[Campus-morris-staff] Working together again in 2015

Mon Feb 9 16:42:16 UTC 2015

You know, I think I remember having this conversation with you before.  My
apologies for the double-ask!  A yearly event is great, and I think it's
wonderful that you're inviting a nearby school.

FYI the GSoC applications just opened up.  If you haven't emailed your
students about it recently, I recommend doing so.  :)

It is snowing again today and is supposed to snow 3 out of the next 5.
It's not that disruptive for me because I work remotely, but ugh all that
shoveling...

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 9:05 PM, Elena Machkasova <elenam at morris.umn.edu>
wrote:

> Hi Shauna,
>
> our spring semester is rather busy, but we will definitely have another
> event in September. And yes we've used the 'past participants' approach,
> the three student organizers for the second year event were all
> participants of the first one, I was the only one of the first event
> organizers in that group (although several volunteers helped out at both).
> Hope to get a new batch of organizers for the fall event from the last
> September event.
>
> We might eventually look into mixing it up, but it looks like a yearly
> introductory event works really well for us, so we will continue with this
> approach for now. We will also contact a (relatively) nearby similar
> college to see if they'd like to come this coming September, and then
> perhaps alternate hosting with them if they are interested.
>
> Yes, you guys got all our snow, we have bare ground here. Wouldn't it be
> nice to have a balance? :-) Anyway, hope the snow doesn't disrupt things
> too much.
>
> Best wishes,
> Elena
>
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 5:33 PM, Shauna Gordon-McKeon <shaunagm at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> Just following up on this email to see if you're interested in running
>> another event this semester.  No worries if you'd rather wait, although if
>> the issue is that folks are too busy or on sabbatical, I highly recommend
>> asking if any past attendees would like to do the organizing.  We've
>> started doing that (why weren't we doing that all along?!) with amazing
>> results.
>>
>> Just thinking out loud here - given how cozy your campus is, you may also
>> be worried that repeating the event every semester might be too repetitive
>> for your students.  If you're interested in mixing things up and developing
>> some more advanced activities for people to work on, I'd be excited about
>> helping you do that too.
>>
>> Anyway, hope you're all well.  We're getting a ton of snow here in Boston
>> lately but I bet you Minnesotans are not impressed.  :)
>>
>> best
>> Shauna
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 6:51 PM, Shauna Gordon-McKeon <shaunagm at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> It was a pleasure working with you last year, and I wanted to email you
>>> and see if you’re interested in continuing the collaboration.  We’re
>>> starting to plan out our winter/spring 2015 semester, and we’re very
>>> excited about it.
>>>
>>> Let me preface the wall of text below by saying that I very much
>>> understand if you’re not interested in running an event, or if you’d like
>>> to wait until next fall to run another one.  I still encourage you to read
>>> about the changes we’ve made below, as part of our goal is to make it
>>> easier for folks to stay up to date about what’s happening in their area.
>>> If you would like to run an event next semester: fantastic! Read on.  :)
>>>
>>> We’ve made a few infrastructure changes that should make organizing and
>>> running events much easier.  The first change is that we now have a
>>> Discourse instance at <http://discourse.openhatch.org/>.  Discourse
>>> functions as both a mailing list and a forum, allowing us to communicate
>>> via email but giving us the organizational and community building aspects
>>> of a forum.  It’s pretty neat!  One of the main things we’re doing is
>>> trying to create “Chapters”, that is local groups of people interested in
>>> open source and OpenHatch events.
>>>
>>> Even if you’re not interested in organizing an event, I encourage you to
>>> create a chapter for your area and introducing yourself as a potential
>>> mentor and/or someone willing to give some advice on the organizing
>>> process.  Then, if someone else in your area wants to run an event, they
>>> know they’re not alone.  :) You can request a new chapter be made here:
>>> http://discourse.openhatch.org/t/new-chapter-thread/35
>>>
>>> Another major infrastructure change is that we’re now using Bridge
>>> Troll, an event planning software project: https://events.openhatch.org/
>>>   This site is going to make planning events a lot easier. Creating and
>>> updating an event website is as easy as clicking a button.  The site also
>>> handles mentor and attendee RSVPs, confirmation emails, reminders, and
>>> more. It even summarizes dietary restrictions for you when ordering food!
>>> And as we go on we’ll add even more features.
>>>
>>> One more change worth mentioning: in previous years, we’ve tried to pick
>>> dates for events where members of OpenHatch would be continuously
>>> available.  We’ve found that you actually need us very little on the day
>>> of!  We think it’s more important for you to pick dates that work for your
>>> community, when mentors can come and when there aren’t competing football
>>> games, tests, or hackathons.  We also want to encourage you to adapt our
>>> workshop to suit your needs.  Maybe you’d rather have one or two short
>>> evening workshops, rather than a full day one.  Maybe you’d like to run
>>> something more social, or more unstructured.  If you want to try something
>>> new, let us know and we can help you do it.
>>>
>>> So, what does this mean for you?
>>>
>>> If you’re interested in staying involved but don’t want to organize
>>> another event this winter/spring, I encourage you to create and join a
>>> chapter for your location on Discourse.  Once that’s set up, you’ll be able
>>> to receive email notifications if anyone else is planning an event with us
>>> in your area, and you can decide whether or not you’d like to mentor, help,
>>> etc.
>>>
>>> If you’d like to organize an event, go ahead and make a chapter, too.
>>> From there, we can start discussing dates and locations, and invite
>>> potential co-organizers and mentors to join us in the planning process.
>>>
>>> Please let me know if you have any questions!  There may be some bugs
>>> and/or confusing language on Discourse or on OpenHatch Events - they are,
>>> after all, brand new.  Please feel free to send feedback, report issues,
>>> etc.
>>>
>>> best
>>> Shauna
>>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Elena Machkasova
> Associate Professor of Computer Science
> Division of Science and Mathematics
> University of Minnesota, Morris
> Office: Sci 2325
> (320) 589-6308
> http://cda.morris.umn.edu/~elenam/
>
>
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>
>
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