<div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Dear Linux Australia Council,</div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
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.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">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.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">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!</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">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.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">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.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Link to the event is as follows:</div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br>
</div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><a href="http://railsgirls.com/brisbane" target="_blank">http://railsgirls.com/brisbane</a><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">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.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">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. <br>
</div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">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.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Myself or Nigel would be more than happy to discuss the event in more detail.</div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Regards,</div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Robert Regan Feldman</div>
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