Organizer checklist

Checklist for organizing a small contribution event

1. Have signage so people know they are in the right location.
2. Be really nice to new folks.
3. Welcome each person who comes, introduce yourself, introduce everyone else. Say IRL (in real life) names and usernames. Write down names where people can all see them. Point them to the attendee checklist page.
4. Tell people if there will be lunch. (Write it down where you are writing down other announcements cause people will come in late and they will be able to catch up.)
5. Write down WiFi and password.
6. Get people on Slack in #contribute (or another designated chat channel/platform for the event). Because, even when working in-person, Slack is handy to share links and use the bot. And remotely, you get to coordinate, get help, and joke with Drupalers. Also, when participants get used to Slack, then after the event they can continue to stay connected. Write down the Slack channels.
7. Get to know the attendees, ask them questions, and then help them choose tasks that are good matches to them.
8. Match participants with simple tasks. Especially their first task should be simple so they have success and give them confidence to stay engaged and keep trying.
9. Tell participants when they begin to work on issues, to make a comment on the issue saying what they are about to do. This helps to avoid duplicate work.
10. Advise participants to reload issue pages before making a comment to see if someone else has commented since the last time they loaded the page.
11. Ask participants to paste links to issues they are going to start work on into Slack. (This helps communicate with people around the world, and also makes a record for the organizer of who is working on what.)
12. Tell participants that it is encouraged make comments on Drupal.org issues to: ask questions, give intermediate results, etc.
13. Have participants work in groups, it encourages collaboration in the community and can help mentors if there are many participants.
14. Show participants their drupal.org profile page. Have them add information about themselves and their mentors. Show them their "dashboard" and how to turn on email notifications for issues they follow.
15. Take pictures (ask permission), and write down who is there.
16. Thank everyone. Celebrate successes, especially small ones.

Checklist for organizing a large contribution event

1. Arrive early
2. Locate supplies
3. Place supplies and signs (make any missing signs)
4. Mentors put on sticker name tags: use a thick marker to write your name and drupal.org username on a sticker name tag that can be placed on your shirt (the badges hang below the table edge, and people cannot see them)
5. Pre-event mentor huddle
6. Select people for workshop vs. mentored contribution room and greetings
7. Begin event
8. Have participants get sticker name tags (badges hang below the table edge and people cannot see them)
9. Have each participant take a stack of all the task cards
10. Announce to the whole room
    • What will the day be like in general
    • Tell folks to chat in Slack, Say hi to their mentor in #contribute
    • Set expectations
    • It might take a while to find an issue
    • We want participants to do the finding, not be handed an issue and why
    • Many people 3-5 working on one issue (bug, needs work or needs review) use tags (novice, topical)
    • Explain the use of task cards (we should get words for this ahead of time.
11. Take attendance. Record time, room, and attendance counts in the event signup Google spreadsheet. Tweet attendance and photo.
12. Instruct photographers
    • Remind to ask permission
    • Get close ups with diverse and happy people (not all serious)
    • Post to flickr, get their flickr profile ids of photographers
13. Move people from the workshop to the core contribution room. Explain they have graduated from set-up and can now go to the other room to contribute to the project.
14. Room announcement:
    • Fill out profile
    • Work together
    • Announce when lunch will be
15. Mentor huddle
16. Confirm with the committer the estimated time of live commit (make a Google calendar invite)
17. Check on participants
    • Make sure they post a comment
    • Encourage partial/WIP patches/reviews.
18. Add RTBC candidates to Google spreadsheet
19. Introduce the event sponsor so they can thank the participants and repeatedly mention their company name.
20. Lunch
21. Review RTBC candidate issues
22. Mentor huddle
23. Have the mentor and participants go to an experienced mentor and say what all they did (mentors hand out stickers)
24. Triple check RTBC candidates
25. Remind people to update their profile (with mentor info)
26. Make sure people post their particular work, and make comments with questions (is ok to later make another comment answering own questions)
27. Take attendance (again)
28. Show participants their d.o dashboard
29. Room announcement (repeat things that their table mentors have likely said or demonstrated):
    • Review accomplishments (expectations, partial work)
    • Update profile
    • Post partial work
    • Dashboard
    • Going forward: extended contribution events, at home, set expectations for issues getting "fixed"
    • Live commit
30. Pick a live commit issue. Make sure at least one new contributor who worked on the issue will stay for the live commit
31. Show live commit issue to committer 30 mins before live commit
32. Announce in all the rooms there will be a live commit at XX:YY
33. Hand out stickers
34. at XX:YY re-announce and encourage people to move to live commit area
35. Take mentor picture before live commit
36. XX:YY live commit. get *all* participants in live commit issue on stage (new contributors, experienced contributors, mentors)
37. Lots of folks will leave at this point. totally fine.
38. The remaining participants and mentors go back to tables
39. Introduce participants to topical tables/maintainers/experienced contributors
40. Help people "finish"
41. End. Ask people to leave the room. Check the room for power cords or other valuables.
42. Break
43. Dinner (mentor thank you dinner)