May 16, 2018 Meeting Agenda

Archive of Projects/Programs National Advisory Council (NAC)
1

Attendees: Jill Bjers, Dawn McDougall, Chris Alfano, Jason Hibbets, Emma Burnett, Neil Planchon, Nina Kin, Janet Michaelis, Laura Biediger, Erie Meyer, Christopher Whitaker, Hashim Mteuzi, Veronica Young, Tom Dooner

Pre-Meeting Updates

Upcoming Calendar

  • Pre-Summit (May 30)
  • NDOCH (August 11)
  • Congress (October)

Upcoming Workshops/Meetings

  • June 9: NC Open Pass Community Action Day

Brigade onboarding / offboarding

  • Onboarding- Code for PDX (Portland!)

Attendee Updates (pre-meeting)

NAC Updates

  • West Regional Updates:
  • Midwest Regional Updates:
    • Ohio is holding 1st Open Data Demo Day in capitol 5/23
  • Northeast Regional Updates:
    • Working on getting Philly City folks to Summit
    • Putting out word for lightning talks at Summit
    • Getting some more traction on check-ins, another wave of outreach on Slack
    • Supporting NearGreen on community fellowship
      • TODO: exercise for NAC meeting at Summit
      • TODO: work on strategic plan
  • South Regional Updates:
    • Created “South Region” folder in NAC- contains notes from my conversations with South Region brigades
    • So far, I’ve spoken with Austin, Savannah, Houston, Tulsa, New Orleans, Ft. Lauderdale, Tampa Bay. Plus DC. Upcoming: Hampton Roads, Orlando
    • Themes in Challenges:
      • Member / attendee onboarding / retention getting people to come back (retain people who come post- coding camp)
        • How do we grow our core people?
        • How do we make it enticing to bring people back?
        • How do we get volunteers involved and sustainable?
        • How do we onboard / get people to join projects?
        • How do we build / improve relationship with local government?
      • Need better / more communication from CfA
      • Looking for project ideas / lack of initiatives
      • How do establish a state network?
      • How do we reach out to people we want at this table? / Get people in the room
  • Jason
    • BAT Champion Updates: Will cross-check new submission for knowledge sharing BAT next week
  • Emma
    • Rural Brigade Updates:
      • Started a resources folder to add/ update Brigade handbook. Got some materials from Open Oak & Others that Mica from BTV (Burlington VT) was asking for
      • Intro convo about twitter takeover. Focusing on wins and stories from smaller areas.
      • Small is very loosely defined. Mostly want to amplify the diversity of brigade experiences. Would love any examples that you think other Brigades would be especially in to hearing from.
      • Facilitating a group on “Working in Smaller Locales” at summit and aiming to get content there. Welcome suggestions of good people to talk to. Ultimately more about showcasing the weird & different/ not “one size fits all” way to promote civic tech
    • Mediation/Inclusion
      • A few Slack/side convos about interpersonal/slack issues
      • Had long slack convo w Lizzie from DC about the lightning talks form. Reassured her about feeling welcome to share feedback like that, and also encouraged about coming to summit (Slack sometimes sucks for hard convos) Excellent example of impact > intent with that form design.
        • If you didn’t see slack convo, Lizzie brought up strong objections to the way form was worded. Original submission form had people write out/ click either “male/not male” and “white/not white” (IIRC)
        • Suggested & we are changing larger slack channel from “ladies” >> tbd/something more inclusive of nonbinary folx. That has been an open & smooth process.
      • Sat in on mediation with the Louisville/ CDA folks
      • Prep for intervention training w Laurenellen
  • Chris
    • Civic Cloud Updates:
      • Momentum building
      • Need to start thinking about BAT charter
    • Project Planning Updates:
      • Momentum building
      • Need to find someone to lead BAT charter
  • Nina
    • IDEA BAT Updates:
      • The proposal is a lot more fleshed out, I’m pushing them to get it submitted in time to launch the BAT at Summit or right after.
    • Cross brigade collaboration Updates:
      • Working with Patrick Atwater on a potential BAT for crowdsourcing images to run street quality analysis for proposing bike infrastructure improvements.
      • “Code for California” will likely merge with the existing California Civic Lab/OpenCalifornia group (CA Civic Lab · GitHub). We’re interested in talking to the NC peeps on setting up a governance model.
      • I love the recent talk about how we run our projects in the #bat-matchmaking channel. I’m working on creating a standard internally at Hack for LA. Not sure if anyone is leading the effort for this as a BAT, but leveraging different brigade experiences to come up with a series of standard project models would be interesting. OH, is this Chris?!
      • I’m excited we’re going to have a FUSE Fellow who works with the LA County’s CIO at Summit. I don’t know anyone else within our County government who is going, but I’m trying to get some of them to put it in their budget for next year.
  • Jill
    • Chair Updates:
    • Brigade Recognition: Officially requesting a BAT onboarding and filled out the google form.
    • Knowledge Sharing Updates:
      • Would like a physical poster at Brigade Day and Lounge to ask the question: What would incentivize you to contribute to a Knowledge Sharing Base?

CFA Updates

  • Network Team Focus
    • Summit + Fellowships
  • Erie
    • Transition work!

Questions for NAC (ideally answer by each NAC member)

  • Do you have all the resources and ownership that you need to work on your respective focus areas?
    • Nina - at this point yes, I don’t think anything I’m working on requires any additional resources yet.

Raise Your Hand NAC (these are items that should be shared tasks)

  • Pre-summit NAC happy hour?
    • Currently, Jill has reached out to Woods and is negotiating the cost to reserve space. However, Tom says space is large enough that we might not need reserved space.
    • Is there programming that anyone wants to do? Icebreaker/games would be cool but someone needs to organize them.

Agenda

Standing Items to Cover

-Health Check-in (15 min)
- Everyone good? Neil, Nina, Janet, Laura, Emma, Chris, Jason, Dawn, Jill

  • What was successful this month?
    • Dawn having an uptick in reaching out to Brigades in her region (whoo!)
    • Laura- Code for Durham working with Bloomberg Innovation Team on Amnesty project, able to work with City Hall (which is a great development!), tackling fines that are keeping folks from getting a Driver’s License
    • Code for Philly got a new Co-Director (Toni McIntyre)
      • Having a Demo Night, trying to live stream
  • Do you need anything to increase your “health”?

NAC Time

  • Our in-person meeting on 5/29 at 2:30pm PST @ TBD (10 mins)
    • Dawn will do a team exercise
      • 60-75 minute exercise
    • Anyone else has things they want to do or discuss while in person?
      • Neil: caucusing from folks in person
      • Christopher: We can use space at the Marriott
      • Christopher to email Jill/Neil about space on Thursday
  • NAC Happy Hour (5 min)
    • Does anyone want to own doing something like an icebreaker or games?
      • Regional games
      • Dawn: a way for folks to introduce themselves and engage? Might be helpful for folks that are introverted
      • Props?
      • Local area brigade members at the social?
      • Emma needs a partner: Regional games at HH!
    • Goal: Drink and talk to people
  • Summit Buddies
    • Jill and Dawn will be working on matching those this week
      • Matching folks not in the same brigade, not in the same region
      • Need volunteers to be a buddy for more newbies
      • Staff the lounge to be good Point of Contact
  • Et-al group
    • The email went out this morning.

CFA Time

  • Network Director Transition - ST (10 mins)
    • How the hiring process will go: hiring for pretty much same role Erie led, open and transparent process, NAC please provide input if desired
    • Transition time: hoping to have someone in place by September, ST will oversee Network team in meantime, though some things will be paused during the hiring process
  • Fellowship Update - Hashim (10 mins)
    • 24 applications from 21 different Brigades (we were expecting 10)
    • Down to 14 finalists; we’re interviewing them now
    • Final selections will be in the next week, 3 - 5 winners announced June 1st
      • How can NAC be involved, would love to have structured asks of the NAC?
  • Summit Update - Christopher (20 mins)
    • Brigade Day / Summit Updates
      • 80% of Brigades now represented at the CfA Summit
      • 67 Brigade leaders traveling to Summit w/ travel funds
      • NAC Dinner at 6:30 pm on May 29th at Jen’s House
      • Brigade Lounge Set!
        • 4 couches, 12 barstools, 5 charging cubes, 2 big tables, 4 coffee tables, and 8 chairs
        • We’ll place any leftover stickers from Brigade Day all over the place.
        • Volunteer Schedule Set!
    • Laurenellen Training - Blurb here!
      • Sign Me Up: Jill, Jason, Dawn, Emma, Neil, Veronica, Erie
  • MOU Review Updates (3 mins)
  • After the Summit update: Is there anything that you’d like to see at Summit that we haven’t included?