Planning

Key messages

Getting People there

Depends on advertising and what else is competing.

I think Voluntari.ly can now be used for registration.
But as a backup we can have a sign up form on the squarespace site. or a survey form there to collect more details.

We found that with 1 day people are just getting started when they have to stop.

Something we have not tried is a weekday event. Don’t know what the turnout would be unless specific companies are giving staff time off

Room for however many you think will attend
Open and welcoming
Space for
- Tutorials and presentations
- breakout / discussion corners
- team work tables - usually 5 - 7 per team
- Huddle / Chat areas.
Accessible power sockets for everyone's laptops
WiFi
Whiteboards and working pens. Notepads
Easy to get to

Steady supply of tea/coffee/milo/ soda.
Bonus if there is proper available some of the time
Meals
- Breakfast - e.g fruit. & pastries - Helps to get people there before the start
- Lunch - Support food preferences.
  - Other times - plates of fruit and biscuits seem to keep everyone happy
Fun Things to do - games, stretching, competitions etc.
- we did not try this yet - everyone seemed fully involved in the work.

Start : Introductions, explain voluntarily, give overview of the tech, purpose and goals for the weekend
Form teams - around key goals and skill sets
Then Work and Tutorial streams
Day 2 - starts with stand up to see where everyone is at
Ends with Demonstrations and feedback.

These will change as we get closer but probably will include

1. Dev basics - git, get codebase, build, test, commit, pull request. Add to Contributors

2. Tour of the Code - pt1 Client side - React components, Pages

3. Tour of the Code - pt1 Server side - Express, Next, API and Mongo DB

4. Advanced topics: Redux, Asynch programming

5. More basics: Testing, Debugging.

We have given attendees native trees but you should decide what is relevant to the locality.
We considered some trophies for MVP, Team Builder, Design, Inspiration etc. but didn’t get them organized. Also judging is very hard. SO I prefer to reward everyone and give time/space for people to say what they valued from the experience.
Any corporate swag should be of real value and not generate waste. e.g credits for AWS or iTunes etc. but its not really necessary

Someone to pay for or provide the venue
Someone to pay for hospitality
(nice to have) Someone to pay for flights & hotel for Andrew/Walt/Ete/Vaughan etc.
(bonus extra) Able to bring down a couple of contributors who know the code to help the teams.