March 21, 2018 Meeting Agenda

Archive of Projects/Programs National Advisory Council (NAC)
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Attendees: Chris Alfano, Laura Biediger, Jill Bjers, Emma Burnette, Jason Hibbets, Nina Kin, Dawn McDougall, Janet Michaelis, Neil Planchon, Tom Dooner, Erie Meyer, Hashim Mteuzi, Christopher Whitaker, Veronica Young

Upcoming Calendar (link)

Pre-Summit

Summit

  • More on this next week after Brigade/Summit brainstorming session

NDOCH

  • Scheduled for August 11. Getting some feedback from ex-NAC about the date move to August.

  • Need to start setting up planning workshops

Congress

  • Still in October, no date is set

Onboarding/Offboarding

  • Onboarding (New Captains): Code for BTV- Nick Floersch, Code for Pittsburgh- Ellie Newman & Melinda A, Open Oakland- Joanna Jia, Code for San Jose- Yan-Yin Choy, Code for Boulder- Brandon Minor, Open Austin- Sarah Ortiz Shields, (Coming Soon) Code the South, Code for Alabama- Christopher Horn.
  • Offboarding:
  • Jacket thing: Medium and large jackets are on backorder until August.

Wins/Props

Open Delaware partnering with Boston on member-led projects

Regional Report

West (Neil): Creating Slack channel for #West. Attended Captain/Leader Onboarding For OpenOakland and Boulder. (Nina Kin (NAC), OpenOakland and Boulder leaders attended)

Midwest (Janet): Made Midwest Channel - posted info on events in the region and shout-outs for wins in regional brigades. Roll call of summit attendees - plan to get together there.

Northeast (Dawn): Open Delaware. Month-long hackathon. Educational workshops. Growing list of partners

South (Laura): Possibly hosting first Regional Demo Day. Created Slack channel for South. Setting up calls with brigade leaders (including people who ran for NAC). First 2: Austin, Miami. Code for South (Huntsville, Alabama) joined. Interested in working with colleges, especially HBCUs

  • Discussion: Is discussion in the network about working with Universities, especially HBCUs. (Laura)

One thing we hear from lots of brigades is that it’s devastating if the brigade is too closely associated with a university – the core team leaves during the summer and they have to start from scratch. But!!! It’s a pattern to make sure to develop relationships with professors and invite students to hack nights (Erie)

At-large Focus Areas (what do you want to focus on?)

  • Jason:

    • Brigade Action Team champion

  • Emma:

    • Thinking about best way to connect w/ rural & small brigades. Can someone be a “Brigade of One?” BAT projects can allow lone participants, so what affiliation would that be? Who are in the smallest active brigades, what makes them work? (Laura).
    • Resources for brigade captains & documentation. Talked w Micah (code for BTV) and he has heavy lift w creating resources that might already exist. Starting folder of additional resources that can (hopefully) eventually get incorporated into the Brigade handbook. Basically storing things that otherwise get lost in Slack. Email templates. Press releases. Planning/ wayfinding signs

  • Chris:

    • Project planning (laddr). Connected with Code for SF group working on similar stuff and started trying to share materials. Trying to re-invigorate global taxonomy project. We need a project formation / project matchmaking BAT (I’m unable to lead this).
    • Brigade hosting infrastructure (civic-cloud).
    • Researched some potential sponsors and made initial outreach. Need to start working on format BAT proposal (I’m planning to lead this).

  • Nina:

    • Trust BAT. Met with Jason, I’m ready to help move this forward. We talked about a potential shorter name that would encompass the idea of Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity. We came up with “Trust”, hence… TIDE. Or we can go with something completely different without an acronym. :smiley:
    • Cross brigade collab/networking: Collaborative opportunity with the SoCal Linux Expo to have more brigade members be speakers at next year’s conference as part of the Open Data track. Could be a great way to host a Western regional brigade-oriented event. Will talk to Erie about the possibility of CFA sponsoring brigade speakers to go.
    • NAC et al: Created a public channel with the name Janet suggested (#nac-et-al). Just need to invite people to it (starting with NAC + those that ran for NAC). I’m thinking we send a group email letting them know what’s up at the same time that we invite them to the channel, so that it doesn’t come out of nowhere.

  • Jill:

    • NAC Chair Responsibilities. Set up the agenda. I hope that it makes sense. We will talk about it for a minute or two just so everyone understands what the format is.
    • Pre-Summit and Congress Convenings. You can find more about those in the events section. However, we will be putting a planning meeting on the calendar for a couple of weeks from now.
    • Brigade Recognition: This seems like a lot but most of the work for this is done. Just getting everyone’s love and blessings and then getting the word out. My idea is to present these at Pre-Summit. I’ll share more once me and Christopher have a chance to touch base on budget and stuff. Digital badges will be awarded quarterly.
    • Knowledge Sharing Base: No movement so far but I’m refocusing on this in April and will use the info that we’ve already gather as a jumping off point.

CFA Updates

State collaboratives

California and North Carolina are making state-level collaboratives. We’re excited and supporting them by onboarding them as brigades, and considering how to invest in their growth. (Erie)

Workshops (Veronica)

  • Food Security Projects in the Network, April 9 at 7 ET/ 4 PT

  • Register Here

  • Participants: Code for Philly, Civic Data Alliance, Get Cal Fresh, Hack for LA (confirming now)

  • Monthly Workshops: What do you think? Alternating between Operational and Project-Based

  • Ideas for Upcoming Workshops: government relationships, affordable housing, in kinds, libraries

Website & In-kind software updates (Tom)

Questions for NAC:

Do we want to do another listening “tour” like last year?

  • Jill: I thought it was useful and would be a great way to follow up with Brigades.

  • Nina: What’s this? :smiley:

  • Emma: I like this idea. Was thinking of a listening virtual coffee hour…

  • Dawn: Yes please

Agenda

  • Welcome Back Christopher!

Standing Items to Cover

Health Check-in

  • What this is and how it will run every month

CFA Time

  • Fellowship reboot - Hashim (15 min): This is a working draft, please feel free to share ideas and comments!
    • Concerns re: cities providing funding on such a quick turnaround
    • J.H. : Budget model? Public- private partnerships? - I’d like to see a budget example that includes other partners, more specifically, showing how the gov’t portion of the funding can come from other partners in the private and NGO sectors that align with the project goals. Great idea!
    • Quick Timeline? Trying a new model to ensure diverse participation, and to avoid large run-up costs since fellowships will be shorter in length
    • JH - You could focus on 3-month projects for the initial period
  • CFA and network team overview and FAQs - Christopher (10)
    • Summit Email: Read and comment (even if it just confirmation that you’re read it)
    • Email to push govt partners to register for Summit

NAC Time

  • Headcount - Everyone got the invite to Jen’s House for dinner? Access to Google Drive?
  • Agenda: How it works
    • Non-Discussion vs Agenda
      • Non-Discussion is a read out of what you want to update the group on. This should include regional reports, focus area and special projects.This is only useful if we do more than bullet points. This is also not going to be read out. Read this section as part of your meeting prep time.
    • Agenda is the discussion
    • Answer anything in the Question and Raise Your Hand sections
    • Notes will be taken inside the agenda by Veronica. Though everyone can contribute.
  • NAC Awards
    • Would love a “most likely to re-deploy” award!
    • Reviving! Awards, presented by NAC 1x per year, Badges are achieved at certain milestones
      Q Laura: Are we sharing this with the network?
      A Jill: Yes and no. The current categories have gone through a BAT discussion last year. We will be sharing these with the network for self and other’s nominations. Including a way for them to suggest new categories.
  • Transparency & Output (Jill)
    • What questions have you all been getting? How do we use NAC as a resource?
    • Possible Solutions:
      • Website MVP. It has the URL c4a.me/nac
        • Way that Brigades can use NAC as a resource
        • Emma: suggestion to add in info on each NAC-er
        • Which seat / subject area
        • "You should message me if…" [contact button]
        • Laura: suggestions to add a question and raise your hand section to the website.
        • Add bold/ section headings and how to get involved/help out
      • Meeting Readout: Half Summary, Half Agenda. Also will be posted on Medium
      • Blog Posts
      • Sign up for what month you’d like to write a post about what NACy thing you are doing:
      • Emma: Video or audio content suggestion on top of writing
      • Section in the weekly leadership email
  • Brigade Network Strategic plan update - Laura (5 min)
    • 3-5 year timeframe
    • Include input from brigades and stakeholders (governments, community partners)
    • Help lay out what we’re doing (or want to do) to get where we want to be (probably general goals / objectives- the way individual brigades tie in may vary)
    • Next steps: March / April / May
      • Create pitch / general outline/objectives / “committee” needs
      • Recruit committee members (open call- thru TWICT, Slack, etc.)
      • Develop an outline of the process
      • Present process at Pre-Congress
    • June / July / August / September
      • Implement
    • October
      • Present at Brigade Congress
  • NAC Strategic plan update - Dawn (5 min)
    • 1-2 year timeframe
    • How do we build community, clarity on how NAC works together, synthesizing what we hear from Brigades, captains, and NAC stepping up to address these
    • Jill: How do Brigades us NAC as a resource! hearts
  • BAT pilot discussion - Jason (5 min)
    • Trust BAT + Strategic planning BAT
    • iFoundADog BAT chugging along
    • Reviving D&I committee as Trust BAT
    • Erie: Collaboration models? Branding?..JH Address at Summit?
    • Avoid technical projects during the pilot based on some feedback, but still open to this