Minutes – 1st June – Community Committee Meeting

1st June   Community Committee Meeting            

Date: June 1st 2016 Time: 20:00 – 21:00 IST

Attendees:

• Carmelo Presicce – Bologna CoderDojo, CoderDojo Italia (IT)
• David Campy – CoderDojo South Africa (ZAF)
• Francis – CoderDojo DL (IE)
• Pete O’Shea – CDF, Docklands Dojo (IE)
• Mary Moloney – CDF, Docklands Dojo (IE)
• Ross O’Neill – CDF, Docklands Dojo (IE)
• Giustina Mizzoni- CDF, Docklands Dojo (IE)

Unable to attend:

• Eugene McDonagh – Limerick Dojo (IE)
• John Harrington – CMX (Carrickmacross) Dojo (IE)
• Michael Madden – Athenry Dojo (IE)
• Craig Steele – Glasgow Coderdojo, CoderDojo Scotland (UK)
• David Welch – Louisiana CoderDojo (US)
• Bettina – CoderDojo Belgium (BEL)
• Rob Curran – CoderDojo Wilmslow (UK)
• Shara Karasic – CoderDojo LA (US)
• Nesen Yusel – Coderdojo Turkey (TR)
• Pete O’Shea – CDF, Docklands Dojo (IE)
• Rosa Langhammer – CDF, Docklands Dojo (IE)
• Ross O’Neill – CDF, Docklands Dojo (IE)
• Frank & Josh Westguard, Washington DC Dojo US
• Yohei Yasukawa, Tokyo Dojo JP

Agenda:  

Time Topic Who 20:00 – 21:00 Open discussion and feedback on this years CoderDojo Strategy Plan CDF – Mary

 

Mary:

• Update on the CoderDojo strategy and the current version and context.
  • 1000 dojos that meet at least monthly
  • 700 Projects kids primarily around Europe (a little over a hundred coming over to Ireland)
  • Representation from 63 countries



• Coolest Projects and CoderDojo Global community update.


• Covered the importance of sustaining and support existing Dojos and the next level of leadership in those Dojos.


• Discussing the growth of the global community from Rosa
  • Making it easy for mentors and champions to grow (be encouraging)
  • Don’t heavily rely on people who have been involved for a couple years. Start having the younger coderdojo ninjas turn into mentors. Continuing the movement

Ross:

• 40 dojos in Japan
• 60 dojos in Australia
• Bulgaria, Turkey, Romania
• Growth is happening in areas where they typically haven’t seen growth before due to the initiatives talked about by Mary

Mary:

• We want input and feedback from you on how we run and how we try.
• Growth activities update:
  • We’ve been working on making the brand visible to corporates to encourage others to get involved.
  • Engaging corporates
  • MEP ambassadors
    • Lithuania update: 30 new Dojos

  
  
  • Regional Licence:
    • Members stepping up to be the main contact on behalf of their country.

  
  
  
  

Carmelo:

• Movement is growing globally and going well – (wants information for the activity on the dojos). He knows Italy (72 dojos answer to the survey) – Good barometer
• As he as traveled he as seen a lot of creativity encouraging freedom and others look like a school which may discourage the growth and participants in the movement
• The freedom is good because it expresses a lot of creativity but then the down side is the standards may be laxed and some organizations can have more structure not allowing that creativity
• Outline how a dojo should be structured

Francis:

• We need more mentors and not growth – retention query.
• The ability for the dojos to be sustainable

Mary:

• Discussion on Tao, Content update and what the Foundation is doing to support.
• What makes the dojo learning model important to the dojos model
• Not reinventing the wheel every single week (progression charts)
  • Sushi cards based on advancements



• Making the process convenient for the mentors so they do not have to spend as much time thinking about it


• Cork (dojo 0) encourage kids to develop leadership and mentorship skills to have the kids manage and run the dojos.


• Each dojo has their own unique brand because some can be focused on hardware others on scratch causing HQ to be hands off and allow that self expression but we are creating those tools to help those that do not have a real focused direction to head into

Francis:

• The beauty of the movement is a dojo can just pop – sustainability might be a focus.

• Smaller Dojos that can’t be sustained, perhaps doing a survey to why the Dojo closed.

Mary:

• We manually update and update zen.
• A lot of the feedback mentions it is hard to locate tech mentors.
• Remote mentoring is something that we are looking to us to crack this issue in remote regions. It may not be the mode to be used because some kids want that hands on
• Sometimes it is due to not having the resources to grow

Carmelo:

• Agrees content is important and encouraging kids to youth mentor.
• Challenges can be an issue with what content to engage with the children next.
  • Discussing what to grow from when they started HTML, Scratch.
  • How to have technical people to allow kids to learn on their own



• Recommendation of having videos that show best practices (E+ Videos aim to do this, Tool-Kit, E-Learning Module)


• Sharing pictures/video of how your dojo looks like – (Community Videos, CoderDojo Hereos)


• Offering online workshops that are originally based – showing the importance of relationships creating that human environment

Giustina:

• Explains the current E-Learning module that is currently being built over the summer time to be released in September.
• (Insert E-Learning Information) THe fundamentals of teaching programming, how to get girls more involved in programming, how to start a dojo, collaboration between dojos

Mary:

• Adds to the explanation of why the E-Learning module will help with the different challenges dojos face. That global connection with people from Romania to Lithuania. Simplifying the more technical and relationship things.
• Converting some of the content from safe environment for kids and facilitating the content for the kids where they can step up to be mentors and leaders which helps them develop their own skills

Carmelo:

• “Very excited for this”

Mary:

• We are happy to share this for feedback to help tech people to support kids at Dojos.
• We will share the strategy and planning as time goes on. We are building the foundation

Francis

• Leading by example – An ambassador going to a dojo – (Myself/Pete/Regional Leads/Uber Mentors)

Carmelo:

• Offers his assistance with his research in facilitation and providing the environment for creativity.

Mary:

• We are only as good as the input we get. We do a lot of desk and non desk based teaching that encourages creativity
• Establishing a working group on this is what they need

David Campney

• Enquires about the CoderDojo relationship with Microsoft

Mary: Defines that relationship (Insert definition of our relationship)

• We have a Pan European relationship, supporting us on a couple of foundation initiatives. Hosting dojos within some of  their facilities. BTW Coderdojo is a movement we support and if you have those skills please go and volunteer your skills for them.
• Central and Eastern Europe helping us grow dojos in those countries and we are now trying to expand that into a global relationship

David:

• Talking about utilizing his connections in the situation

Carmelo:

• Enquires what connections or what is the strategy currently, libraries, npo’s, corporations?

Mary: Explains that dojos are currently organically created.

• Government created by funding encouraging the community to join a movement
• Volunteer Created (Champions) researching and developing a dojo on their own
• Overall multiple models created (regional leads to start building and understanding the ideas in the business) Some of these dojos can split and multiply

Carmelo:

• Which connections can dojos use to grow awareness and ask questions for feedback?

Pete:

• Talking about group community call with respective regions and all regions

Mary:

• Case by case basis phone calls and models like investments, creations, volunteers etc.
• Creating the platform to reach all the FAQs

Carmelo:

• More understanding to get more funding or getting budgets for supplies

Mary:

• Challenging notion because of the global distribution in Dublin and out of the office but possibly looking to Microsoft and their distribution centers.
• Look at local partnerships within each of their own respective communities to start fundraising with local businesses

Ross:

• Talking about community and raising awareness for mentors, champions or general volunteers.
• Talking about the committee calls and talking about international times.
• Talking about utilizing input to the directors after the calls. 

Pete: Raising awareness for the global slack channel

Mary: Closing out with warm welcomes, thanks for the inputs.

Call Ended.