2023-04-04 Board Meeting

tags: UF Caprentries Meeting Minutes

Meeting Info

• Location: Remote
• Date: 2023 April 04, 11:00 PM (EST)
• Agenda

1. Introductions
2. Approval of March 22th, 2023 minutes
3. Approve March 7th, 2023 minutes, make sure they are posted
4. Debrief of Git workshop (Cory and Dellena). Some discussion items include:
   • Lunch options
   • In-person workshop notes Link for board members
5. Plans for Python workshop
6. Decide on Fall 2023 workshop docket, determine order, prepare to schedule
7. Sponsorship emails (Audrey)
8. Instructor trainings
9. New board member election process
10. Any other business
    • IFAS update

• Participants:
  • Cory Brunson, CJ Campbell, Philip Chase, Ke Zhang, Aida Miro-Herrans, Ali Alruzuq, Dellena Bloom
  • Chair: CJ
  • Secretary: Cory

Notes

Introductions

We introduced ourselves. : )

Approval of March 22th, 2023 minutes

Minutes were approved without amendment.

Approve March 7th, 2023 minutes, make sure they are posted

Dellena and Ke just coordinated to post these minutes.

Those present approved the minutes.

Debrief of Git workshop (Cory and Dellena)

CJ, Cory, and Dellena discussed progress on follow-up tasks from the Git workshop:

1. Announcing workshops through more channels (Cory)
2. Providing better (esp. vegetarian) lunches (CJ)
3. Steps for verifying SSH credentials (Dellena)
4. In-person workshop checklist (CJ)

Plans for Genomics workshop

Aida and Cory reported.

Final attendance and instructor/helper sign-up are required at least 1 week before the workshop, i.e. the Friday before (April 14). Registrants and helpers also need to sign up using their GatorLink accounts. This needs to be added to the announcements that have gone out. Cory will make (sign-up) or alert Flora to (registration) these needed changes.

We need to prepare the workshop schedule, probably with breaks every 2 hours. The workshop will follow the same episode sequence as the 2022 Fall Genomics workshop, and a calendar must be added. Aida and Cory will take care of this this week.

New board member election process

Vaasuki Marupaka self-nominated to the board using the rolling call for nominations. The present board members agreed to vote and unanimously appointed Vaasuki to the board.

Decide on Fall 2023 workshop docket, determine order, prepare to schedule

CJ explained the need to plan, schedule, and announce workshops well in advance.

Ke suggested that a spatial data analysis workshop would attract interest. CJ raised a key issue that the standard R Geospatial Workshop has not been updated to use contemporary standard packages.

CJ and Dellena endorsed doing an intro-level R workshop at the start of each semester.

Ke and Cory discussed the possibility of combining Geospatial episodes into an intro-to-R workshop, or otherwise combining lessons into custom workshops. This would be ambitious but possibly worth the effort.

CJ proposes scheduling the Fall Meet-and-Greet social as well as the workshops.

CJ called for thoughts on adapting the 2022 Fall workshop schedule.

CJ will reach out to the R Ladies group about interest in a Spanish-language workshop. Aida asked about the level of interest. CJ suggested surveying past registrants. Dellena hypothesized pairing Spanish- and English-language workshops a week apart.

CJ proposed the following workshop sequence for 2023 Fall:

• Meet-and-Greet (start of semester)
• Data Analysis and Visualization in R for Ecologists
• Genomics (October)
• Library Carpentry (centrally organized)
• Geospatial (pending assessment of the lessons)

Other agenda items

Remaining items were shelved for the next board meeting.

Next board meeting

Next board meeting will be the week of April 18, at a time to be determined by a poll to the full board. Cory will chair. CJ will secretary.