Organizer Kit

Cleveland PyLadies is a volunteer-run branch of the global volunteer-run PyLadies organization. We welcome contributions in many forms, including those interested in joinging our long-term organizer team.

The PyLadies Handbook contains helpful information for prospective organizers, current organizers, & members in general, so that is the first resource to check for existing information on organizer-related needs. If your question is not addressed in the Handbook, check with current or former organizers to see if they've run into the same challenge and can point you in a good direction. We have a #CLEPyLadies channel on the Cleveland Tech Slack, but team email threads or DMs are often more appropriate for internal discussion. The global PyLadies Slack workspace is the next place to ask if you and your team needs guidance on an organizer-related item.

In our early days, as the organizer team ranges from 1 to 3, we've found that quarterly organizer meetings help us set and monitor goals for our community.

Long-term goals:

  • Provide opportunities for women* to engage in professional development in Python. We aim to host 1 meetup per month, but we don't feel like this goal goes unmet during times in which we only host 1-2 meetups in a quarter. Our work-life balance matters, too.

  • Foster a welcoming, beginner-friendly environment for women*

  • Keep our local resources current, relevant, accessible, and presentable.

* When we use single-gender language it is typically for the sake of brevity & flow. Our policy on gender is that we explicitly reach out to women, trans, non-binary, & the PyCurious - but cis men are also welcome to partner with us through participation. We take diversity and inclusion to mean harmony and celebration of our differences, so we do not feel a need to insulate ourselves on the basis of gender. Our measurable goal is to maintain 50+% non-male participation, so we encourage cis males to bring a non-male friend/colleague/partner/progeny to help our outreach efforts and to share the Python love.