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Paths to Leadership & Roles

Supporting our members as they support each other.

Our mission is to provide meaningful opportunities for learning, leadership, and contribution to our members. Below, you'll find a list of leadership opportunities for members who are in good standing and are willing to support the community. If you find a role or position you'd be interested in, please fill out our Volunteer Form and let us know!


Our Coffees (Virtual Coffee weekly Zoom chats) are our most important and visible event on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We try to be consistent and organized in running these as much as possible, and the volunteer teams are a massive part of that!

Role Department:

Virtual Coffee Coffees

Role Purpose:

Facilitating a Coffee breakout room. The role moderates the conversations once attendees are put into small groups for intimate chats.

Role Duties and Responsibilities:

  • Moderate the breakout room conversations.
  • Guide the conversation through appropriate topics.
  • Foster an inclusive environment where members feel comfortable sharing.

Role Benefits:

  • Public speaking practice.
  • Practicing empathetic communication.
  • Moderation practice.

Working Conditions:

  • Approximately ~2 hours per week.
  • Primarily during the Coffee.

Role Department:

Virtual Coffee Coffees

Role Purpose:

This role gives members a chance to review the conversations during Coffee.

Role Duties and Responsibilities:

  • Recording the responses to icebreaker questions in the Coffee breakout rooms.
  • Creating synopses of the conversations that happen in the rooms.
  • Noting any resources attendees share that may be useful to others.
  • Organizing those notes into a clear and readable format.
  • Sharing the notes in Slack after the meeting is complete.

Role Benefits:

  • Active listening practice.
  • Efficient summarization skills.

Working Conditions:

  • Approximately 2 hours per month.
  • Primarily during the Coffee.

Role Department:

Virtual Coffee Coffees

Role Purpose:

The Host is vital to ensuring the smooth operation of the Coffees. They are responsible for managing the technical aspects of the Zoom. They are also responsible for assigning the Coffee volunteers and participants to their breakout rooms.

Role Duties and Responsibilities:

  • During the Coffee, the Host creates the rooms and assigns Room Leaders and Note Takers as defined by the schedule.
  • They assign all Coffee participants to their rooms.
  • They announce the return to the main room and close the breakout rooms at the end of the conversation.
  • They end the Zoom.

Role Benefits:

  • Practice with Zoom meeting controls.
  • Training in coordinating and assigning participants of breakout rooms.

Working Conditions:

  • Total volunteer time is ~5 hours a week.
  • Available 30 minutes before and for the entire duration of a Coffee.

Role Department:

Virtual Coffee Coffees

Role Purpose:

Master of Ceremonies/main speaker for a Coffee. This role is the "face" of the chat and the primary speaker for the event.

Role Duties and Responsibilities:

  • The MC puts notes on all Virtual Coffee activities relevant to that week's announcements, spanning all events and operations.
  • Delivering the opening welcome.
  • Explaining the event format, how to use the Code of Conduct and external resources.
  • Giving the Coordinator enough time to configure the breakout rooms.
  • Delivering final announcements.
  • Sending off all attendees.

Role Benefits:

  • A safe space to practice public speaking.

Working Conditions:

  • Approximately 2 hours/mo.
  • Mainly required during the actual Coffees themselves.

Department: Virtual Coffee Lunch & Learns

Permalink to “Department: Virtual Coffee Lunch & Learns”

Lunch & Learn is the primary avenue for Virtual Coffee members to share information with other members and an excellent opportunity for members to build skills in public speaking and technical presentation. Much need to be done to support our members on every step of the speaking journey.

Role Department:

Virtual Coffee Lunch & Learns

Role Purpose:

This role ensures the community is aware of upcoming Lunch & Learn events.

Role Duties and Responsibilities:

  • Gathers community interest for Lunch & Learn topics/speakers.
  • Sources/encourages community members to submit Lunch & Learns.
  • Gathers community interest in various Lunch & Learn platforms.
  • Assists Lunch & Learn speakers with the form submission, event description writing, topic formulation, etc.

Working Conditions:

  • Approximately 2-3 hours per week.
  • Work is done primarily in Virtual Coffee Slack.

Role Department:

Virtual Coffee Lunch & Learns

Current Coordinator

A special thank you to Shelley McHardy for her work as our Lunch & Learn Coordinator.

Role Purpose:

This role manages the overall organization of Lunch & Learn, from submission to final presentation.

Role Duties and Responsibilities:

  • Reviews Lunch & Learn submissions and acknowledges their receipt.
  • Ensures event description is clear and asks clarifying questions if necessary.
  • Coordinates Lunch & Learn schedule on the Virtual Coffee calendar.
  • Coordinates host availability.
  • Checks in with Lunch & Learn speakers and hosts in the weeks leading up to the event to confirm readiness/speaker and/or availability.
  • Ensures speaker bio is up to date for the Lunch & Learn.
  • Acts as a point person for Lunch & Learn hosts.

Role Requirements:

  • Active in the community & member in good standing.
  • Previously attended a Lunch & Learn session.

Working Conditions:

  • Approximately 3-4 hours per week.
  • Work in Virtual Coffee GitHub repo, CMS, and Slack.

Role Department:

Virtual Coffee Lunch & Learns

Role Purpose:

This role acts as the MC for a Lunch & Learn event and supports the presenter and viewers in having an enjoyable event.

Role Duties and Responsibilities:

  • Facilitates Lunch & Learn events via designated platforms (Zoom, Twitter Spaces, etc.).
  • Moderates a Lunch & Learn chat, Q&A, and other event portions as required.
  • Ensures the Virtual Coffee Code of Conduct is followed.
  • Ensures the event is recorded to the cloud for later processing by our AV team.
  • Facilitates any AV checks/tests for the presenter as needed.

Role Benefits:

  • Public speaking practice and training.
  • Moderation practice.

Role Requirements:

  • Active in the community & member in good standing.
  • Comfortable and proficient in the event’s designated platform.
  • Attended at least 3 Lunch & Learn sessions.
  • Bonus: VC-Advisor, Coffee Table Leader, Coffee MC, Coffee Room Leader, Lunch & Learn Coordinator.

Working Conditions:

  • Approximately 2-3 hours per event.
  • Takes place primarily on Fridays in Zoom.

Department: General Virtual Coffee Operations

Permalink to “Department: General Virtual Coffee Operations”

It takes a lot of moving pieces to keep this all coordinated. Operations work behind the scenes to make sure all the other arms of Virtual Coffee are running smoothly, and they take a birds-eye view over our various divisions.

Current Coordinator

A special thank you to Abbey Perini for her work as our Coffee Table Groups Coordinator.

Role Department:

General Virtual Coffee Operations

Role Purpose:

This role coordinates and manages our Coffee Table Groups and supports them because they are essential to our community.

Role Duties and Responsibilities:

  • Oversees, observes and manages the Coffee Table groups.
  • Ensures all event descriptions are clear and accessible for members.
  • Checks in with Coffee Table hosts for feedback and to ensure hosts are supported.
  • Acts as point person for hosts, fielding questions and assisting with onboarding.
  • Reviews applications for new Coffee Table groups.

Role Benefits:

  • Opportunity to learn group organization.
  • Opportunity to work with several different Virtual Coffee endeavors.

Role Qualifications:

  • Active in the community & member in good standing.
  • Member for at least 3 months.
  • Attended at least 10 Coffees.

Working Conditions:

  • About 3-4 hours per week.
  • Time is split between communications in Slack and potential Zooms.

Role Department:

General Virtual Coffee Operations

Role Purpose:

Uphold the tenets of the Code of Conduct in all community spaces. Ensure that member conversations and interactions aren't harming themselves or their fellow community members.

Role Duties and Responsibilities:

  • Monitoring the communication in Virtual Coffee Slack channels.
  • Stepping into potentially heated conversations and performing mediation.
  • Recommending members for further follow-up conversations and disciplinary actions.
  • Reporting incidents to the rest of the moderation team for discussion.
  • Removing harmful content that violates the Code of Conduct from shared Virtual Coffee spaces.
  • Temporarily revoking a person's access to Virtual Coffee digital spaces where they have caused harm.

Role Qualifications:

  • Uphold the Virtual Coffee mission and Code of Conduct.
  • Be willing to maintain an environment of support and healthy communication in Virtual Coffee spaces.
  • Investigate any and all potential violations of the Virtual Coffee Code of Conduct.
  • Mediate in any conflicts involving Virtual Coffee members.

Role Benefits:

Working Conditions:

  • Approximately 5-10 hours per week.
  • Takes place primarily in Slack and during our Zoom events, GitHub, etc.