Author: cfsutcliffe

cfsutcliffe

It’s goodbye from me

With a tear in our eyes, we bring you this message from Code Club co-founder Clare Sutcliffe.

After six incredible years at Code Club and the Raspberry Pi Foundation, I’ve made the difficult but exciting decision to search out new adventures and challenges.

When I co-founded Code Club back in April 2012, I had no idea it would grow to the size and vibrancy it has today. I’m incredibly proud that Code Club now reaches over 100,000 children a week in more than 10,000 clubs around the world!

 

 

I’ve had the immense privilege of visiting some of these clubs to witness the impact our work has — there’s nothing like watching a Code Club in action to make my heart sing. Since Code Club merged with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, it has continued to go from strength to strength, and it’s a joy to see it thriving in its new home with an excellent team behind it.

CC-RPF1

I’d like to say thank you to everyone who has supported me and Code Club over the last six years, and I hope that you continue to do so in the future. Thank you to every partner who donated to Code Club: it meant that I could build an amazing team, open more clubs, and ultimately inspire more children to learn to code. Thank you to everyone who volunteers at clubs: without you, I’d just be a crazy lady with an idea — you’re the ones who made it real.

 

 

So whilst Code Club continues, it’s on to the next adventure for me — if you’re interested in seeing what I get up to in future, you can find me at @ClareSutcliffe on Twitter.

Good luck & have fun! Over and out.
Clare

Goodbye, Ms Kirsop :(

We’re really sad to be waving goodbye to the Head of Code Club UK, Laura Kirsop, as she moves on to pastures new.

Laura has been with Code Club pretty much since the beginning, in one form or another. At first she was the teacher working with a volunteer at one of our first ever pilot clubs in Soho Parish School, then she came to Code Club as a Growth Captain and our second ever member of staff. Laura has developed the UK team and worked with them to grow our Code Club community to over 2300 clubs here in the UK; many volunteers will know her cheery smile from meet-ups across the country. It’s a great shame that we have to say goodbye to her, but I’m sure you’ll join us in wishing her all the very best of luck in the future.

Laura has helped build the foundations for Code Club’s growth, leaving a fantastic legacy, but now we’re looking looking for a confident and ambitious General Manager to lead Code Club’s activities here in the UK and take us to the next stage. Please help us find the right amazing person to join our team by spreading the word about this fantastically juicy role!

New faces at Code Club

Code Club is on a mission to give as many children the opportunity to learn to code as possible so our team is growing quickly. These are the great people who’ve joined us in the last month:

Joe Scarboro
This month we’re pleased to welcome Joe Scarboro to the board of Code Club. Joe comes to us fresh from two years running the 3 Beards – an organisation who support startup life in London and cities around the world. As a former CFO and tech entrepreneur himself, Joe has a very strong background in both technology and finance. He shares our passion for teaching kids to code and is looking forward to joining the board to help steer the good ship Code Club.

Lauren Hyams
Lauren joins us from the Prince’s Trust where she worked on education projects running in schools. She’s come to run Code Club Pro which is our project set up to train teachers in computing so they can teach the new computing curriculum. We’re really pleased to have her on board and she’d love to hear from you if you think you can help in any way.

Sophie Deen
Having spent the last year setting up Code Club Pro from scratch, Sophie is now moving over to head up Code Club World. She will be introducing Code Club into countries around the world and supporting them as they grow their communities, so please give her lots of support (and tips on travelling)! She’s over here on twitter.

Daisy O’Reilly-Weinstock
Daisy comes to us from leading the innovation team at Cancer Research UK where she worked on the development of projects like Stand Up To Cancer, Citizen Science and Dryathlon. Daisy is here to lead our business development to ensure Code Club is sustainable for the future so we can continue to offer a great and even better service than we do now. If you think you can help Daisy then please do get in touch.

Greg Annandale
Greg is not only an excellent developer but also an incredible photographer. Check out his projects here and see for yourself. At Code Club he’s joined our development team working on creating tools to make life easier for the amazing trainers and volunteers who give up their time to go into schools to teach.

We have big plans for 2015 and our team will be growing again very soon, so keep an eye on http://www.codeclub.org.uk/jobs for more details.