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tags: meeting notes
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# Strategy meeting

This note: https://hackmd.io/@coderefinery/strategy

## Desires

- ideally steering group appointed in a way that it can grow with other coderefinery partners (without going through the effort of all formality). It's this, or form two layers of steering group
- be the two-way communication channel with the participating organization
- be interested in this project and else help appointing somebody within the organization who is both connected and interested
- community members of steering group (if neic steering group is coderefinery steering group)
- clarify the expectations with respect to reporting: who reports to whom?
- dynamic project leader(s) chosen by the community
- agree with use of "coderefinery" name for a new community project?
- how to re-start up gradually (i expect that actually very few people will be there from the re-start, later more)
- to tell us what the organizations really want and really don't want, instead of being polite
- Could each in-kind partner open one of their courses as part of CodeRefinery. This is a good, basic starting point.
- provide high-level advice but also give us trust to "let us work on it"
- we have done really, really cool stuff over the last year, far beyond what anyone expected. others want to do this, we want to help them

## Risks

- becomes too deliverable-focused and doesn't promote sustainability
- it will be difficult to define recipients of deliverables
- steering group doesn't function as community steering group (summarizing several points above)
- some partners commit to something just to have this "done" although they may not really understand what they commit to
- recruitment happens top-down, in practice things happen bottom-up, management doesn't connect to reality and doesn't help adance
- strategy is static
- partners are expected to sign an in-kind service agreement - which is too abstract
- Meeting is about management stuff, doesn't discuss recruitment of new organizations

## Messages to steering group

- Provide high-level strategy advice
- Let good things come bottom-up
- How can we recruit new organizations? If there was a partner interested in joining, would they be invited?
- Separate NeIC-managed part from community managed part
- Partner can call in a meeting if they seek advice from others.

## Strategy for rest of 2021

- Communicate status and goals on the website and in a blog
- Announce planned workshops
- Formulate strategy and mission and communicate
- Recruitment
- More partners - define how they can join
- More volunteers - make it clear what they can do

## How to take part

### partners
- lesson development
- instructors
- helpers
- coordination

Levels of partners:
- "partner"
- Take part in coordination, management, leadership
- "affiliate"
- routinely contribute helpers and instructors

## Related documents/threads

- https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1iXQqYovY89ZFvNU4mShdmE3r_K8C68kh
- https://hackmd.io/uFIZF6x1TROxWwPCqGecsg
- what is missing: turn these into the simplest possible actionnable documents

## Presentation to prepare

- motivate why is it good to have new organizations join, even on short term
- clear distinction between the community project and the NeIC project: project leader manages relationship with partner, may not be the same as community leader. NeIC manager contributes to the community project the same way other partners continue
- if you want it to be sustainable: NeIC role decreases over time. if we do not set this up, there is no way for the community to grow

## Proposed CodeRefinery charter

If we had to make a proposal to the steering group, this is what we would say. This is for the *community* project, (NeIC would need some other control of its funding)

* The steering group advises the project on strategy issues. The steering group consists of one representative of each partner and 1-3 community representatives.
* The project leader(s) are selected from the community and confirmed by the steering group. The project leaders guide the day-to-day affairs of the project team.
* The project team consists of the community who wishes to be more active. Membership is confirmed by the project leaders.
* Partners are organizations who are interested in contributing to CodeRefinery beyond taking part in individual workshops. Partners join with confirmation by the steering group.

Details (without repeating the above):
* Steering group
* Community representatives are elected from the community.
* The steering group accepts new partners, and revises the charter once the project becomes too large for the current model.
* The steering group meetings are organized by the project leaders, at least once per year.

* Project leader(s)
* There are one or two project leaders. Recommended is co-leaders with staggered terms.
* Leaders are usually proposed/elected by the community. The choice is confirmed by the steering group.
* Project leaders coordinate the project activities, activate the community, and go between the community and the steering group.
* The project leaders are expected to boldly take CodeRefinery forward with all due regard to the community wishes (breaking impasses when necessary).

* Project team
* The project team is the collective group of people active in the project. It is informally defined, people can come and go as they want
* A team member is someone contributing to the project beyond isolated workshops.

* Partners
* Partners are organizations with a strong interest in CodeRefinery.
* Partners are expected to have at least one team member.