/35#issuecomment-51028728 .

jdantonio commented 9 years ago

I've reached out to the founder of the Software Craftsman Guild in Akron (@SWCGuild) and also a few coworkers with ties to UAkron. Hopefully they'll help spread the word and generate some additional interest.

pzula commented 9 years ago

@joelbyler Let's keep the list of Meetup groups contacted here on this issue. Thanks!

pzula commented 9 years ago

I am contacting Akron Women in Tech Meetup Group :)

pzula commented 9 years ago

I have posted on Akron.io. Also, just to let you know, the domain name now resolves to a more fleshed-out site regarding the event: http://clevelandrailsbridge.org.

pzula commented 9 years ago

@joelbyler I haven't seen this posted on Cleveland Tech Events yet -- any way we can get it on there soon?

joelbyler commented 9 years ago

I've contacted the Canton Web Meetup, Canton Software Craftsmanship Meetup, and Cleveland Python Users Group.

joelbyler commented 9 years ago

Also, Cleveland Agile User's Group and Cleveland Lean Startup Circle

joelbyler commented 9 years ago

I've got this on Cleveland Tech Events awaiting for Sarah's review.

jdantonio commented 9 years ago

There is a Software Developers Guild meetup at VHT tonight. I'll spread the word.

joelbyler commented 9 years ago

Whoa, great work guys! It looks like we have 24 students signed up now! :)

pzula commented 9 years ago

Wow! That is awesome! We should keep promoting, though, as there is a waitlist option and as people's plans change, we can still ensure we have a full course. Also, we're at only 5 volunteers right now. If you all could also spread the word to your co-workers about volunteering to help out in this massive effort. It will be hard for 5 people to pull this off!

Here are details about what a volunteer can assist with: http://clevelandrailsbridge.org/volunteer/

Thank you all again for your help spreading the word! This is exciting! :+1: :smile_cat:

mfjenn commented 9 years ago

Persa, can you Skype or call on thursday 10 am CST?

On Aug 11, 2014, at 3:43 PM, Persa notifications@github.com wrote:

Wow! That is awesome! We should keep promoting, though, as there is a waitlist option and as people's plans change, we can still ensure we have a full course. Also, we're at only 5 volunteers right now. If you all could also spread the word to your co-workers about volunteering to help out in this massive effort. It will be hard for 5 people to pull this off!

Here are details about what a volunteer can assist with: http://clevelandrailsbridge.org/volunteer/

Thank you all again for your help spreading the word! This is exciting!

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

pzula commented 9 years ago

@mfjenn Yes! Let's do Skype on Thursday at 10am CST!

pzula commented 9 years ago

@mfjenn Hey MaryJenn! Are we still talking today?

mfjenn commented 9 years ago

Yep! Just signed in to Skype.

On Aug 14, 2014, at 10:00 AM, Persa notifications@github.com wrote:

@mfjenn Hey MaryJenn! Are we still talking today?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

pzula commented 9 years ago

@joelbyler I'm thinking of changing the RSVP limit from 25 to 30, given that there will likely be at least 5 people that do not show up (from talking to other RailsBridge organizers). Do you mind if I do that?

jdantonio commented 9 years ago

If we have people on the waitlist I vote +1 to increasing the limit. I have never been to an event where everyone who RSVP'd actually showed up.

joelbyler commented 9 years ago

@pzula @jdantonio I'm on board, I'm sure we have plenty of room on the boat for everyone. We should talk about food and sponsors sometime soon. Are there other sponsors signed up besides LeanDog yet? Do we have any idea for what we should budget for food? There is actually a kitchen on the boat now so we could cook something if we need to. Ideas?

jdantonio commented 9 years ago

@joelbyler @pzula I'll talk to the powers-that-be at VHT about sponsoring. No promises, but I'll see what I can do.

mfjenn commented 9 years ago

Were you able to get more volunteers? The turnout stats have historically been about the same as the student turnout and I would suggest having at least one teacher & one TA for each class. Especially if they are going to be >5 students per class.

On Aug 18, 2014, at 8:00 AM, jdantonio notifications@github.com wrote:

If we have people on the waitlist I vote +1 to increasing the limit. I have never been to an event where everyone who RSVP'd actually showed up.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

jdantonio commented 9 years ago

@pzula @joelbyler How much money is needed for a company to sponsor a meal? I don't know that I can make it happen, but a ballpark-number would help.

mfjenn commented 9 years ago

There are BridgeFoundry funds available for you to use as well.

Mary F. Jenn maryfjenn@gmail.com tel: 415.290.0587

www.maryfjenn.com skype: mfjenn twitter: maryfjenn Github LinkedIn

On Aug 19, 2014, at 10:36 AM, jdantonio notifications@github.com wrote:

@pzula @joelbyler How much money is needed for a company to sponsor a meal? I don't know that I can make it happen, but a ballpark-number would help.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

pzula commented 9 years ago

@jdantonio Sorry, I've been dealing with an internet/Time Warner fiasco for the last couple days and haven't been able to get all of my ducks in a row. I'll work on figuring out how much food will be tonight/tomorrow

jdantonio commented 9 years ago

@pzula I may have found another teacher volunteer. My friend @rbeiter may be joining us.

rbeiter commented 9 years ago

Yes - I'm in if there's room for another teacher. Looking forward to it!

joelbyler commented 9 years ago

cool, @nwallace has signed up as well :) I think we lost @jrgifford though? At least he's not signed up on bridgetroll

jrgifford commented 9 years ago

@joelbyler - yeah, you lost me. Had something come up with my new gig. :-(

jdantonio commented 9 years ago

Welcome to the team @rbeiter and @nwallace!

railsbridge / organizing

Cleveland, OH Workshop September 5-6, 2014 (@pzula) #35