[candidate-sr2015]Jeremy for Schools

[Jeremy Morse]

Hello Friends,

I’m announcing my candidacy for the Schools position on the Steering
Committee.

If I win the vote, then I will only accept the position if the following
SC positions are filled by the following people:
Engineering: Rich Barlow
Sponsorship: Rob Spanton
Events: Sam Phippen
Schools: Jeremy Morse

If this committee is elected we will run the SR2015 competition event in
a fashion that is identical to SR2014.

I will resign from the committee on the 1st of June.

We have all also agreed to halt the current charity application process.
We expect that it will be halted within the week.

--
Thanks,
Jeremy

[Peter Law]

Hi Jeremy,

Thanks for standing for a committee position and for the effort you
have put in over the last few years in this role.


In your previous application to this post, you highlighted:
> ... the responsibility of ensuring / monitoring that
> schools are continuously making progress throughout the year. Pumping
> information at them and replying to emails is simple; encouraging
> action, measuring progress and detecting problems is much more
> difficult. Some kind of devolvement or delegation will need to occur
> there. Due to the concentration of schools around Southampton, and
> Bristol, this shouldn't be overly complicated.

Since the concentration of schools is no longer quite so centralised
around these towns, I believe you had tried to start remote mentoring,
yet this appears to have stalled. I thought that it was a very good
idea, and was therefore a little disappointed to see it fail. Could
you explain why that has happened?


Separately, there has been a growing recognition within SR that we
should have a more formal framework for handling our interactions with
schools, in order to protect both our mentors and the young people we
interact with. Looking back, I'm therefore a little surprised to note
that you don't seem to have taken part in these discussions at all.

Is a move towards a more formal framework something you'd support? Why?


I sincerely hope that you will consider the topics I've raised here
and respond to each.

Thank you,

Peter

[1] https://groups.google.com/d/topic/srobo/Mry-pwP_4ag/discussion

[Jeremy Morse]

Hi Peter,

On 25/01/15 16:37, Peter Law wrote:
> Since the concentration of schools is no longer quite so centralised
> around these towns, I believe you had tried to start remote mentoring,
> yet this appears to have stalled. I thought that it was a very good
> idea, and was therefore a little disappointed to see it fail. Could
> you explain why that has happened?

Mostly because I suddenly became unpopular and haven't really had any
motivation to make this happen.

> Separately, there has been a growing recognition within SR that we
> should have a more formal framework for handling our interactions with
> schools, in order to protect both our mentors and the young people we
> interact with. Looking back, I'm therefore a little surprised to note
> that you don't seem to have taken part in these discussions at all.
>
> Is a move towards a more formal framework something you'd support? Why?

That'd be great. Except it's meaningless if it can’t be enforced --
no-one currently has the authority to eject people for misbehaviour, to
place binding obligations on people to whom responsibility is given, or
otherwise govern what is done in the name of "Student Robotics". And I
have no confidence that anyone has the stomach for that now.

Regardless, I'm not intending on doing any SR things past June (see
email), so this is irrelevant to me. My only motivation for standing is
delivering the competition experience I committed to at the start of the
year, particularly the financial liquidity that SR has relied on for
several years (and which I can't provide without confidence that I'll
actually get it back, hence the lock-in with people who have a record of
delivering).