# Meeting 22 March 2021

## About

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 and encourage collaboration
- to get the community's questions answered and provide help with technical aspects of creating Carpentry workshop websites, registering workshops with the Carpentries, Carpentry institutional membership or anything else
- to help the community in the UK with organising workshops and finding instructors/helpers
- to provide a welcoming and inclusive environment for the community to share their experience, explore topics of interest, find collaborators for training related projects and network.

During these meetings, we will be conforming to [The Carpentries Code of Conduct](https://docs.carpentries.org/topic_folders/policies/code-of-conduct.html).

**Regular calls: 4th Monday of the month, 16:00-17:00 UK time**

**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).**

## Useful Links and Resources
- Carpentries UK Community mailing list [local-uk](https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/local-uk)
- Carpentries UK Community [slack channel](https://swcarpentry.slack.com/archives/CLE8WUGMA) within [The Carpentries Slack Workspace](https://swc-slack-invite.herokuapp.com/)
- [Carpentries Code of Conduct](https://docs.carpentries.org/topic_folders/policies/code-of-conduct.html)
- Connect with the [general Carpentries community](https://carpentries.org/connect/) - twitter, mailing lists, blog, slack, community calendar
- [Carpentries Handbook](https://docs.carpentries.org/index.html) - a comprehensive resource for all things Carpentries
- [Carpentries workshop FAQ](https://carpentries.org/workshop_faq/)
- [Carpentries Blog](https://carpentries.org/blog/)

## Meeting notes
Time: 16:00 - 17:00 GMT (UTC + 0)
Location: Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/95360073649

Notetaker: Toby Hodges
Chair: Aleks Nenadic

### Sign in

Name/pronoun if you like/ institution
1. Aleks Nenadic / she, her/ Software Sustainablity Institute (Manchester)
2. Mario Antonioletti/ he, him/ Epcc & Software Sustainability Institute (Edinburgh).
2. Jannetta Steyn / she, her/ Newcastle Univastle Univastle Univastle Univastle Univastle Univastle Univastle Univastle Univastle Univastle Univastle Univastle Univastle Univ
1. Shashank S. Harivyasi / he, him / University of Leeds
1. Phil Reed / he,him / University of Manchester
1. Colin Sauze / he, him / Aberystwyth University/Supercomputing Wales
1. Andrés Romanowski, he/him, University of Edinburgh
1. Ed Bennett / Swansea University/Supercomputing Wales
1. Giacomo Peru / he, him / University of Edinburgh / EPCC / Software Sustainability Institute
1. Juan Herrera / he, him / EPCC, The University of Edinburgh
1. Jez Cope / he, him / The British Library
1. Toby Hodges / he,him / The Carpentries / only for the first 30-45 minutes (I need to go to an important toddler bathtime meeting after that)
1. Lucia Michielin/ she,her/ Univeristy of Edinburgh/
1. Graham Blyth / he,him / University of Leeds
1. James Tripp/ he,him / University of Warwick
1. Anastasis Georgoulas / he, him / UCL
1. Alexander Konovalov / he, him / University of St Andrews
2. Callum Rollo / he,him / UEA
4. Robert Nagy /he, him, his / Edinburgh University (CMVM) - IGMM ECRC/ BQ ECTU
5. Marco Crotti / he,him / University of Cambridge
6. Joni Pelham / Cranfield University
7. Bryan Wee / University of Edinburgh
1. Evgenij Belikov / he, him / University of Edinburgh
2. David Pérez-Suárez / he-him-his / RSE@UCL and SSI Fellow / 🐙🐱@dpshelio 🐦@dvdgc13 🐘@[e-mail] /

### Agenda
1. Volunteer notetaker? Just to capture main points - everyone can help out.
1. Toby until he has to leave
2. Icebreaker (10 minutes) - if you could teleport yourself now, where would you go?
- Giacomo: Same time Friday this week :-) I second this (Lucia)
- Mario: volcanic eruption near Reykjakvik looks interesting, so there!
- Aleks: somewhere to sit in the sun - but not necessarily a beach - a sunny and snowy ski resort would be perfect
- Phil: Boulders Beach with the African penguins
- Jannetta: Sunny South Africa!
- Marco: mexico, with my partner's family, and take a trip to the beach
- Anastasis: Somewhere warm near water. Also Friday next week.
- Graham: Melbourne - soon to be a grandfather!
- Andrés: the Maldives
- Colin: Somewhere with friends and family who i've not seen much/at all in the last year. t all in the last year. t all in the last year. t all in the last year. t all in the last year. t all in the last year. t all in the last year. t all in the last year. t all in the last year. t all in the last year. +1
- Robert: back to the future back to the future back to the future back to the future back to the future back to the future back to the future back to the future back to the future back to the future back to the future back to the future - post COVID
- Shashank: Outside; it's sunny enough in Leeds.
- Callum: Kayaking on the river
- Alex: to see family outside the UK
- Toby: If I could take my family with me, I would teleport to the UK so our son could see his grandparents and uncles (and we would stand more chance of getting a Covid vaccine some time soon!). I would also want to be able to teleport away again!
- Joni: Like to go and watch the SpaceX Starship development
- James: Middle of the lake district after COVID with directions to the nearest decent pub [name=Toby]: this sounds great too
- Jez: Floating in a lake in the Lake District, probably Crummock Water or Grasmere (with some nice Grasmere gingerbread for after)
- Juan: somewhere with good weather, close to the beach and away from my work laptop!+1+1+1

3. Announcements & updates from the community (10 minutes)
- [SSI's Collaborations Workshop CW21](https://www.software.ac.uk/cw21) - Tuesday, 30 March to Thursday, 1 April 2021
- there are still places if you want to join - registration is £50
- third day is Hack Day - get into teams and maybe earn some prizes!
- [Virtual Event Grants](https://eventfund.codeforscience.org/request-for-proposals/) - dealine 29th March 2021
- GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) Data Science Network starting to get going: please retweet the [poll about domain names](https://twitter.com/jezcope/status/1374017661613531136) to help raise awareness (and vote yourself...); more information on new website at <https://glam-datasci.netlify.app>; thanks! — [name=Jez]
- Also looking for volunteers to help organise a kick-off workshop

4. Guest speaker: Giacomo Peru from EdCarp (Edinburgh Carpentries community) + Q&A (20 minutes)
- a bit of history, how it all started
- it was helped by the fact that the SSI has a branch in Edinburgh and there was a lot of know-how available in the Institute
- website: https://edcarp.github.io/workshops/
- how you got the funds/effort initially
- no money initially, but there was the opportunity for Giacomo to put in 20-40% of his time to support Carpentries activities
- Sean McGeaver, School of Physics and Astronomy, UoE, put in some money in to pay the first membership with the Carpentries from his grant (the first year), then got other 3 colleges in Edinburgh to chip in
- set up one [Organising Committee and one Steering Committee](https://edcarp.github.io/committee/)
- Steering Committee meets twice per year, composed of people who (in theory) are able to commit funds and resources.
- Mario: uptake from different areas, effort from representives at different schools/faculties was vital to get it going. It began with interest in learning the skills taught in a Carpentries workshop, then became interested in becoming an Instructor.
- Lucia: volunteer-based model assumes Instructors will be staff who can dedicate time as part of their job. But often not the case, and e.g. PhD students can feel pressured to take on voluntary teaching responsibilities without potential for this effort to be rewarded.
- how are you funded now
- even now it is not easy to get agreement on supporting a membership
- we have been able to attract small pots of money to spend on specific projects (e.g. Scottish Funding Council last year for 7 workshops)
- EdCarp are also now part of a funded UKRI project to develop materials for bioinformatics training & deliver workshops
- also allows us to pay for maintenance and development of infrastructure e.g. website
- where are you based (which group within the Uni of Edinburgh)
- how many people are there in the community altogether, how many are involved in training
- are you a Carpentry partner and how do you find the money for that and how do you justify that to your funders,
- what are the terms of your Carpentry partnership?
- are you mainly self-sufficient now in terms of workshop organisations,
- how long it took EdCarp to become self-sufficient?
- not sure we are yet! even though there is huge interest and potential, we would not exist without leadership. Essential to have this dedicated leadership.
- Aleks: :+1: in Manchester we see the services of members of the community are becoming over-subscribed and, without support from the top, they are going to struggle to keep doing this stuff voluntarily.
- Giacomo: it would be great to hear from anyone who has experience with convincing Universities etc to support these kinds of activity
- How does EdinCarp sit alongside any other university-wide bodies at Edinburgh? Do you have centralised IT, research support or library, or is that all contained within each of your three colleges? Do you stand on anyone's toes?
- There are central IT and Library services, but (some?) schools have their own IT too
- Everybody at Edi is happy that EdCarp is doing what they are doing
- EPCC is full of people who are full of people competent to teach these courses
- In terms of competition - efforts to establish a local RSE group was not as successful as the EdCarp
- David PS: UCL: RSE team organises them. We try to find volunteers within "our community" for instructors and helpers. If not, the people from our team jumps in.
- Are other Edinburgh universities, ICMS (International Centre for Mathematical Sciences) and other organisations beyond the University of Edinburgh involved?
- yes. EdCarp is a collaboration between various institutions in the area, e.g. HWU,
- no central support from any of the institutions - we have access to the resources of our respective institutes.
- [x] Do you get many requests about more advanced material? If so, do you point them or run other workshops like [coderefinery](https://coderefinery.org/lessons/)? something else?
- The SSI is organising something more advanced. Though Greg Wilson comments at CarpentryCon is that such gap should be covered by another type of training (e.g., University training)

6. Workshop organisation process go-through/recap + Q&A (15 minutes) (if there is time, if not - we will leave this for next time)
- workshop slug/id
- finding instructors/helpers
- [instructor sign-up form](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YhTAzEalDqKUowgej7aRa7E1K0XcB6ZezoVUt6VN2qY/edit#gid=266374636)
- announce on [UK carpentry mailing list](https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/local-uk) and [international instructor mailing list](https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/instructors)
- can you pay the training team?
- [register your workshop with The Carpentries](https://amy.carpentries.org/forms/self-organised/)
- why is my workhop not listed at the Carpentries website
- [Carpentries workshop FAQ](https://carpentries.org/workshop_faq/)
- timeline - so you get workshop survey results on time

**Question**: the most recent post in UK topic box for [carpentries workshop signups](https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/local-uk/Tfece4de45672183f) links to a Google doc, all of the workshops are in the US. Is there a list of all the UK workshops? (Callum)
- Have a look at the pages of the spreadsheet (tabs at the bottom) (Shashank) Thanks! Possily hang such a page off the existing Carpentry pages as opposed to reinventing the wheel.
If the link were to the [UK tab](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YhTAzEalDqKUowgej7aRa7E1K0XcB6ZezoVUt6VN2qY/edit#gid=266374636) this could prevent confusion.

**Question**: How many UK institutions are carpentries members? Has anybody got any examples of what it took to join/how it was funded or even examples of attempts which failed?
- [Members of The Carpentries](https://carpentries.org/members/)

7. AOB
- Comment on localised data for the UK from Malvika: Can the Carpentries member orgs maintain some sort of Git page that hosts these details (update workshop dates, and members etc.)?
- Why would we need this? Help with impact and help institutions how to learn their memberships.
- Why would we need this? Help with impact and help institutions how to learn their memberships.
- Mario: Map of member institutions would be a nice idea
- David PS: map of member institutions with a time slider, so you can see how they change ;)
- Malvika: Collaboration Workshop Hack Day idea!
- David PS: query the wikipedia to get the coordinates of the institution, pass it to open street map to visualise little classic building emojis on these. Don't forget the readme, license, howtocollaborate, and the CoC on the repo! and you've got a winning project ;)