Highlights from AU NZ Carpentries Community Call in May 2023

On 18 May, Liz Stokes (ARDC) and Nisha Ghatak (NeSI) hosted the second Carpentries communities discussion for members in Australia and New Zealand.

Focus

The aim of the event was to bring together members of both communities across the Tasman to discuss the Carpentries Maintainer role: what to expect, how to become a Maintainer, how the Maintainer community works and what skills you can learn. The discussion was led by Vini Salazar from the University of Melbourne, Australia.

Discussion

Vini Salazar's presentation elaborated on the expectations from the Maintainer role by discussing how the role helps to monitor issues and pull requests on the lesson repository on Github. Salazar expanded on how the role is essentially an asynchronous one as there is a great deal of flexibility in managing one's time, when compared to the time commitments of an instructor or trainer. It was relayed that the maintainer role is a12-month volunteer position. However, the previous maintainers continue being a part of the work as engaged alumni. Salazar welcomed participants to the monthly Maintainer onboarding meet ups, where efforts are being made around having sessions more suitable to Australia/New Zealand time zones. The monhtly meetups are currently scheduled for the fourth Thursday of every month at 12:00 UTC and 22:00 UTC.
We are also told that the maintainer community have welcomed 19 new contributors this year and appreciate any interested candidates to reach out at their earliest convenience! The best way to start getting involved is to start with making contribtions- this can range from commenting on issues or pull requests or simply stimulating the discussion, which is already a great contribution! 
For new members, getting involved with the maintainer community in a practical way is a wonderful process to ease yourself into the Carpentries community.

Moving Forward

Thank you to everyone who joined us on this call! We appreciated the ideas that were shared, the challenges addressed and the solutions put forth. Please feel free to check the notes from this session.

Our next community discussion is scheduled for Thursday, 20 July at 2pm NZDT, 10am Perth, 12pm Sydney and 2am UTC (see in your timezone)