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How-to - Conference Buddies.md

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How to organise the useR! Conference Buddies

What is a Conference Buddy?

Conference buddies are volunteers prepared to be identified as people that will help diversity scholars, conference newbies, and others to feel welcome and to make the most of useR!. The role is suitable for people who are seasoned R community members, conference goers, or have previously attended useR!.

We ask the useR! buddies to:

  • Attend Diversity Scholarship Meet & Greets (if available).
  • Attend the Newbie session (if available).
  • Wear buddies lanyard/pins/other special identifiers.
  • Be friendly and helpful.
  • Use gender neutral language.
  • Help people connect and network so they don’t feel like outsiders.
  • Have useful info about events and locations to offer .
  • Have contacts of CoC, organisers, locals to get further help.

Individual buddies may also be asked to look out for/help support specific participants, e.g. a participant who is blind or has social anxiety, but they would not be expected to be a companion to such a participant for the whole conference (without prior agreement).

Organizing conference buddies

Note this will typically be organized in conjunction with sessions such as the diversity scholar meet and greets and the newbie session.

Coordinate with the conference organisation team

  • How will buddies be marked? Badge colours, lanyard, arm band, etc. Try to avoid dependence on colour only, or at least choose colours carefully.
  • How will buddies get their marker? At registration or do you need to distribute it?
  • How will the buddy initiative be advertised:
    • On the conference website?
    • In the conference booklet?
    • During the welcome talk? If so, how will they be introduced, e.g. asked to stand up, or just mention how to find them to all conference goers.
  • How will people with visual impairments reach out to buddies? Via email/Twitter, with buddies willing to share contact information? Via a "Head buddy" or the disability contact on the local committee?

Create a sign up form

There is a Google Form template you can copy for sign up useR! YEAR Conference Buddies Sign Up. Please update the following:

  • Update logo image for current useR! combined with the Forwards logo.
  • Update the year / hub in the form name.
  • In the first question in section 2, replace “DATE AND TIME” with the relevant conference buddies meetings for your event.
  • In the second question in section 2, update the year / hub in the questions and be sure to paste the link to the conference’s CoC in the question description.
  • If you don’t need volunteers for the CoC response team, you can delete the 3rd section.

Gather a team of buddies

A few weeks before the conference (after abstracts have been accepted) share a call for buddies with:

  • Prominent R Community members
  • Diversity Scholars Committee
  • R-Ladies slack channel for useR! attendees
  • RainbowR slack channel for useR! attendees
  • Forwards Members
  • Local R Community members

Open call for buddies through Forwards twitter handle, example tweet:

We’re organising #useR2019 Buddies to support newbies to #rstats and #conferences. If you're a seasoned R community member and/or conference goer, please consider volunteering with us to help make #useR2019 awesome for everyone. Sign up here: You can reach out to @noatamir for more details!

Communicate with the buddies

About a week before the conference, or on a rolling basis as sign ups arrive, send the buddies a short email thanking them for volunteering, explaining what we ask them to do (see above), and give them the contact details for the volunteer organising them so they have a go-to person. If you already know, tell them where they can get their buddy marker, or that you will be in touch with them on site. Be sure to put all email addresses in BCC to avoid sharing email addresses. Example email:

Dear All,

Thanks for volunteering to be conference buddies at useR! For those of you that can make it, we will have a short meet and greet with the diversity scholars on DATE AND TIME. We will meet at LOCATION.

Note this is intended to be a private meeting and some diversity scholars wish their scholarship to be confidential, so please do not bring along anyone else without letting us know they are coming. We shall have to be discreet in moving to the main room for the newbie session!

Of course some of the diversity scholars will not be at the meet and greet, however I have shared your names with them so they know to look out for you. The following are happy for their name to be shared with you, so please look out for them:

The list of conference buddies is as follows:

Conference buddies will have a differently designed conference badge (red and black rather than the standard yellow and white), so that diversity scholars and other newbies will know that you’re happy to talk to them. If you haven’t already done so, please add a photo and profile to the conference portal/app, so that people can find out a bit more about you before coming.

Looking forward to seeing you all at the conference,

Name, on behalf of Forwards