[group-organizers] Let's meet up at PyCon

[Ned Batchelder]

On 2/10/2012 1:19 PM, Michelle Rowley wrote:
> Ned Batchelder and I have been talking over the last few months about ways to make Python group organizing easier/better/etc. With PyCon coming up in only four weeks (and under the assumption that we'll have an organizer meetup/BoF/thingy), I thought I would start up some group organizing discussion so we won't have to waste time while we're actually at the conference figuring out what we need to talk about together.
+1 on getting together face-to-face.  If the group organizers can't 
organize a BoF, we need to step down!  Michelle, are you taking the 
formal steps to register the BoF, or whatever it is that has to happen?
> One idea Ned and Asheesh Laroia had was to figure out a way for some non-profit to accept donations on behalf of any local user group, and to make sure those funds get used appropriately for that user group. We could use an existing non-profit or make a new one. This would solve the problem of sponsorship without each of us having to create our own non-profit for our group. I think it's a great idea, and I would be willing to do some of the legwork for the non-profit.
I should have mentioned this earlier: Boston Python is now set up to use 
the PSF as their fiscal sponsor (which is the fancy official term for a 
non-profit collecting money for another group's use).  It took a while, 
but now seems to be working.  You can see it in action at 
http://donate.bostonpython.com (donations welcome!), if you want to see 
the entire flow, donating $1 seems to be the only way, I had to do that 
in order to test it in the first place.  I think Boston Python and 
PyTexas are the two organizations set up like this, but I think Kurt 
(the PSF treasurer) intended that it be used much more widely.
> Related to this idea that each of us does a lot of the same work, separately, for our user groups, Ned and I have been toying with creating reusable resources to share with each other (and other Python organizers). The one example we have so far is a basic grant request form that asks the PSF to pay back fees for Meetup. All one would need to do is change the city name and add some details about the particular group's outreach. We tested it and it worked! I think it would be awesome if we could brainstorm all the ways we repeat work among our groups and how we might create shared resources to cover those cases.
I'll toss out some ideas:  One clear are of reuse is teaching 
materials.  Jessica McKellar has done a great job with the Boston Python 
Workshop (http://bostonpythonworkshop.com/), creating materials that can 
be used elsewhere.

A perennial problem is finding speakers, but sometimes just ideas for 
talks get you halfway there.  We've recently started a Google Moderator 
to collect talk ideas (http://ideas.bostonpython.com), and there's no 
reason ideas, and even prepared talks, couldn't be shared among groups. 
(BTW: anyone know anything better than Moderator for this?  I looked 
into uservoice.com, but it wants you to login to vote.)

We've only recently started recording our sessions, and will be putting 
them on http://python.mirocommunity.org/.  What tips/techniques have 
people found helpful?

--Ned.
>
> Thoughts? Other ideas? I'll keep track of the ideas and put them somewhere. Like, you know, on a wiki or something.
>
> Michelle
>
> ---
> Michelle Rowley
> @pythonchelle
> http://www.meetup.com/pdxpython
>
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