This really needs to be updated, but this is the thing I did to keep me from spending an hour explaining the project to new people each week. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WF9J1lmaSowYVTTKnXUmlrfIs6riPXhsbR-9TIqAbLY/edit#

That's a great write-up about the Nursing Home project, Joel. If you put a one-screen summary at the top, it would quickly give the reader (who's the reader? in this case we're talking about potential project members) an idea of what the project was about, areas of needed expertise, etc., and they could dive deeper with the rest of the text if they wanted to.

I'm thinking about a table with Project Name, Project Leader (and contact info), one sentence description, platform(s), current resource needs, project timeframe.

@stevenvance I've extended it until 10p tonight. If we decide to use Loomio as a platform, my goal will be to have everyone weigh in on the proposals at the leadership council meeting.

@joelinwood that document is great. we should definitely direct breakout leaders to do the same!

Joel, your document is great! I definitely agree it would be beneficial to ask all breakout leaders to create a similar document. They could be linked to the breakout groups page, so leaders can give a 30-second description at Hack Night and direct people to the links for more details.

I'm still not opposed to some way for breakout group leaders to notify Derek (or the leadership council?) if they will be at Hack Night that week, for the sake of the agenda. I think that it will save time, and like Eric mentioned, won't look iffy when Derek Buellers through 3 breakout groups in a row. I think the buy-in is more important than the method at this point. It could be as simple as tweeting Derek or creating a "breakout group" slack channel so leaders can post if they plan on attending. The hard part will be getting people to actually do this.

I agree on all points. There could be some fringe benefits to having a breakout leader channel beyond checkins. Ex, a dialouge similar to leadership council but focused around the specific issues of leading/directing groups, skillshare, etc.

I agree that it doesn't look great when we introduce a breakout group and it turns out they are not meeting tonight (I'm not sure how much time that actually takes up compared to everything else, though), but I don't think it's all bad. The breakout group is usually introduced with something like "Is anyone from the ____ group here tonight?", which encourages people who might not be an official leader of the group to stand up and announce that they are still meeting tonight.

I think some sort of registration system could work -- but if the leader(s) will not be present, then they should be sure to check with the rest of the group and see if they will be meeting regardless.

Agreed with @emilyzvolanek that the buy-in will be difficult and is definitely crucial, I don't think the system would work well if every group does not respond.

If anyone needs help creating an overview document, I'm happy to help. Sometimes having a third party ask questions and take notes can congeal a gelatinous plan.