Postponing the Hybrid CarpentryCon 2025 Event in South Africa

Dear Community,

Over the past few months, The Carpentries Core Team members have been discussing our team’s capacity to support a hybrid CarpentryCon event for 2025. CarpentryCon is our biennial community-building and networking event, and the last event was the virtual CarpentryCon @Home event in 2022. We had already announced in February last year the decision to host the next CarpentryCon in South Africa as a hybrid event in 2025 instead of 2024 after an assessment of our community’s needs and priorities, and our organisation’s capacity at that point.

Due to the success of the online CarpentryCon event and its capability to support and enhance the event’s overall accessibility, we decided hosting a solely in-person event was not an option and were committed to making the 2025 event a hybrid one. However, due to staff transitions and the subsequent changes to the support the Core Team can provide to the Carpentries community, we currently cannot run such an event.

As such, we have decided to hold off on having CarpentryCon in 2025 until our transition out of fiscal sponsorship to operate as an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation is complete, and our finances are in a better position.

Resources to support regional CarpentryConnect events

We encourage community members in their subcommunities to organise CarpentryConnect events, which are local and regional Carpentries events, whether online or in-person, during this period.

We have updated the CarpentryConnect Planning Kit, a resource to guide community members in planning great CarpentryConnect events.

If you are organising such an event, please let us know. The Carpentries will happily support your event by providing social media and other communications support and resources. Budget and delivery logistics permitting, we may be able to send Carpentries merchandise to local and regional events.

We also encourage all community members, wherever they may be, to attend hybrid events in other regions whenever opportunity allows.

Upcoming CarpentryConnect events

For 2024, we are already aware of two upcoming CarpentryConnect events that community members can join.

• AU-Aotearoa CarpentryConnect 2024

  The Carpentries community in Australia and Aotearoa will host their first AU-Aotearoa CarpentryConnect on 23 May 2024, in person and hybrid in Melbourne, Perth, Dunedin, and Auckland. Everyone in the global Carpentries community can join and participate! Proposal submissions close on 22 April 2024.

• CarpentryConnect and BioNT community event - Heidelberg 2024

  The Bio Network for Training, BioNT consortium with all its international partners, will host the second European CarpentryConnect event from November 12 to 14, 2024. This event will happen alongside the BioNT community event, creating an excellent opportunity for collaboration and networking. BioNT will hold the event at EMBL in Heidelberg, Germany. Proposal submissions close on 19 April 2024.

Thank You

Each of you serves as a catalyst for positive change, embodying the remarkable impact a unified community can achieve. While we’ve made adjustments in certain areas, our mission remains impactful, and our vision remains steadfast.

As a reminder, there are opportunities to lead CarpentryCon-type programming all year! We will soon open the call for Q3 and Q4 and want you to sign up to offer a Skill-up, Collaborative, or Community Discussion Session. Thank you for your continued support and involvement in Carpentries programming!