Original agenda:

1) Find more members (rest of June)
2) Have an initial planning meeting (some time in July).

Initial meeting goals:

• Identify more online resources, particularly free ones
• Identify particular professors / local people who may be interested in developing a workshop for us
• Assign contacting those local resources to group members; ask them about time frames needed and cost associated (if any)
• Meet again within 2 weeks to report results

3a ) If we’ve found a really good source of free online training resources, provide links to the IT pro community. (The ones I’ve found so far aren’t all that great, but I’m noting them down for future reference.)

3b) If we haven’t found existing free great training, decide among the options produced by the contacts to the local community for further follow-up.

What came out in the meeting:

• Provide templates for people to follow – less intimidating than big blank page
• Provide guidelines on mental reference points and identifying audience
• Yoda says “unlearn, young Jedi” – essay format is not the Platonic ideal, regardless of what your college rhetoric teacher thought
• You don’t learn to program in one one-hour session. You also don’t learn to write in one one-hour session. Make a series that focuses on components of good writing.
• Lots of whiteboard notes on template components and concepts to cover.
• We have a lot of ideas among the group on what would be most useful for IT pros on this campus in particular. Getting those ideas from us, the people who work here, may be more valuable than bringing in trainers who don’t know our specific situation and our specific topics (at least in the short term). First focus will be on developing our own sessions and holding jams. May bring outside speakers on specific topics later.