STEMGamechangers

Everything you need to run your own STEM Gamechangers event! 😃 👍 ✨

This repo is a work in progress at the moment, but if you are interested in running your own STEM Gamechangers, please get in contact with one of the STEMGamechangers organisers.

9 months before:

• Get your organising committee together! 👋 There were 6 of us organising STEM Gamechangers 2018 at the Alan Turing Institute. That worked well for us although the best number for you will depend on how experienced individuals are and how much time they have available.
• Create a Slack channel for the organisers to communicate before, during and after the event 💬
• Start looking for funding by contacting companies, universities, learned societies and outreach funds 💰. Beware that the best time to apply for funding will vary depending on the organisation- some organisations will have deadlines. Our event budget can be found in the file ‘budget.xlsx’, overall our event cost about £9000 (including £3000 funding for the projects). You may need funding for: a venue, catering, drinks for a networking reception with funders after the project pitches, a social event on day 1 in the evening, a video/podcast, prizes for the winning teams, speaker expenses (travel and accommodation), travel/accommodation/childcare expenses for participants to apply for.
• Find a venue to host the event- ours was hosted by the Alan Turing Institute. Ideally you should be able to find somewhere to host it for free. You will need internet connection and the venue should be accessible for disabled people. You will also need a projector and to know how to use it.

6 months before:

• Once you have a venue and enough funding to cover the essentials, set a date for the event 📆
• Create a budget for the event. This may change, particularly if extra funding becomes available- keep applying for extra funding and keep the budget updated.
• Invite speakers 💬. We had four speakers. It is important to make sure that the speakers come from diverse backgrounds so that they represent the participants. Ask the speakers whether they will need travel/accommodation expenses.
• Create a website for the event :laptop:. For our website we used an openly available template, which can be found at: https://github.com/STEMGamechangers/STEMGamechangers.github.io. It was built based on the Event Jekyll Theme which was created by Melvin Ch'ng. It is used under the GPL 3.0 license.
• Create an application form for potential participants. We used the google form available here.
• Decide on the criteria for selecting participants. The criteria we used were based on how much we felt participants would bring to the event by being there. Include a question asking whether participants are happy to be contacted by the organisers (for GDPR purposes).
• Create a Twitter/Facebook account for your event (or speak to Sarah Morgan, [email protected], about using the STEM Gamechangers Twitter and Facebook accounts).

3 months before:

• Launch a call for participants. Give people at least 1 month to apply 📆. Advertise the call widely- via social media, by emailing relevant mailing lists etc 📌 📣. Make sure that people from a wide range of backgrounds are aware of the call- academia and industry, also women, people from the LGBT+ community, disabled people and ethnic minorities. An example email which we sent to mailing list owners to advertise the event can be found at: Mailing list request.docx
• Decide what criteria you will use to select applicants. We selected applicants on the basis of how much we felt they would bring to the event (including willingness to get stuck in and work on projects, i.e. being good team players, not just experience of running diversity in STEM initiatives).
• Invite facilitators. We had 3 or 4 facilitators, who helped the participants with their projects during the event. They should be people you know and can rely on. You can also invite people from relevant organisations to be facilitators.
• Invite potential investors/press to the project pitches in the afternoon on day 2. An example invitation email can be found at: ‘pitch_invite.docx’.
• Decide whether you want anyone to take photos/podcast/write blogs/video your event 📷 🎥. If so, organise for that to happen (people, equipment etc). Someone from the Cambridge women in physics group (CiW) volunteered to create a podcast for our event. The Turing Institute asked some of their staff to take photos and film.

2 months before:

• Close the call for participants and review the applications. Make sure successful applicants’ demographics are representative of the people who applied. Inform applicants whether their application was successful- we used three categories- successful applicants, unsuccessful applicants and a waiting list. We received just over 80 applicants and we accepted 40. We kept 10 applicants on a waiting list and invited a couple closer to the time after a couple of successful applicants dropped out.
• Create a code of conduct . Ours is available here, which you are very welcome to use. It was created by Dr Kirstie Whitaker, please credit Kirstie if you do use it.
• Finalise the agenda. Ours can be found here.
• Organise the catering 🍕.

1 month before:

• Email all participants with a link to the Slack channel, the code of conduct, agenda and guidance for getting to the venue on the day etc. Ask them for any other info you need- e.g. 3 keywords to go on their name badge, dietary req.s.
• Make sure any dietary req.s are catered for.
• Send the facilitators a facilitators’ guidance document, outlining what is expected from them during the event. Ours can be found here. Also send the facilitators the code of conduct. Create a facilitators’ Slack channel for facilitators to ask any questions they might have and communicate with the organisers.
• Communicate with speakers to check what they might need in terms of travel/accommodation expenses.
• Communicate with pitch attendees to make sure they know where/when to arrive etc.
• Ask a few of the pitch attendees if they are happy to judge the pitches. Try to find judges from a diverse range of backgrounds. Give the judges guidance on what they should award prizes for (and how much money they can award). We briefed our judges that pitches should be judged based on their potential impact, not the amount of money they need.
• Purchase any stash/goodies you want- e.g. T-shirts for organisers, pin badges etc 👕.
• Make sure you have all the stationery you need- e.g. pens, paper, post-it notes ✏️.
• Make sure you know how the room(s) will be set out, arrange for whiteboards etc if wanted.
• Make name badges. Ours included: name, institution, our sponsors, 3 keywords of things you’re interested in and pronouns (we had pronoun stamps so that participants could add their own pronouns to their badge). We also had different coloured lanyards available for anyone who didn’t want to be filmed or photographed.
• Plan who will introduce which parts of the event and talk through exactly what will happen when with the other organisers.
• Make sure you know how wifi can be accessed, how the venue can be accessed by disabled people and where the toilets are etc. Also how any AV equipment/projectors work. Is there a laptop at the venue or are you bringing your own? Do you have the correct cables to connect the laptop to the projector? :laptop:
• After the event, if you’re awarding prizes, how will that work logistically?

On the day:

• Arrive early so that you can set out the name badges and room etc.
• Check any AV is working.
• Welcome any speakers, make sure you have their slides ready and they have mics etc.
• Make sure the catering runs smoothly.
• Tweet! 🐤
• Make sure everyone is included (the facilitators should help with that) and respond to attendees’ questions (via Slack as well as in person). Make sure participants know what’s expected of them, especially in terms of the final presentations- how long do they have? And what will a good pitch include? Look out for anyone breaching the code of conduct.
• Have a few copies of the agenda available and make sure everything runs to time. Timing is likely to be tight!
• Welcome any potential funders when they arrive for the final pitches.
• Collate the teams’ slides together for the final pitches.
• Thank everyone for coming at the end.
• Relax and eat cake! 🍰 ✨ You did it!!

After the event:

• Publicise any blogs, videos, podcast or other outputs from the event on your website and on social media 📣
• Make sure you have someone who is happy to act as a point of contact from each project team
• Follow up with all individuals (participants and pitch attendees) by sending them an event evaluation form. We did this the day after the event, and also plan to follow up again after 2 months and after 6 months. Our evaluation form is here.
• Follow up with all project teams (via their points of contact) about how their projects are evolving. We plan to do this 2 months after the event and again 6 months after the event.