If you take a look at the most successful CodeDay cities, you'll be a bit confused. Seattle, San Francisco, and New York make sense, sure. But why are events like Phoenix, Boca Raton, and Nashville?

Building a great team is not usually life-or-death for a CodeDay, but it does make the diference between a CodeDay, and a really great CodeDay. In this section, we'll explore what makes a team great, how to recruit a team, and how to manage a team once you have them.

Roles

Regional Manager (RM)

The Regional Manager is ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the event (at least until the day-of), and is almost always the member of the team who works most closely with the SRND global team. Smaller, newer cities may have only a Regional Manager who fills all the remaining roles.

In established cities, it's still expected that the Regional Manager will be directly involved in getting a venue, finding sponsors, and promoting. However, as cities become larger, Regional Managers find themselves working more and more on recruiting, training, and managing the rest of the teams.

Assistant Regional Manager (ARM)

Unlike, say, an Administrative Assistant, this role isn't all scheduling and email. Expectations for the ARM closely mirror those for the primary Regional Manager: work with the other teams to make CodeDay happen! (Or, in smaller cities, help the RM complete tasks from all the roles.)

This role serves two purposes: spreading the work between two people on large teams, and training a replacement RM, since team members usually serve only a few years. (Because of the latter purpose, it's recommended to recruit an ARM who's going to be around for a while.)

Sponorships and Venue Team

The sponsorships and venue team work to find a venue (priority zero) and monetary and in-kind sponsors (priority two). They're responsible for populating and updating the list of sponsor targets in the event plan, emailing and calling those targets, and getting as much sponsorship as possible for the event.

In addition to the training provided to the sponsorships in this guide, StudentRND provides additional training sessions, practice sessions, and one-on-ones to all members of Sponsorships and Venue teams. Details for the specific training schedule will be provided to Regional Managers and should be communicated to this team.

Community Partnerships Team

This team focuses making promotion-focused connections with local organizations and the news media (and schools which aren't already served by school liasons).

Community Partnerships is responsible for filling the partners section of the event plan with a comprehensive list of organizations which have members who may be interested in CodeDay, and reaching out to build partnerships.

Partnerships is a keyword for this team. They don't hang flyers, but build relationships with individuals at relevant organizations which can be used in future CodeDays. The work is documented in detail in the "Promotion" section.

Community Liasons

This team comprises students at schools across the region, who work to get CodeDay announced in classes, clubs, and announcements. They also post flyers in their school (if possible) and community, and -- most importantly -- personally invite friends.

Because this team has no specific deliverables of their own, they should work closely with the Community Partnerships team, who can update their spreadsheet to reflect what promotion has been done in which schools.

Usually one student per school is plenty except in large schools. In addition to recruiting team members specifically for this role, this is one role which all team members with a connection to a local school should serve.

Recruiting

If this is your first CodeDay in a region, you probably won't be successful in finding a team, because few people know what CodeDay is. That's probably a good thing, because it's hard to oversee a job you've never done.

The best way to recruit team members is to keep an eye out for students and parents who seem to really love the event, and ask them to join the team after CodeDay. It's ok if they don't have strong prior experience, but don't expect someone with no prior experience to become an ARM. Most volunteers need some training to succeed.

Managing

Your team will not be able to do a good job if they don't know what their job is. As the RM, it is exceptionally important that you set clear goals for your team, and follow up regularly to ensure they're being met (and provide help if they're falling short).

It's a good idea to set outcome goals, but make sure to have progress goals, as well. For example, you might set a goal for your ARM to secure a venue within a month, but you should also set a goal of contacting at least five venues a week.

Most successful events use one of two models for keeping the team on-track:

• A weekly team (or RM/ARM-only) meeting where the entire team discusses progress, or
• Weekly 1-1 checkins (over Slack or Facebook Messenger) with each ARM.

Training

You should provide your volunteers and ARMs with the sections of this guide which will help them do their job.

SRND also provides training for all ARMs. Let your SRND contact know and we will get them set up. (We can still help volunteers, but we don't have established training for less-involved positions.)