---
# System prepended metadata

title: Meeting - 26 January 2026

---

# Meeting - 26 January 2026

[toc]

## Meeting Info 

This is the UK Carpentry Community space for the UK Carpentry instructors, helpers and workshop coordinators (or anyone involved in training tech to researchers in general and outside of the UK) to get to know each other better, update the commmunity about developments, discuss issues and ideas, and encourage collaboration.
    
During these meetings, we will be conforming to [The Carpentries Code of Conduct](https://docs.carpentries.org/policies/coc).

**Meeting schedule: meetings happen on 4th Monday each month, 16:00-17:00 UK time, BST (UTC+1) or GMT (UTC+0) depending on the time of the year**

**Meeting details are shared via [local-uk mailing list](https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/local-uk) and [The Carpentries community calendar](https://carpentries.org/community/#community-events).**

- [Community's HackMD workspace](https://hackmd.io/team/local-uk?nav=overview)
- [Previous & upcoming meetings](https://hackmd.io/V3ReKkEESzqyCNxWJdulOw#Meeting-Notes)
- [Meeting notes template](https://hackmd.io/hgl1tYhOTTqDsIDwjArE5w)
- [Chairing rota](https://hackmd.io/@local-uk/rkPK1Si7F)
- [Guest speaker sign-up](https://hackmd.io/@local-uk/rkkzBTLOd)

**Zoom URL:** https://zoom.us/j/95360073649

## Meeting Minutes

- **Chair:** Aleks
    - _Make sure to email <instructor.training@carpentries.org> after the meeting with trainee instructors who joined for the community discussion as part of the checkout_ 
- **Timekeeper:**
- **Notetaker:** Aleks, Aman

### Agenda
**0. Assign notetaker & timekeeper**
1. Sign in & ice-breaker
1. Review of actions
2. Announcements 
3. Guest speaker + Q&A
4. Instructor Training checkout questions
5. Wrap-up/AOB

### Sign-in

Name/pronoun if you like/ institution / optionally put "(checkout)" if you are here for the Instructor Training checkout:

1. Nicky Garland, University of York
2. Aleks Nenadic, University of Manchester/SSI
3. Samantha Finnigan, Durham University ARC
4. Toan Phung, University of Dundee
5. Andrew Walker, University of Oxford
6. Aman Goel, Software Sustainability Institute - University of Manchester
...

### Review of actions

- [ ] Get a Carpentries Zoom room for these calls - or poll on what platform people want to move to?
    - There was a discussion about this in the November meeting
    - If we are moving platforms, some folks felt it would be better to move to a non-Zoom platform like Jitsi or Framatalk

- everyone has Teams, but someone from IT at the institution owning it has to set up access for people - so possibly not the best solution
- moving to open source tools
- Jitsi works well, but there may be a limit of 25 active users per month limit, https://jaas.8x8.vc/#/pricing but there is https://meet.jit.si/ free Jitsi service with no limit. Also see https://jitsi.github.io/handbook.

### New actions

- Aleks to report back on using Teams for the future calls
- Aman to report back on using a number of other tools (Jitsi and other tools) for future meeting
- Andrew Walker - topic for next meeting "How do you get interaction out of quiet groups?"
- All: review if calendar invite to topic box mailing list works

### Announcements
- 

### Discussion / Talk

- Calendar of meeting events and how best to share it
    - Zoom has been discontinued at UoM
    - Carry on with calendar event set by Aleks (Aleks to add a few members with edit rights - added Aman and Phil to edit event but they cannot invite others)
- DIRECT skills and competencies framework
    - Samantha asked about coordination of DIRECT Framework with the training commmunity, and how we bring back the outputs of the project to the local teams?
    - Aleks: Brief overview of the framework and how the professional and non-professional skills were a strong theme during community feedback
        - The framework team is "finalising" the definition of the framework itself and hope that DIRECT can act as a resource for lots of dRTP comptencies work
        - Understanding and comparing skills, Uskilling and training resource, hiring and career pathways
        - Could be potentially helpful for a few communities
        - Trying to get feedback from a lot of different communities + similar projects + NetworkPlus projects
    - Andrew: Would signing up help creating our own profiles and look at the skills, assessing our competencies?
        - Aleks: Yes, the individual profiles can be created, and a lot of additional features are under development / planned - comparison of skill wheels, overview of all skills, hiring assistance etc.
- @Aman - Software Carpentries Governance Committee
    - at least one new course to be added to the curriculum, candidates are: 
        - https://github.com/carpentries-incubator/better-research-software
        - https://github.com/carpentries-incubator/python-intermediate-development
        - https://github.com/carpentries-incubator/byte-sized-rse-overview
    - looking at the existing curriculum and what chances are needed - e.g. Git, moving away from GitHub, other examples, etc.
    - new Unix courses 
    - Also Byte-sized RSE: https://github.com/carpentries-incubator/byte-sized-rse-overview mentioned at the governance board, there was interest in shorter teaching sessions 
- @Aman - dRTP Training Day 2026
    - Ran last year at RSECon25: https://rsecon25.society-rse.org/training-community-day/
    - This year, RCECon runs Wednesday - Friday with satellite workshops planned for Tuesday but there is a clash with international RS conference that runs Monday - Tuesday and is co-located
- How do you get interaction out of quiet groups?

### Instructor Training checkout questions
- 

### Upcoming events / calls
- 1. Collaborations Workshop 2026 - Belfast - 28-30 April 2026
Eventbrite:Collaborations Workshop 2026 (CW26) - #CollabW26
Website: Collaborations Workshop 2026 (CW26)

2. Connecting research data and software communities - Cambridge - 10th February
More information: tickettailor.com/events/stepupproject/1945329
 
3. 2026 International RSE Survey
English Survey: softwaresaved.limequery.com/611257?lang=en
More information: software.ac.uk/news/2026-international-rse-survey

4. RSECon26 - Call for Satellite Events and Research Software Papers
Website: rsecon26.society-rse.org/calls

5. Society of RSE Mentoring Scheme - 3rd February Deadline 
Application: forms.coachmentoring.co.uk/socrse/2026-socrse-mentoring-programme
More Information: society-rse.org/get-involved/mentoring-scheme

6. CHARTED flexible fund - Fund 4: Supporting Professional Development - rolling deadline
£5k for event attendance, training fees, knowledge exchange
More information: https://drtp-skills.ac.uk/funds-prof-dev

General Network+ and other events + calls: cake.ac.uk

### Wrap-up/AOB
-

### Action points
- [ ] Update calendar invites and look at infrastructure 
- [ ] Aman to report back on using a number of other tools (Jitsi and other tools) for future meeting
- [ ] Aman to follow up on the "Training Community Day" (like RSECon25) discussion with the UK-Carpentry community
- [ ] Andrew Walker - topic for next meeting "How do you get interaction out of quiet groups?"