RG Melbs Coaches Mail

coaches_mail.txt

Hi Coaches,

First and foremost I wanted to thank you for coaching at RailsGirls Melbourne.  These events don't happen without your awesome efforts.

  We noticed a few new faces (as well as some familiar ones :) so we were thinking that it might be good to get together beforehand.  Nothing too formal, or mandatory, just an opportunity to say hello and go over the content a little.  If we meet at Teamsquare (Level 1, 520 Bourke Street) say at 5:30 on the 23rd?  It should take about half an hour.

Before that we also just wanted to let you know a few details about the RG Melbourne event on the 27th/28th.

All coaches:
The event is sold out and there is a waitlist, so don't be surprised to see a *lot* of people.  Also the participants are generally super keen and >90% will be there at on the dot.  You'll get a t-shirt and be introduced by us so people will know who you are.

I know it's probably goes without saying but to be clear the event is covered by the Ruby Australia Code of Conduct (see http://ruby.org.au/code-of-conduct.html) which you're expected to abide by also.

For Rails Girls coaches:
The Friday night installation party is our kickoff, generally we have an ice breaker then we start cranking out dev-ready laptops.  This is super important so we can get going on Saturday as smoothly as possible.  It should be noted we have lost participants who've some in with Windows laptops or ancient OS X machines.  If it all goes sideways we can use https://c9.io off a browser.  So please do reassure people having trouble that there is a way onward.  At some point we will have a talk about how rails and browsers work together to make a web app.  Nothing too heavy.

The Saturday should be pretty straightforward.  After the introductory matters the participants kick off with http://tryruby.org followed by http://guides.railsgirls.com.  After the tutorials the day is relatively freeform, so it's up to the participants where they go but expect there to be some who want to jet to the next level and some who prefer to talk over what's happening.  By about 5PM most participants are about done, so don't expect a super long night.

For Rails Girls Next coaches:
You're erm, stepping into the unknown a little more :)  This is the first time we've run an RGN so we're all going to be learning...

Participants will be invited to come for drinks and networking on the Friday, but won't need to bring their laptops as we're assuming they're ready to rock. It would really help if RGN coaches could also be lend a hand with Ruby installs on the Friday.  
We're expecting a more free-form vibe there and we're breaking it up into three pieces:
1. We'll start with the guides from RGN (see http://guides.railsgirls.com under the Learning more with Rails Girls section).  Right now we're not convinced that we want to do the Sinatra guide (#3) but all the others seem good.  It would be especially helpfull if you could familiarise yourselves with them too :)
2. We think the participants are likely to have a project to do, so we're hoping to get them going on their projects.  
3. A Q&A session.  This is really a bit of a knowledge exchange but we're guessing it'll be jobs and scenario based right now.

Does that all make sense?

Regards
Robert, Jo, Kate and Nicholas