Re: Minutes from the IRC meeting today
On 22 August 2010 03:18, Erinn Clark <erinn@debian.org> wrote:
> * Margarita Manterola <margamanterola@gmail.com> [2010:08:21 22:15 -0300]:
>> Mentoring:
>>
>> Even though the project is not so visible, it stills receives
>> requests. The project is currently coordinated by Runa and Erinn.
>> They would really appreciate some help, though. A woman working as a
>> mentoring coordinator needs to have good social skills and a lot of
>> patience, although not necessarily be a DD. **VOLUNTEERS SEEKED!**
>
> I should note that my involvement with this has primarily been
> administrative, and I am happy to help set up any technical aspects
> needed, but I don't want to be involved otherwise. (I never coordinated
> actual mentors and mentees.) I am personally looking for someone, or
> someones, to completely take over this project. However, to describe the
> responsibilities in more detail:
>
> The crucial traits for someone coordinating this are kindness, patience,
> understanding, and a strong ability to tolerate some amount of tedium.
> The women emailing us are often shy and lacking in strong community
> ties.
>
> You have to be able to match people with each other and monitor their
> progress, so that if something happens -- like it's not a good fit or
> the mentor/mentee get busy -- you can dissolve that relationship in a
> discreet and respectful manner and make a different match.
>
> The way Helen and I were doing it before was that she maintained a
> spreadsheet with information on it (names of mentors and mentees, who
> was matched, what people were interested in and available for, and
> various notes about things like preferences -- some people want only
> female mentors, for example.) She kept me in the loop, in case she got
> hit by a bus or something, and we had an email alias
> (mentoring@double-helix.org) that emailed both of us, so I had copies of
> everything, but she took care of it. I definitely think more than one
> person should be involved for this reason, since almost none of this can
> take place publicly (out of respect for the mentors' and mentees'
> privacy) unless explicitly requested. But there probably doesn't need
> to be more than one person doing the actual assignments, other than to
> prevent burnout.
>
> I'm happy to provide more detail, even excruciating detail, if people
> want it.
As I said in the meeting, I'm available to help but I don't have DM/DD status.
--
Kind Regards
Lesley Binks
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