Min# SSI Fellows Community Call - March 2025 (new version)

:::info
* Monday 24 March 2025, 15:00-16:00 BST (GMT/UTC)
* Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81068243628 (no registration required)
* Recording:
* Previous calls: [https://bit.ly/3eu7NjT](https://bit.ly/3eu7NjT)
* Summary: We will hear updates from...
:::

[toc]

## Agenda
Times in [BST (UTC +1)] (check your [time zone here](https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=SSI+Fellows+Community+Call+-+October+2024&iso=20241022T1530&p1=304&ah=1))

15:00 - 15:10 Welcome
15:10 - 15:30 Fellowship team & Fellows updates
15:30 - 15:50 Breakout room discussions
15:50 - 16:00 Closing

## Roll call
_Name / Cohort year / Affiliation / Location / Pronouns / Social media_
* Mike Simpson / 2025 / Newcastle University / He/Him / https://linktr.ee/mdsimpson
* Catherine Inglis / SSI staff / EPCC, Edinburgh University / She/her
* Patricia Herterich / 2019 / OLS & Patricia Herterich Consulting / Edinburgh, UK / she, her/ https://openbiblio.social/@pherterich
* Saskia Lawson-Tovey / 2025 / University of Manchester / She/her
* Jannetta Steyn / 2022 / Newcastle Unversity / She, her / https://www.linkedin.com/in/jannetta/, @[e-mail]
* Deborah Udoh / 2025 / OLS, UK / she/her / https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborah-udoh-b0a720188/
* Aman Goel / 2023 / University of Manchester - SSI / Manchester / he,him
* Shoaib Sufi / SSI Staff / University of Manchester
* Robert Chisholm / 2025 / University of Sheffield / Sheffield
* Yo Yehudi / 2018 / OLS / UK / agent of chaos
* Rachael Stickland / 2025 / University of Birmingham / she-her/ linkedin.com/in/rstickland-phd/ / GitHub @RayStick
* Stephan Druskat / 2018 / German Aerospace Center (DLR) / Berlin / he, him / https://fosstodon.org/@sdruskat
* Phil Reed / 2025 / University of Manchester
* Nicky Nicolson / 2025 / Kew Gardens / @nickynicolson
* Jez Cope / 2020 / The British Library / North Yorkshire / he/him
* Arielle Bennett / 2025 / The Alan Turing Institute / she-her /

### Check-in
_Include your name and answer any of the following prompts: How are you today? What are you working on? Where do you need support?_
* Catherine - Feeling fine today but this meeting pod is indescribably hot. Send for help if you see me pass out during this session!
* Patricia: Which other SSI folk are in the office to ping?
* Catherine: Good point! I think Neil is the only member of the SSI team I've seen in today! (I haven't even seen Mario today!)
* Yo: Patricia you just have to head over in person
* I can't access the office though! I can walk in and shout for Mario and see what happens :joy:
* I have faith in your social engineering abilities
* Saskia - Tired! I'm working on fellowship applications atm but took a break for a swim earlier so feeling slightly rejuvenated
* Patricia - Tired but enjoying the sunshine. Working on decorating the house we just bought and definitely not used to all the manual labour of painting etc.
* Catherine - oh, a nice kind of tired though I guess! Sounds rewarding!
* Yo - Mmmm. I feel nice. There is sun. That is all.
* Arielle :sunny:
* Phil - I had a workshop abastract accepted for my Fellowship :-) Off to Glasgow in June
* YY - Congrats!!
* Patricia :tada:
* Arielle :star2:
* Mike - Still recovering from a holiday with a four-year-old! Making some progress on the mental health resource website thing. Been asked to do some talks - better start preparing some slides!
* Stephan: PhDing, and not sure how to feel about that :sweat_smile:
* Patricia: Not asking how it's going then...
* Robert: Fine. Getting started on a new ML project, RAG on Bibliotheque britannique
* Rachael: Second week of a new job :sweat_smile: so a bit slow with SSI activities!
* Nicky: Tired but ok. Lots of caring resp recently but yesterday was good and all good today so far too
* Arielle: the ethics saga for my project goes on (everyone agrees it should go through a process, no one wants to do it/knows where that should happen :sweat_smile: ) but also enjoying unplanned English spring time for a bit
* Jannetta - All good here, but always tired. Preparing for Thursday's presentation in Edinburgh.
* Sangeeta - Looking forward to spring!

## 1. Welcome - 5 min [15:00 - 15:10]

### General Guidance

* 🤝 Please follow the [Code of Conduct](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eQu4EKHKbL-EMCwbwy7F_YGCOFhBcpBbwsET7QAvA1U/edit?usp=sharing), report any issues to [Catherine](mailto:[e-mail]) and / or [Oscar](mailto:[e-mail]).
* 📹 The Fellows updates are being recorded and the videos will be made available on the [SSI YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/user/SoftwareSaved) after the call.
* 📝 This document is for SSI Fellows only, so please do not share the link publicly. Feel free to take notes, ask questions, add friendly comments, +1, etc.
* Outputs such as blog posts or guides may result from the discussions and shared insights. We will not share any personal information, but if you would like to be contacted and included as a contributing author on any outputs, please include your full name as part of any shared insights.

### Goals of these Community Calls
* Facilitate community building and encourage collaboration within the SSI Fellows community.
* Check in with the Fellows and community care - What are the Fellows up to? How can the SSI Community team support them?
* Provide a welcoming and inclusive space for Fellows to share and explore topics of interest and network with others.

### Breakout room discussion topics
Feel free to add your own and include your name:
1.

## 2. SSI and Fellows' updates - 20 min [15:10 - 15:20]
_This is an opportunity for Fellows to share/show and tell during our community calls. During this call, we will hear from 1 member of the SSI team and 1 Fellow, who will each have 7 min (+ 3 min Q&A) to introduce themselves and share any updates to the network, such as:_
* _Your Fellowship plans, demos of projects, upcoming events or other activities_
* _Projects for which you are seeking support or collaboration_
* _Life after the Fellowship and how the Fellowship impacted your career_

Timer for speakers: [https://cuckoo.team/ssi-fellows-community-call](https://cuckoo.team/ssi-fellows-community-call)

### Announcements
* On 27 March (10:00-16:00; UTC) is the [HPC Ready: Developing RSE and HPC Skills](https://www.software.ac.uk/Events/hpc-ready-developing-rse-and-hpc-skills).
* [Register for CW25](https://www.software.ac.uk/workshop/collaborations-workshop-2025-cw25) and submit a funding request, include only travel expenses (no registration fee or accomodation).
* On the evening of 12 May before CW25 starts there will be an All Fellows and Friends Meeting.
* If you are presenting or organising any SSI-funded activity or if you're happy for it to be advertised in that capacity, then please use SSI Promotional materials. These will be added to the lowFAT Guidance document.

## 3. Breakout room discussions - 25 min [15:30 - 15:50]
_Please take notes of your discussion while you are in your breakout rooms in the relevant section below for others to catch up with._

### Breakout Room 1: UoM Research Technical Professionals (RTP) event

* Participants:
* Saskia Lawson-Tovey, Phil Reed, Aman Goel, Shoaib Sufi, and Rachael Strickland (for a portion)
* Notes:
* Link to draft agenda: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P2sXaqqtuhsPazD8OtDNEMkoCAaqejNkbzDh1_1i1PQ/edit?usp=sharing

### Breakout Room 2: Cohort-based learning
* Participants:
* Nicky Nicolson
* Patricia Herterich
* Robert Chisholm
* Catherine Inglis
* Oscar Seip
* Sangeeta Bhatia
* Notes:
* Lessons learned from previous Fellows would be really useful.
* Because of diversity of profiles of Fellows, difficult to know what sort of thing people are interested in, eg technical topics.
* Would be interested in learning about new ways of organising collaborative discussions - lots of different ways in which people go about organising workshops etc.
* Unless it is fairly official and comes with certificates etc, a lot of people struggle to attend regular meetings / squeeze them into your calendar. And usually only a very few people driving them, which is then exhausting. (Have decent stuff happening, get people to show up regularly).
* What does SSI have in terms of resources to put behind this?
* Trying to find out from this session what people would like.
* It would be great if it was Fellow-led. But also some considerations within SSI Staff there is also expertise; in terms of effort:
* Could be a talk / seminar, sharing experience
* Full-blown workshop, which is obviously a lot more work.
* Could start off as informal talks from Fellows discussing their experience. Fellows might also decide they can give the same talk elsewhere.
* Fellows can apply to Further Development Fund to offset costs / time spent on this.
* Running a book club is a lot of work. Numbers fluctuate. Small number of committed people who always show up. Some people won't have bandwidth to commit long-term, but would be good if people can dip in and out over different sessions.
* Note that we also have the Community Building Study Group, which has a particular scope around community building. Flexible format - people dip in and out, presentation, discussion, sharing of experiences.
* Maybe there's potential for another Study Group on a different topic? (Any suggestions?)
* If topic identified that's of interest, eg use of github, we could potentially offer it to all Fellows - nice if led by Fellows.
* Want to see how it organically grows. Very low-key - don't have to be an expert in it.
* Patricia and / or Kyro could talk about event management?
* Patricia: There was an idea on an "Art of Gathering" book club at some point, I did their official training and actually mapped CW against it at some point.
* How can Fellows document what their training aspirations are for this coming year?
* Career paths and professional development.
* Might be good to start a Slack channel dedicated to this?
* RSE Competencies Toolkit (about to be renamed!): https://github.com/RSEToolkit/rse-competencies-toolkit
* "Today I learned..." Slack channel
*

### Breakout Room 3: Fellows handbook
* Participants:
*
* Notes:

### Breakout Room 4: Pre-CW25 All Fellows & Friends Meeting.
* Participants:
* Yo Yehudi
* Jez Cope
* Arielle Bennett
* Mike Simpson
* Jannetta Steyn
* Notes:
* Hot Wings
* Apparently this is a thing?
* Board games
* Jez & Arielle have some portable & easy-to-learn ones
* Aim for about 5-6 options?
* Puzzles (crosswords?)
* A series of puzzles - a mini escape room?
* Crafting/hacking corner
* JS suggested bringing some raspberry Pi & wiring etc to work on some little hacky projects
* Crochet pixel-art SSI logo

### Breakout Room 5: General room to hang out.
* Participants:
*
* Notes:
*

## 4. Closing - 10 min [15:50 - 16:00]

### Next call: TBC
* We aim to schedule the next Fellows Community Call in [late November]. Keep an eye on your email / Slack for a poll to find a date.
* Sign-up/register your interest to speak on a future call:

### Upcoming events / calls
_Event name / date, time & venue / website / description_

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### Requests for peer assists, collaboration and/or support

* Please consider contributing to the Safeguarding Research & Culture (SRC) project, we are trying to save US government data before it disappears [name=Jez]
* Overview: grassroots effort to identify at-risk data, download it while it's still there & distribute copies globally using BitTorrent for resilience
* Currently US-focused for obvious reasons, but not exclusively
* Mission Statement: https://safeguar.de/our-mission/
* How to contribute: https://forum.safeguar.de/t/how-to-contribute/308/2
* Co-ordination & indexing platform: https://sciop.net (currently alpha status, we need testers & web devs!)

*Note that there is now a recently launched channel in the Fellows slack workspace called #collaboration (another is #peer-review). This is a place to ‘find your people’ and support each other, so please join the channels, and make the most of it!*

### Other updates, shares and shout-outs
_Please feel free to add any updates or thank-yous that you wish to share with the community._

* Edinburgh Winter School - an SSI-supported annual event that brings together programming educators from higher education and beyond. I will also talk about a related project - an edited book where we would like to gather experiences, tips and case studies from educators and students in the programming space. Everyone is welcome to contribute - see https://pairprogramming.ed.ac.uk/category/book/ [pairprogramming.ed.ac.uk], and come to the Community Call to hear more!

### Feedback

* What did you enjoy about this call? What worked well?
* Worked really well overall - the agenda wasn't too overloaded and was able to have good conversations :)
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* What could be improved? What did not work well?
* Still not 100% sure what 'cohort-based learning' is, could do with an abstract for the breakout rooms. +1
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* What topics would you like to explore on future calls?
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