[candidate-sr2015] Tom Leese for Committee

[Tom Leese]

Hi,

I am applying for the Community role on the new steering committee.

For those who don't know me, I joined Student Robotics in late 2013 after being

a competitor for two years and I've thorougly enjoyed my time here so far. I've

helped to organise mentoring in Southampton, I designed and built the tablet

software during an internship earlier this year and I've been involved in the

competition software.

It is my belief that Student Robotics has a real problem of low volunteer

recruitment and retention. I think that we have a poor demographic of

volunteers at the moment, whereby the majority are software, hardware or

'techincal' people and we simply don't have enough mentors. Obviously, all

volunteers we have at the moment are extremely helpful and shouldn't stop what

they're doing, but I believe we need to recruit more volunteers in just a

mentor or helper capacity. Student Robotics shouldn't just be for the students

taking part (although that, of course, is a large part of it) it should also be

for people who are interested in learning a bit about robotics by mentoring

teams and helping them along the way. I believe I am capable of solving this

problem; and whether I get elected or not I will be working on a mentoring

organisation tool to improve the current situation.

I've also sort-of become the defacto person to ensure SR(A)WNs get sent out

on a fortnightly basis. I don't want to claim all the credit for this, I did

not personally have the idea for SR(A)WN; but I think most people would agree

I've been a frequent contributor and led doing activities to get SR(A)WNs

written. I think it's an excellent way to keep people informed about what's

going on in SR at the current moment in time and it means people who are less

active get an opportunity to catch up be reading a single email. I would also

like to expand upon SR(A)WNs to keep a record of them somewhere more accessible

than a mailing list to ensure people can get to them whenever they would like

to check on what's been happening.

I believe I have the ability to stay impartial with regards to contentious

issues, while also making sure my opinion is heard. I think this is important

in keeping the community together as a whole and making sure everyone can work

together successfully.

I have two main goals in mind when I apply for this role. Firstly I would like

to improve how the community works together by making sure more activity days

happen. I believe they are a fantastic way to get volunteers working together

and getting to know one another in a less 'emotion-less' setting that is IRC,

Trac or the mailing list. Secondly, I would like to dramatically improve

volunteer recruitment, and especially when it comes to mentors. I am personally

for the idea of letting the Southampton branch become a union society that will

allow us to advertise at the main society recruitment fair at the beginning of

the year. I also believe we should be doing more to advertise for volunteers

not necessarily part of a university. I think we need to improve the

documentation we have for new volunteers, and specifically I would like to

produce a 'volunteer handbook' in a similar spirit to that of the Valve New

Employee Handbook [0] that should reduce the enormous learning curve there is

to getting involved in SR at the moment.

Thank you for taking the time to read my candidate application.

Tom

[0] http://media.steampowered.com/apps/valve/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf

[Tom Leese]

Oops, as pointed out by someone, the title should be 'Tom Leese for Community'.

I have no intentions to run as the entire committee...

[Peter Law]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for standing for a committee position.

> It is my belief that Student Robotics has a real problem of low volunteer
> recruitment and retention. I think that we have a poor demographic of
> volunteers at the moment, whereby the majority are software, hardware or
> 'techincal' people and we simply don't have enough mentors.

As I understand things at the moment (based on history and what I
recall from a previous Tech Day), the Bristol branch has almost the
reverse situation. They seem to have quite a number of mentors, but
few technical people.

I don't think that is a problem, though it might be interesting to
find out what they do to recruit and keep the mentors!

One thing I have found a bit of a problem is that very few people from
the Bristol branch seem to take part in mailing list discussions. This
could be just a result of me not knowing where people are from, though
it does typically feel (to me) like organising things in co-ordination
with them is harder as a result.

What are your thoughts in this area?

Peter

[Tom Leese]

Hi Peter,

On 2015-01-24 11:03, Peter Law wrote:
> As I understand things at the moment (based on history and what I
> recall from a previous Tech Day), the Bristol branch has almost the
> reverse situation. They seem to have quite a number of mentors, but
> few technical people.
>
> I don't think that is a problem, though it might be interesting to
> find out what they do to recruit and keep the mentors!

This is certainly not a problem, and as I'm mainly based in Southampton
I tend to see more of the situation there so I may miss things like
this. I do think, however, that across the whole of SR (if you were to
take an 'average') there is a lack of mentors even if the branches have
different proportions of volunteers. It would be really good to get more
volunteers that are more spread out around the country (rather than just
based in Bristol, Southampton or London) so that it becomes easier to
visit schools on a more regular basis. Particularly, I'm thinking about
recruitment of more people that are not necessarily at the specific
university.

> One thing I have found a bit of a problem is that very few people from
> the Bristol branch seem to take part in mailing list discussions. This
> could be just a result of me not knowing where people are from, though
> it does typically feel (to me) like organising things in co-ordination
> with them is harder as a result.

This is certainly something I would agree with. I think one of the main
aims of Activity Days (such as the one Lilafisch is organising for the
end of this month) is to get volunteers who don't necessarily interact
(because they are based in different physical locations) together as a
group. In my opinion, this sort of thing will help people use the other
forms of communication, such as the mailing list, because they know the
people they're talking to better.

Tom

[Lila Fisch]

Hi,

This is certainly something I would agree with. I think one of the main aims of Activity Days (such as the one Lilafisch is organising for the end of this month) is to get volunteers who don't necessarily interact (because they are based in different physical locations) together as a group. In my opinion, this sort of thing will help people use the other forms of communication, such as the mailing list, because they know the people they're talking to better.

Sadly this is not working out too well, because without the mailinglist it is also pretty hard to get information to people.

A better means of reaching all blueshirts at least to spread information to all is something we will probably need.

Cheers
lilafisch