Codebar Brighton

I went to codebar Brighton yesterday evening. I hadn’t been in quite a while, but this was a special occasion: a celebration of codebar Brighton’s tenth anniversary!

The Brighton chapter of codebar was the second one ever, founded six months after the initial London chapter. There are now 33 chapters all around the world.

Clearleft played host to that first ever codebar in Brighton. We had already been hosting local meetups like Async in our downstairs event space, so we were up for it when Rosa, Dot, and Ryan asked about having codebar happen there.

In fact, the first three Brighton codebars were all at 68 Middle Street. Then other places agreed to play host and it moved to a rota system, with the Clearleft HQ as just one of the many Brighton venues.

With ten years of perspective, it’s quite amazing to see how many people went from learning to code in the evenings, to getting jobs in web development, and becoming codebar coaches themselves. It’s a really wonderful community.

Over the years the baton of organising codebar has been passed on to a succession of fantastic people. These people are my heroes.

It worked out well for Clearleft too. Thanks to codebar, we hired Charlotte. Later we hired Cassie. And it was thanks to codebar that I first met Amber.

Codebar Brighton has been very, very good to me. Here’s to the next ten years!

‘It’s a caring environment’: how codebar is building a diverse tech community | New faces of tech | The Guardian

A profile of Codebar Brighton, with words of wisdom from Alice and Cassie.

upfront conversation with Amber Wilson - #upfront

Amber shares her story of becoming a web developer and a public speaker. She is an inspiration to me!

Hello codebar Sydney! | Charlotte Jackson, Front-end developer

People of Sydney, you’re in luck. Charlotte is starting up a Sydney chapter of Codebar. If you know someone there who is under-represented in the tech industry, and they’re looking to learn how to code, please tell them about this.

Some want to become full-time developers, whereas others want to learn the basics of coding to enhance their current jobs. Some want to learn programming as a hobby. Whatever the reason, we’d love to see you there!

Also, if you’re a developer in Sydney, please consider becoming a tutor at Codebar.

I promise that tutoring is not scary! We ask that you let us know which areas you feel comfortable tutoring when you sign up, so you choose what you teach. It’s absolutely okay to not know answers during sessions, but knowing how to look for them is helpful.

Oh, and if you’ve got a space in Sydney that can accommodate a class, please, please consider become a Codebar sponsor.

Codebar Coach Guide

It’s a short list, but this brief guide for coaches at Codebar is packed with excellent advice for anybody getting into teaching or training:

• Do not take over the keyboard! This can be off-putting and scary.
• Encourage the students to type and not copy paste.
• Assume that anyone you’re teaching has no knowledge but infinite intelligence.

2015 Year in Review | codebar

Codebar had a very good 2015.

Of the 137 workshops run, “100 of those workshops were organised by our two busiest chapters, London and Brighton”—50 each.