Getting started with the Code for NoVA brigade is pretty dang easy, and doesn't require that you complete all of the following steps per se. That said, we do recommend you take the following steps sequentially to make the process as seamless as possible, both for you and for us.
If you don't think you can spare five to ten minutes to follow these steps right now or are unsure of any part of this process, no problem; feel more than free to ask any questions in the group or by email.
We use GetTogether to announce and host regular events, from casual meetups to hack nights to technology presentations.
Visit our GetTogether group page at _______________. Select 'Join Group' to join the Meetup group and be notified of future events and RSVP for current events.
?: We use GetTogether to check-in Brigade Members at events. ??? Does Code for America uses Meetup.com attendance numbers to allocate funding to us as a Brigade? So, if you plan on attending an event, help chip-in for the pizza by simply joining and RSVP'ing for the event on Meetup. We'll love you for it.
We use GitHub for project management, file storage, documentation and code version control. If you already have a GitHub account, feel free to skip to Step 2. If you've never heard of GitHub or don't understand why we use GitHub, watch this quick explainer video for a good introduction. Anyone can use GitHub; it doesn't require any programming knowledge. We'll use it as a collaborative tool for all our Brigade projects. To create a new GitHub account, take the following steps:
- Sign-up for an account at GitHub.com.
- Make sure to create a public-facing username in the sign-up process that you'll be comfortable with displaying as your handle listed for project participation (i.e. we'd advise keeping it simple with something like 'jmercer' if you're name is, say, Johnny Mercer.)
- Upload an avatar to your GItHub profile if you'd like. We'll use this to display you in our Member Directory page.
This is so we can list you in our member directory, add you to the mailing list, give you blogging/project creation privileges and more
?: Is this still the case?: Our homepage, opensavannah.org, is powered by the BrigadeHub framework, which is under active development by Code for San Francisco and Savannah brigade members, and available as a repository on Open Savannah's GitHub page. BrigadeHub allows us to interact with the APIs (application programming interfaces) of Meetup, GitHub and Medium. Think of an API like a window into an application's data; we're using GitHub's API to pull in project data, Meetup's API to pull in event-related data, etc.
We're currently communicating in real-time on Zulip which is an open source equivalent to Slack
To make an impact, you've gotta show up. So, don't be a stranger. Come join us at our next event on Meetup!