[Events] Python user group outreach weekly report, 2014-01-08

[Asheesh Laroia]

Spreadsheet tracking progress reaching people: 
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqO7ZnOSYg1idFZkYWpJUzB0OGVxWGx1ZE9SUEV2ZlE#gid=0

Last week's update is at 
http://lists.openhatch.org/pipermail/events/2014-January/000529.html . 
generally, feel free to reply to just the list you are on, as 
Events at openhatch and outreach-and-education@ have some different members.


Things I did in the past week:

* Pinged PyLadies NYC to see if they're still excited about running a 
diversity-oriented intro programming workshop.

* Talked with organizer of The London Python Group (TLPG), who explained 
he is excited about age diversity (his group is mostly 40s & 50s year 
olds) as well as gender diversity. We had the idea of doing a cross-over 
event (Project Night) with "London Code Dojo", and I'll handle connecting 
the dots there. He's interested in finding someone else who'd run a Boston 
Python Workshop for Women and their Friends-type event within TLPG, but 
doesn't have the bandwidth or tact to run it himself.

* Caught up with Dana Bauer of PhillyPUG; we concluded we need to help her 
talk to more fellow local organizers to have them take a more active role. 
Also their highly successful Project Nights have taken a backseat to 
lectures, and she's excited about reviving them, so long as she can find 
the people locally to volunteer to help the group. We found some leads on 
this.

* Talked with Nate Aune of the Boston Django Meetup -- luckily he's 
visting SF at the moment! We came up with some ideas for specific 
intro-seeking events we can run (perhaps Django SF will try to use 
https://openhatch.org/wiki/Django_for_Designers as an intro Django 
tutorial, and then after beta-testing, we can export that to Boston as 
well). We also figured out that we should try to reach to possible 
speakers for http://www.meetup.com/djangoboston/events/140820772/ in a 
diversity-seeking way.

* Sent about 9 pings to Python Meetup groups, asking them to get in touch 
with me, some of which have yielded positive responses.

* PyLadies Dominicana plans to schedule something, though they haven't 
yet. They're interested in having a US-based Python programming woman 
visit them, if that person knows even a little bit of Spanish. (i.e., give 
a talk in English, but not feel uncomfortable when others are asking each 
other questions in Spanish) (IMHO PSF is likely to fund the travel, though 
this is not a promise.) Anyone know anyone?


Obstacles:

* Some of the groups, when I send them a request for scheduling, I'm not 
sure if I should try to schedule something with just one organizer, or 
multiple organizers.

* If someone in SF wants sit down with me and help me revise 
http://user-groups-beta.openhatch.org/ that would be splendid. I have some 
vague ideas for how to improve it, and could use someone to talk them 
through with.

* It'd be great if I could get the Boston crew to make a 1-5 minute video 
(even if low production quality) that gives people a sense of what Project 
Night is like.

* I still should see about how to ping the women who are presenting at 
PyCon; this week I will try to get their contact info and plan the 
contacting-process where I see if they're interested in giving a demo talk 
at their local group.


Things on the agenda for the coming week:

* Circling back with the groups I've talked to.

* See if I can sell Django SF on running a women & their friends Django 
tutorial.

* Ping more groups, between 6-18 of them.

* (not necessarily this very week) Try to get the organizers I've pinged 
to join the https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/group-organizers list

* Go through what I have done and resync it with my org-mode notes, which 
I have let come slightly out of sync (although I am still a huge fan of 
the spreadsheet + org-mode plan generally).

* Spread the word about the Boston Django speaking opportunity.

-- Asheesh.