NodeSchool mentorship

[danpaz]

📢 📢 📢 I wanted to get some discussion going around:

• how to get more mentors on board
• what it means to be a mentor with NodeSchoolDC
• how many mentors we need

Afaik the only mentors right now are the organizers, and there is no process for a member wanting to become a mentor to do so. Mentors are key to sustaining and growing the community we've built with NodeSchoolDC.

How I think we should recruit mentors:

• Announce at events that we're looking for mentors, have them speak to one of the organizers about it
• Approach members we see attend the events repeatedly -- they're already primed for mentorship
• Have clear roles/responsibilities drawn up so prospective mentors know what to expect

What I think mentors should be responsible for:

• Introducing themselves as someone to ask for help during nodeschool events
• Committing to attending approx. every other nodeschool event, or as many events as possible
• Completing a certain number of workshoppers, minimum probably learnyounode, javascripting, etc. so they can answer questions about them
• Maybe helping out with spreading the word about future events?
• In the future we could formalize mentorship further by pairing new members with a mentor to work with them even outside of nodeschool events.

How many mentors I think we need:

• As many as possible!
• I'd love to shoot for ~10 at first, that's about 1 mentor to every 3-4 members at a typical event

Related:

• NodeSchool Mentor Nights #41
• NodeSchool guidance on mentorship

Please share your thoughts, thanks all!

[JuanCaicedo]

Random thought, but do you think the RSVP medium has an effect on this? Both Toronto and Baltimore use TiTo instead of meetup, which lets you sign up specifically as a mentor

[danpaz]

That's a good thought, I bet that does have some effect. Meetup lets you ask members a question when they RSVP, we could try using that to ask if they want to attend as a mentor.

[danpaz]

nodeschool/oakland#24 this approach could work 😸

[danmactough]

nodeschool/oakland#24 this approach could work

💯