[Linux-aus] Grant Application for Rails Girls 2 Brisbane Event

[Robert Regan Feldman]

Dear Linux Australia Council,

The Council were previously generous enough to award a grant towards the
putting on of the first Rails Girls event in Brisbane back in May 2013.
 This was a very positive experience for all involved - both for the
mentors from across the development community in Brisbane (including Ruby,
Linux and .Net) as well the 50 attendees who came from a mix of backgrounds
(technical and non-technical) and from all age groups - from teens to
seniors.

We have set a date and venue for the second Rails Girls event in Brisbane -
15&16 November 2013, back again at River City Labs. Again the core
organisers are myself, Nigel Rausch and Adrian Smith.  We would again like
to apply for a grant from the Linux Australia Council towards the funding
of this event.

The event has a number of aims, including: (a) encouraging women to
participate in a workshop that will introduce many to programming for the
first time, in an open and supportive environment; (b) promoting diversity
by bringing together programming beginners, as well as advanced female
programmers, across a wide range of demographics and socio-economic
backgrounds across SEQ, whilst being supported by experienced RoR mentors,
and (c) strengthening the Ruby community, and more generally the developer
community, in SEQ/Brisbane.  All of these aims were met for Rails Girls 1!

We received some helpful feedback from many of the participants last time
and will be using that to improve the event this time around.
 Specifically, we will look to stream attendees based on past experience,
break attendees into groups of similar experience and will dedicate mentors
to those groups to break down the barrier of asking questions to the whole
group and also assist in faster response times to technical issues.

We have a number of local development businesses supporting this
initiative, plus several sponsors, one of which is Red Hat.  Katie Miller
will work with Red Hat on the details of that sponsorship.  Previously we
received 50 USBs with Fedora images of the Rails environment to assist with
installs on the first evening.

Link to the event is as follows:

http://railsgirls.com/brisbane

Interestingly, Melbourne, Perth and hopefully Sydney will be simultaneously
holding Rails Girls events - so it will be a truly Oz-wide event this time
around.

River City Labs have once again agreed to host the event for free and will
support our marketing efforts too.  We are currently looking for sponsors
to support the provision of food and drink for Saturday (possibly Friday if
RCL can't support).  We have $900 committed from Suncorp.  Expenses from
the last event were $1400, although would have been higher if not for us
cancelling dinner on Saturday night (everyone was ready to go home after a
long day learning). We're therefore aiming to have a minimum total of $1750
in funds, which should cover the event for both days.

Council granted $500 in support last time.  I would ask Council's
consideration to provide up to $850; however, $500 would be a fantastic
contribution.

Myself or Nigel would be more than happy to discuss the event in more
detail.

Regards,

Robert Regan Feldman
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