Voluntarily hits Christchurch - TBD 2019

Planning

Key messages
  • Event is open to all skill levels, and training is provided.
  • People will learn, have fun, make friends, and add value
  • Voluntari.ly - Brings people together. 

Getting People there

Numbers

Depends on advertising and what else is competing.

  • 10 - 20 - Plenty to achieve good work with
  • 20 - 50 - Amazing, the place will be buzzing
  • 50 - 80 - Intimidating but we can manage it.
  • 80  - practical limit, we won't be able to manage the workload effectively.

Promotion

  • Corporate network
    • Westpac
    • Datacom
    • AND...
  • University
    • Promote to year 2-4 IT students and postgrads
  • Government
    • Local Council
  • Tech meet ups
  • Advertising - Linked in, Twitter, FB etc.
  • Special Invites - VIPs, reps from Govt Agencies, Sponsors etc.  MfE TEC.

Promotional Materials

  • Online - we will provide Event specific space at Voluntari.ly website.
  • Poster design.
  • Video and stuff based on the last event.

Registration

  • 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.


Date, Duration and Times

  • Target Date - about 4-6 weeks from now. e.g End of sept
  • Duration Recommend 2 days - e.g. full weekend.  
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
  • Times - These worked for us
    • 8:00 we have access to venue
    • 8:30 - 9:00 mingling and breakfast
    • 9:00 - gather and initial presentations
    • 10:00 work and tutorials
    • 4pm - day checkin/demos, 
    • Space available to 6pm  - its not an all nighter
    • Day 2 - open and breakfast from 8:00
    • Closing events around 4pm
    • End by 5pm.


Venue 

Needs:

  • 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

Hospitality

  • 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. 

Activities

  • 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.

Development Goals

These will change as we get closer but probably will include

  • Skills, Tags and Matching
  • Achievement Badges and Onboarding workflows
  • More Corporate integration - Westpac and Govt Single Sign on.
  • Content for pilot
  • Prettification
  • Server side security
  • Activity Workflows
  • Te reo Māori translation.


Tutorials 

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. 

Rewards & Swag

  • 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

Sponsors

  • 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.