Tech for Good UK Organisers Network

A community of organisers across the UK and Ireland supporting each other to fuel the tech for good movement

✏️ Edit this document to make it better ✏️

Introduction

To us, “tech for good” is the intentional use of technology to drive positive outcomes for people and planet. We’re building a community for organisers across the UK and Ireland who are themselves building tech for good communities.

I run a tech for good network and I’d like to be involved!

Great! If you’re happy to stick to our principles (see below) then go ahead and:

Add yourself to the directory: techforgoodorganisers.uk/directory
Subscribe to our mailing list for announcements: techforgoodorganisers.uk/list
Subscribe to our calendar for events: techforgoodorganisers.uk/calendar
Join us on slack: techforgoodorganisers.uk/slack (email [email protected] to join)
Follow us on Twitter: @uktechforgood
Ask on slack about how to become a voting member

Some background to our work:

• Intro Presentation - Find out where we started and why

• Research into The impact of place-based communities and how we established a learning network with seven initial founding member networks.

• Announcement Tweet

Principles

Principles we are working to as a network (current iteration):

Technology can be a force for good in society
Work in the open - it makes collaboration easier. We’re here to collaborate, work together and be part of something bigger.
Lead by example - celebrate the radical approaches brought by everyone in the community and understand that people have different lived experiences.
Do no harm / Operate responsibly - despite our best intentions, no one is exempt from making a mistake. But we strive to do our utmost best to ensure we’re accountable for our actions.
Don’t ponder, do. But do so responsibly.

If you’re running your own community, you may also find the Tech for Good Global Principles useful guidance.

Forums

Slack Team

This is where we’re currently getting organised to become a supportive place. This will also become more of an active place for us to support each other ongoing

techforgoodorganisers.uk/slack

email [email protected] to join

Mailing List

Updates at the moment mainly consist of us self organising towards a launch, but ongoing will hopefully become a useful place for us networks to share stuff between ourselves.

techforgoodorganisers.uk/list

Whatsapp Group

Not super active at the mo - but it’s here in case this is your thing!

techforgoodorganisers.uk/whatsapp

Shared Drive

Where we are sharing useful documents, research and templates that might help us all become more efficient

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Td5iaWkfdTwbYU_ZxkeEGcMSiMofsQts?usp=sharing

Trello

Where we are tracking progress and updates e.g on launch

https://trello.com/techforgooduknetowrkorganisers

Events

Events for the network of organisers - not events put on by groups for their members.

April sometime Network Updates (“Community Squad”)

A place for us networks to chat and update each other on things we might find useful.

📆 coming soon^[a]^[b]

Past Events

12 Nov 2020, 1600 GMT Network Co-design Session

Slides, Jamboard.

26 Nov 2020, 1700-1900 GMT Network Co-design Session

https://jamboard.google.com/d/1Qta_8RUC8zq_6BXYCU0b0sxkZd89PAZC8qzWy7UqqGw/viewer?f=9

10 Dec 2020, 1600-1800 GMT Network Co-design Session

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Npl7fJp_DraNI3THo_zszagVzB_TDjsdViZk1xb0TcE/edit#slide=id.ga9e5b02724_11_0

14th Jan 2021, 1600-1800 GMT Network Co-design Session
10th Feb 2021, 1600-1800 GMT Network Co-design Session
2nd March 2021, 1600-1800 GMT Network Co-design Session
17h March 2021, 1600-1800 GMT EDI playback session

Jamboard

17th March 2021, 1600-1800 GMT D&I playback session

Tess from Collaborative Futures has been working with us to try and make sure the UK Network is inclusive. A chance for us to find out where this project is up to and see what we can learn from work done so far. Document here

31st March 2021, 1600-1800 GMT Network Co-design Session

Agenda & jamboard

28th April 2021, 1600-1730 GMT Tech for Good UK Launch

Slides
Meeting Recording: Access Passcode: U3HJ#*m0
Mentimeter slides

To do list

We’re working towards creating a democratic, self organising, inclusive community. To get there, there are a bunch of things we’re working on. We also eventually want to start working on things that will help make our lives easier as community organisers. We tend to work in Slack, that’s the best place to input if you want to get involved.

Urgent

Code of Conduct - Eriol and Barry - ready soon
Onboarding - Chatting to new communities/ intro Slack (Key contact Bex. Dama, Annie and Ellie happy to also onboard)

Working on now:

Funding - Looking at what funding might be needed, who might fund it and pulling together a basic funding deck (Key contact Rebecca Rae-Evans)
Regular community events - (Key contact - Edward Saperia)
Mapping - (Annie & Bex)
Shared event calendar - Potential for a shared calendar of events that we all produce for our communities https://opentechcalendar.co.uk/curatedlist/19 (Key contacts: David Van Der Velde, Edward Saperia and James Baster)

Parked:

Theory of change - We did a draft theory of change just focussing on the work some of us do with charities. It might be good to get a second version that looks more cross-sector (Key contact Arielle Tye)
Brand - Bex
Network coordinator - Deciding if we need a paid ongoing network coordinator and what that might look like, initial proposal here (Key contact Annie Leggie)

Done:

Vision - Bex, Ed, Ellie and Dama (Need adding to this page)
Governance - Founding members/decision making (David V & Barry) (Need adding to this page)
Principles - Dama, Olivia, Sidd (Need adding to this page)
Google Drive started (David Scurr)
This landing page sorted (Edward Saperia)
Comms - Whatsapp, Slack and newsletter list set up (Edward Saperia & Ellie)
Started to get to know each other and create vision and values (Pete Burden)
hand - We have 4 semi-funded spaces on some sociocracy training to help us run the network which I think are now full (Key contact: Barry O’Kane)
Catalyst blog - written and gone to Catalyst (Bex)
Rework monthly design session - (Key contacts Annie Legge & Pete Burden)
Diversity & Inclusion kick off - 1:1 coaching sessions for 10 community organisations, some sessions left (Tessa Cooper is main contact)
Restarting community squad - Ed (with Ellie helping)
Benefits of community - Bex & others working on this Miro

Founding Members

Founding members are representatives of TfG networks across the UK or Ireland. Founding members have the remit to launch and activate the community in line with the vision

This remit is for 6 months only (to Sep 1st 2021).

At this stage:

A “network” is self-defined. It is assumed that each “network” will have a single representative and that person will take responsibility for communication to and from any other organisers of their network.
We have a lot of outstanding questions about the community. The remit of the founding members is to clarify these questions and start the process of building a valuable community as set out in the vision.
After the initial period of 6 months the founding members will present their proposal(s) for the next stage

The founding members who represent their network organisers in the initial 6 months are:

Rebecca Rae-Evans - Tech for Good Live (Manchester)
Annie Legge - Tech4Good South West
Arielle Tye - Creating Conversations by ProMo-Cymru (Wales/ youth)
Chris Ashworth - Tech for Good Oxford
Barry O’Kane Digital for Good, Scotland
Michael McAndrew, Netsquared Exeter
David Van der Velde Social Tech North East
Pauline Roche - Netsquared Midlands
Kate White - NetSquared London
Dama Sathianathan - Tech for Good London/ Tech for Good Global
Ellie Hale - Catalyst/ Tech for Good Brighton/ Tech for Good London/ NetSquared London/
David Scurr - Tech for Good Brighton
Edward Saperia - Newspeak House

Time we have

Add a rough figure for how much time (in hrs per week) you think you can give to the Tech for Good UK Network over the next few weeks.

Name	April	Ongoing	Notes/ questions
Rebecca Rae-Evans	4 hours	4 hours
Annie Legge	4 hours	4 hours
Arielle Tye	2-3 hours	1-2
Chris Ashworth	2-3 hours	4 hours
Barry O'Kane
Michael McAndrew
David van der Velde	2hours	2hours
Pauline Roche	2 hours	2 hours
Kate White	1 to 2 hrs	1 to 2 hrs
Dama Sathianathan	2 hours	1- 4hrs
Ellie Hale	2-4 hrs	1-4 hrs	I will be mainly representing Catalyst as there are other reps from my local meetups :)
David Scurr	2 hours	2 hours
Edward Saperia

Decision Making

The members will use Decision Making by Consent. This process is as defined in Sociocracy* and is summarised as:

Proposal can be put forward by any founding member
Initial clarifications and initial responses are sought (either in meeting or asynchronously via Slack)
Critical concerns may be addressed by adapting the proposal
Proposals are agreed when they are considered good enough for now and safe enough to try until the next review
Input is welcomed, however the founding members are responsible for consent.

Decisions

Proposal details are logged in the shared proposal folder. Those in black are successful proposals that have become policy. Those in red are yet to pass. Discussions for each proposal are held on Slack, unless otherwise stated. Where possible, link here to proposals and discussion and then fully document outputs in the relevant place in this document or in the shared proposal folder. Anyone can take responsibility for this task, but particularly the proposer should make sure this is up to date.

#	Proposal	Proposed by	Outcome
1.0	We introduce a numbering and versioning system for proposals	David van der Velde	Pass
2.0	Membership Criteria	David van der Velde	Ongoing
3.0	Membership Responsibilities	David van der Velde	Ongoing
4.0	Defining a Tech for Good Network	David van der Velde	Pass
5.0	Quorum for async proposals on Slack	Ellie Hale	Pass
6.0	Slack proposal amendments	Ellie Hale	Pass
7.0	Launch event aims	David Scurr	Pass
8.0	At launch we will share the principles that folks joining will agree to. A more structured Code of Conduct is also in progress, but is not ready for launch.	Barry O’Kane	Pass

Resources

Created by a group of the founding members on the place-based communities project.

Volunteer onboarding resources:

Governance resources:

Theory of Change draft
Research on potential structures
Structure and funding - survey summary
Constitution template (to set up an Unincorporated Association)

Event organiser templates:

Mapping tool (password: d0tpr0ject!t4good).

FAQs

How long-term does a commitment to running a community group need / likely to be?

Organiser Directory

We’re trying to get a list of who’s doing what in the UK tech for good community organising space. If you organise a UK Tech for Good type community, add yourself to the list!

Manchester

Tech for Good Live

Main contact: Bex Rae-Evans

🦄 Organiser www.techforgood.live

💼 Director wearereply.com

🏠 Manchester

Introduction

Principles

Forums

Slack Team

Mailing List

Whatsapp Group

Shared Drive

Trello

Events

Past Events

To do list

Founding Members

Time we have

Decision Making

Decisions

Resources

FAQs

Organiser Directory

Manchester

Tech for Good Live

London

Tech for Good Global

Tech for Good London (meetup)

Newspeak House

Net Squared London

Charity Digital

Covid Tech Support

Climate Action Tech

Radical Engineers

NCVO (digital, data and technology team)

Aberdeen

Code the city

Edinburgh

Digital for Good

Brighton

Tech for Good Brighton

Digital Brighton and Hove

North East

Social Tech North East

South West

Tech 4 Good SW

NetSquared Exeter

Technology Volunteers

Birmingham

Netsquared Midlands

Devon Geary

Wales

Arielle Tye

Oxford

Tech for Good Oxford

Leeds

Tech for Good Leeds

To Reach Out To

Organisers

Anne Fry

Andy Crosbie

Ashley Bale

Bruce Scharlau

Communities

Tech Vets

Service Design London Meetup

Product for Good

Hack The Police

Justice and Innovation Group

Open Knowledge

Open Tech Will Save Us

Open Charity

One Digital Meetup

Open Government UK

Bureau Local

Hacks Hackers

Journocoders

Engineers Without Borders

Software and Tech Effective Altruism

Edtech Developers Meetup

Local Gov Digital

London Open Data Meetup

London Gov Design Meetup

DataKind UK

DataKind Dublin