UF Carpentries Club

UF Carpentries Club

Organizers of Software and Data Carpentry workshops at the University of Florida

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2019-05-14 Board Meeting

Attendees

Board members: Brian, Joe, Elise, Gaurav, Geraldine, Simona

Non-board members: Zachary Brym

Agenda

  • Approve last week’s minutes – UF-Carpentry/website#39
  • TREC workshop debrief
  • Discuss long-term plan for REC program
  • Logo design updates
  • Travel award updates
  • Biodiversity 1-day geospatial debrief
  • ResBaz planning updates
  • USDA machine learning workshop #99
  • Planning for Carpentries membership renewal
    • request amount + incentives
    • draft message
    • who to ask
    • update on IFAS funding
  • Draft plan for need-based scholarship / fee reduction
  • Draft social media / website guidelines

Notes

  • Approve last week’s minutes:
    • Last week’s minutes approved
    • How do we want to approve minutes:
      • Pull request versus just pushing notes to website before approval
      • Board Decided: push to website prior to approval
  • TREC workshop debrief
    • No issues, people still need to send in results from post-workshop survey
    • Zach: well-attended, post early to RECs,
      • There were some grad students that found out about it too late
      • Prioritize folks in area?
      • Some grad students had mobility issues
      • Location-specific challenges with catering,etc.
      • Set a procedure for location-specific organizing
      • On checklist: when at REC, check local catering/set up
  • Future plans with REC workshops
    • Simona won’t be around, but would like to see it continue
    • Goal of one workshop per year
    • Simona and Zach propose that it doesn’t become centralized (i.e. not run by board members on non-main campus)
    • Geraldine suggests make running the REC program is the external (non-main campus) board member’s responsibility
    • Other person who runs REC workshops has to be on the board
    • Need to find avenues for communicating with RECs
    • Change “external” board member title to “REC representative, etc”
    • Get someone from IFAS to sit in on board meetings?
    • Zach would like his group to help with this
      • He hasn’t found a student to take on the role at the moment
      • He can help be a point of contact for prospective candidates
    • The south Florida group would be different than the other RECs
    • North Florida REC would serve different role, try to expand for both North and Southern RECs
    • Involvement could be a requirement for the recipient of the REC scholarship
    • Think about how to advertise this, how we want to structure this
  • Logo design updates
    • Joe wants to see a blue border around the nut in the alligator’s mouth: will message Hao to see if he can modify this
    • Elise doesn’t have the contact information for the person in charge of the UF guidelines, will track it down and ask for approval
      • UF promotional logos: are subject to UF review
    • Do we want to contact carpentries? Gaurav followed up with the old carpentries logo issue
      • https://github.com/carpentries/logo/issues/2
      • “Trademark: “The Carpentries”, “Software Carpentry”, “Data Carpentry”, and “Library Carpentry” and their respective logos are registered trademarks of Community Initiatives.” – https://docs.carpentries.org/LICENSE.html
    • Once UF approves the logo design, we’ll place sticker order (more than 100 stickers, which was our last order for carpentries stickers)
  • Travel award updates
    • Ellen Bledsoe was awarded the travel award
    • She has been approved for the conference, is in contact with Alethea for reimbursements, etc.
  • Biodiversity 1-day geospatial debrief
    • Went well, but there were no registration fees
    • UFBI paid for all expenses
    • About 10 days before workshop, Brian emailed to have ppl confirm that they’ll attend
      • All but 4 people replied, Brian followed up with them
      • Three cancellations, but filled in cancellations with waitlist
      • Full house
    • For future free workshops, shouldn’t be concerned about low attendance
    • Issues with people getting setup
    • Covered most of the material, didn’t have issues during teaching
    • Timing was good
    • 3 instructors, should follow the same structure for future workshops
    • 1/3 said it was too fast, 1/3 said it was too slow, 1/3 said perfect timing
    • Good location but hassle for Alethea and Flora
    • How might the location work during the semester
      • Good alternative space
  • ResBaz planning updates
    • Documents in Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EYnH0W2aI-8bWdzSkOpi9t1Al-Ee6cJj?usp=sharing
    • In-person meeting will be scheduled (based on Hao’s whenisgood poll)
    • Hao will send out email to groups that may want to get involved
    • Elise and Joe are helping organize as well
  • USDA machine learning workshop #99
    • https://github.com/UF-Carpentry/Coordination/issues/99
    • Keep track of github discussion
    • Up to Adam Rivers to decide on curriculum and timing
    • Seems to be a lot of interest on github
    • Probably covered with instructors (USDA)
    • Will likely lean on us for logistics if UF hosts
    • 20-30 USDA attendees, depending on resources, could be open to UF students
    • Message has been sent out, discussion on github
    • Adam open to co-creators, co-instructors, or mentors/helpers
  • Planning for Carpentries membership renewal
    • update on IFAS funding
      • Geraldine hasn’t heard anything back yet; Dean said he would get us ffunds before the end of the financial year
      • Pam said UFBI will also support with same amount as last year
      • Alethea said UFII will also likely go for the $3750
      • BEBR: potential funder
    • request amount + incentives
      • dean indicated that could go for $5k
        • make sure we’re clear with what donors will get
      • Pam interested in UFBI/IFAS symposium next year: could be an incentive to do this annual workshop
    • draft message
      • Still have the one we sent to WEC last year, work off of this
      • Simona will put this on Google Drive
    • who to ask
      • Ask whoever supported us last year, to keep people involved
    • deadline: mid-August
    • Incentives for donors:
      • open 50% of seats for those departments
      • won’t need a lot of modifications to current system
      • the approach from Spring 2019 wasn’t streamlined
      • As is: 6 seats per sponsor for any workshop
      • Brainstorm this meeting, decide next meeting
    • if we go over, could maintain balance for next year
    • 2018/2019 Financial sponsors worksheet is up to date, Alethea has been updating, good to work off of this one, includes contacts
  • Draft plan for need-based scholarship / fee reduction
    • Especially for instructor training workshop, a lot of new instructors were concerned about the fees being a barrier to entry
    • We don’t know how many people are actually put off by the fee (at least one!)
    • Need to be clear, careful about announcing
    • Difficult in determining need
    • Can we offer a lower fee?
      • General fee reduction could be difficult to implement
      • Catering costs are going up!
    • Another option: “Please let us know if you can’t attend because of the student fee.” – with NO promises, just to gather numbers on how many people can’t attend workshops because of the fees
      • Or: “What would you be willing to pay for a workshop like this?”
      • Maybe do this through an anonymous survey?
      • That way, we will know what the scale of the problem is.
  • Draft social media / website guidelines
    • Gaurav didn’t have time, but will have something out by Thursday

Action items

  • Simona put old donor email on Google Drive
  • Elise check with UF re: logo design
  • Gaurav: will draft social media/website guidelines
  • Hao: contact Alethea about ResBaz dates

Next meeting: May 28th Chair: Simona Secretary: Elise

Updated: