Ally Skills Training at Skepticon

This weekend is Skepticon! (Have you donated yet?) Skepticon means lots of great speakers, Skeptiprom, and of course, Friday workshops.

Friday workshops means the Ada Initiative Ally Skills Training workshop at 10 a.m. on Friday. The Ada Initiative put this workshop up as an incentive in their annual fundraiser this year, and skeptics raised the target the day it was announced. In return, we get some knowledge transfer from the open tech and culture spheres. Valerie Aurora from the Ada Initiative is coming to run the workshop–and attend the rest of Skepticon as a bonus.

Because this workshop is structured to be a safe space, both for brainstorming ideas and for marginalized groups, there are a few things you should know if you want to attend the workshop.

  • Men, women, and gender-nonconforming people are all welcome in this workshop. This is a workshop, not a lecture, which means people working together to generate and evaluate ideas. That process happens best in diverse groups.
  • This workshop will not be about arguing over what is or isn’t sexist or who is or isn’t an ally. This is a practical skills workshop. There’s no time built into the schedule for the argument, and if you try to cut into the time dedicated to issues, you’ll be asked to leave. If you’re someone whose pre-conference interactions with the facilitators consists largely of these arguments, don’t be surprised to have your seat turned over to someone without that history.
  • Plan to arrive on time. There will be ground rules and guidelines for creating a productive discussion space. You’ll need this information in order to participate. We won’t be repeating it for latecomers.
  • This is one two-hour workshop. You’re welcome to leave early if you need to, but we will not be repeating the instructions at the start of the second hour. That means we won’t be taking new participants for the second hour.
  • If you want to attend this workshop but can’t make it to Skepticon or can’t manage the early morning timing, this will probably not be the last of these workshops held at an atheist or skeptic conference. Both I and Monette Richards (president of CFI Northeast Ohio) will come out of this trained to facilitate future workshops. Tell conference or group organizers if you’d like to see this held other places.

We hope to see you Friday!

 

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Ally Skills Training at Skepticon
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