Inaugurating the Bristol subcategory I suppose this will be mainly read by people from Bristol, so I will write in that way, although I am of course happy for others to join the discussion.
Still, as an explanation for those who don’t know: About half a year ago, my friend Gicela and I already set up a kind of “hands-on learning community” which we called CodeHub. - I then came across the OTS website, and immediately loved the concept and the values.
So we have been wondering how we can keep the CodeHub going as it is, and still become linked to and part of Open Tech School. Chatting to Gicela, we had this thought: Our meetups are once a months during business hours at the moment (they were meant especially for freelancers and others working on their own). But we are now looking into organising workshops in the evenings, too. So we thought we could do those under the name of Open Tech School, while CodeHub refers to the morning group.
We have a meetup.com group for CodeHub already, and were thinking that we could keep just this group if possible, as it would really be the same people interested. But we would add Open Tech School to it, either in the name or “In association with”
I’d like to hear people’s opinion on this. But it will also probably become clearer as we go along, whether it should actually be two separate things, or just one group.
im curious-- what the difference is between CodeHub and OTS. do you guys have
a mission or principles that differ , is it also open-source material that you produce?
would be interested to know more-- thanks in advance!
CodeHub is a monthly meet up with very similar principles to OTS. However, as Katja mentioned we are very small, so we are happy to join OTS and hope to contribute towards the Open Learning Community. Right now, we use github where we post some of the stuff we talk about at meetups http://codehuborg.github.io/
So I have been a bit silent but thinking quite a bit about becoming part of OpenTechSchool and have made some moves towards bigger workshops, see http://www.meetup.com/CodHub-Bristol/. But so far we just leave it to people giving the workshop to organise it any way they want it. So I guess it is a slightly different format than having a workshop with several coaches. But I hope to organise those, too.
What are further steps towards becoming OTS Bristol?
I also have a question regarding the venue: Do people mostly have a dedicated venue for this ? Always the same for all the workshops, learning groups etc. Or do you organise per workshop. And what kind of venues do you choose?
You have probably already been referred to our City Blueprint handbook. But here it is again.
Regarding the venue: In Berlin, we have a few workshops at different venues, but our main place is the awesome co.up coworking space. They not only support OTS, but many user groups and tech-related meetups with their space.
Thanks for your post haiko and please excuse the very slow response!
Anyway, things are happening, and more ideas forming. We have had a few more meetups and last night the first evening workshop on Git and GitHub. There are also a few more people interested in helping.
One question I now have is: If we want to be on the website, can we just follow this guide Adding an OTS chapter web page and then do a pull request on the repository? Or would somebody give us access to it?
Oh, btw thanks so much for putting us on the map! Of course in that way we are already on the website
I had a discussion with a friend about the name again, because there still is some confusion about it. I have now for me come to the conclusion: CodeHub = OTS Bristol . It would just have two names. It is difficult to get rid of the old one, because we’ve always used it. But it can just be something like CodeHub/OTS Bristol or CodeHub (OTS Bristol) or OTS Bristol (CodeHub)
So, if that is okay with you, we would start thinking about what to put on the website, and then go ahead with it?
Psst. Don’t tell anyone. We are just reading the meetup-API for anyone saying “OpenTechSchool” and show them there. We have quite a few teams, who’ve never set up their own Team page (like Tel-Aviv and San Fran) but wanted to give them exposure, too, that’s why.
But yes, if you want your own Page a PR is enough. If you want access to the OTS github data, of course I can also add you and anyone you tell me about to be committers for the github organisation. But even in that case we prefer to have a review process for everything going on the website or blog.
Have just added another team member to my pull request Four of us now. Is there anything else I need to do? There’s a green tick next to it, so it could be merged? - Have plan to do a Python beginners workshop in January, to finally do a ‘proper’ OTS workshop.
It was great to be in Berlin for the Hackership presents event in August! Hope I can come again.
We are doing a JS event tomorrow, I see you have a whole fest at the same time
I suppose this will be mainly read by people from Bristol, so I will write in that way, although I am of course happy for others to join the discussion.