Meetings & Events

pyOpenSci meetings

pyOpensci staff regularly attend community meetings (e.g. SciPy meeting, PyCon US, etc). If the meeting is in person, some of the staff may be in person at the event while the community manager / others might be supporting the event remotely.

In these instances, asynchronous communication and sharing of documents in an organized way is critical.

Event documents

For every meeting, pyOpenSci staff should create a Google Drive folder, located in our pyos-shared drive, where meeting documents will be stored. These documents may include talk and workshop proposals, attendee signup lists, graphics used in social media and outreach posts and more content related to the event.

Before an event, pyOpenSci staff will make sure this folder is shared and supporting documents are added to it. Often the folder will be created prior to the event to store talk, BoF (birds of a feather), Townhall and workshop proposals.

Team check in prior to an event

Staff should also have a short check-in prior to an event to ensure that all documents, and elements needed for the event, are shared in the right place, appropriate permissions are granted, remote support needs for the event are clarified, etc.

Because the internet might be an issue sometimes at an event, whomever is leading the event should always bring a pen and paper.

Event social media and graphics

The community manager will manage online “comms” and social media during an event. However, it is important for whomever is attending the event in person to be in asynchronous communication via the pyOpenSci Slack about key activities, findings, new cool things, etc. to be posting about, promoting and highlighting.

In some cases, an event might “pop up” last minute–such as an Open Space at PyCon. In this case, the person attending the event may want to modify and reuse graphics posted on social media to publicize the event.

To support this case, an event folder in our online graphics platform, Canva, should be created prior to the event and shared with the pyOpenSci team. This event-specific folder will be where all graphics used to promote an event, both before, during and after, are stored. Using Canva as a central location for graphics makes it easier for the person at the event to make a quick change to a graphic, add a room number or a time for a pop up event, notify of any change in plans, etc. as needed.

Share the Canva folder with the pyopensci-canva-team

Be sure to share the Canva folder with the pyOpensci-canva-team on Canva to ensure that the entire team has edit access to the graphics and can make last minute changes as needed! Please also be sure to name files using expressive words that make them easy to find / use / reuse.

Preparation prior to an event

Prior to an in-person sprint, the following items should be created:

1. A template “sign up” form, created in HubSpot and shared via a bit.ly shortlink, with data fields that we collect from participants. This allows us to track who attends and event and to followup with them after (if they wish to have communication with us after)

2. A tabletop “card” that says pyOpenSci. You will need 2-3 cards on hand for any event in case participants are spread across a few tables. This card will be important for events like sprints, workshops and open spaces where pyOpenSci has one or more tables in a large room. It will signal to contributors that we are there and help people quickly find us.

• The card should have a qr code that is dynamic (so we can update the url that it points to and reuse the cards). This will allow us to have participants scan the code using their phones, and add their names as participants in the event. Following the event we can then send a thank you message to each participant using MailChimp or HubSpot.