Celebrate our first half-year, share some food, and talk about what's to come in 2019.

Thanks everyone for coming and calling in!

Follow-up

Hello! Thanks for coming to the first Ones and Zeros OGM! (or for asking for the notes if you weren't there).

Important things first:

1. Add your availability for a first meeting about the Sidewalk Toronto Workshop Series Mini Course Discussions Thing That Needs A Better Name, if you're interested in that!

2. Your availability to talk about next steps for TTZ – Toronto Tech Zines, and add any zine-makers you think may be interested (you can add yourself here too!). Sheet view (hard to share an editable version unfortunately)

   Let me know if you want to be involved with these but can't necessarily show up in person in the next week -- we can either call you in or keep you in the loop with meeting notes.

3. Any feedback you had about the meeting itself, or anything, even this very email!

--

Alright, so 15ish of y'all wonderful folks came or called in to Paperhouse Studio a week ago for this meeting! Amazing! Thank you! Here are the slides (which don't have a lot of info on them but hey).

Here were my key takeaways from the meeting:

Binary Solo Workshop

• It would benefit from being more directional, with clearer next steps for participants.
• It's hard to explain, communicate, and market, but some words and phrases that came up:
  • There is something in it for everyone
  • It's about revealing some underlying parts of technology
• Thermal printers are interesting, but playing with them doesn't open obvious doors for next steps
• One workshop is not enough! Folks want more! ❤

With those in mind, here are my next steps with this workshop:

• Reengage past participants with more Open Studio-type events (I'm going to set one up soon)
  • Also engage interested folks who haven't yet attended a workshop with these events! There are a bunch of them!
• Get the next workshop going already :)
• Try running Binary Solo as a two-day workshop (shorter days, which also addresses an accessibility concern that has come up)
• Use the "past participants" email list a little more -- other communication channels I've been using (eg., slack) are not as effective.

Sidewalk series mini-course

• Monday evenings in March/April, with the following structure:
  • 1.5hr: tech workshop/play/poetry series for 8ish participants who register
  • food
  • 20mins: short talk on diverse topics related to privacy and surveillance (esp. related to Sidewalk Toronto)
  • 40mins: flexible discussion time
  • The Waterfront Neighbourhood Centre (WNC) has great rooms I want to use for this. It's walking distance from the planned development area of Sidewalk Toronto.
  • There are a whole bunch of relevant events coming up (thank you to those who followed up with tips!), a few of which conflict with some of the evenings I've reserved at WNC. I haven't actually paid the deposits yet, and the announcement/registration for this whole thing has been delayed, so the most important next step is to reassess the schedule for this.

  If any of this is interesting, add your availability and lets talk more at the next meeting! (soon!)

  Toronto Tech Zines

  • A bunch of folks are putting on relevant events all over the place. A few that came up:
    • Ciudad de Mexico Zine Fair Feb 1-3 I think
    • Computery zine fest on the west coast Feb 24
    • TCAF is May 11-12 this year
    • Tiny Tech Zines is July 28 in LA
    • The New York Tech Zine Fair folks have mentioned to me intentions of another run there
    • Between everyone who was at the meeting, we actually have a lot of connections to these other events, so it would be awesome to keep a conversation open with them to learn together!
  • I finally made a table for zine makers we may want to reach out to. I'll share access with everyone who ends up working on this, but for now to add folks please use this form.
  • We can do this as a pilot -- smaller event, shorter timeline, lower cost -- with, "we're going to do it again in the future!"
  • We need to find a date and some space! Lets push it back a little past May! :p

  Lets meet and talk more about this -- there's an availability calendar for the next meeting. See you there!

  --

  Thanks again y'all -- I can't wrap my head around the fact that there are over 20 people BCC'd here ❤

  -phil

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  Workshop and class announcements

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