Hello friends! We hope August is treating you well; we’ve been having a great time here at Code Club HQ, getting lots of exciting things ready for the next school year.

We’d like to introduce you to two more of our new regional coordinators: Liz in the North West and Paul in the South East…

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NORTH WEST – LIZ SMART

Hi! I’m Liz, the new North West coordinator for Code Club.

When I was around our 9-11 age group, my Dad (a brickie with no experience of computers at all) came home one day with a box under his arm containing an Amiga 500. The deal, he said, was that me and my brother could play games on it without restriction as long as we showed him something not game related first; we became hooked on understanding the ins and outs of computers and programming.

I have children myself now; my daughter is 9 years old and I’m going to make sure she has the options, should she want them, to develop her love of technology. That led me to Code Club!

I’ll be in touch properly soon but in the meantime if you want to chat you can get me via email at northwest@codeclub.org.uk or tweet me: @libxx1

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SOUTH EAST – PAUL TANSOM
 

Hello! Having just started as the new South East Coordinator for Code Club I think I should introduce myself… :)

When I was in secondary school my dad saw an advert for one of those new home computer things, a Sinclair ZX81, and thought it would be educational, so we got one. These plugged into the TV, and had no fancy colour graphics or sound, but I was still hooked. This, and studying Computer Science in school, led to a career with computers.

Roll forward to 2012 and I’m a dad with two sons at a primary school, where I am also a governor. I heard about a new thing called Code Club and decided to run pilot sessions in my sons’ school – I’ve done a lot since, and it’s been great!

I’m looking to contact everyone in the south east over the next few months, but you are welcome to get in touch either via email at southeast@codeclub.org.uk or find me on Twitter @aptanet!

Hello Code Clubbers! We hope you’re enjoying a very sunny and happy July. It’s all things go here at HQ and around the UK; Wales’ first Code Club meetup is next week, so we thought it would be an excellent idea to introduce you to Craig Thomas, the new regional coordinator.

Craig’s meetup will be on Thursday 31st July (that’s next Thursday!) from 18:00 – 21:00 at FoundersHub in Cardiff. It’s a thank you for anyone currently involved in Code Club in the area, but it’ll also be a great chance to have a chat with Craig about what we do and how you can help. There’ll be pizza, beer and soft drinks, so there’s no excuse not to pop by. :)

You can book your (free) tickets here, and check out Craig’s hello below!

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Hi! I’m Craig, Code Club’s regional coordinator for Wales.

Keeping it short and sweet, my background is mainly as a web developer with 10 years experience in personal, open source, and voluntary projects in and out of industry. I’d say I’m a good example of where coding as a skill can take you as I’ve held many cool titles and regularly travel for hackathons and digital events.

Other than industry, I also run an initiative called “Silicon Valleys” aimed to improve digital literacy, as well as my own business in Cardiff Bay which I absolutely love! All this is made possible through my ability to code, and a passion to learn. I’m extremely eager to coordinate Code Club in Wales as not only do I appreciate coding as a skill, but more importantly, I wish something like this existed for me when I was in school. For that reason, I essentially see my job title as “Don’t let Welsh children grow up wishing they had a chance to learn code in school” and that’s what I’m going to do!

What I’m looking to do now and in the near future is fully audit where we are in Wales in regards to clubs and volunteers and begin to reach out to you all. If you’ve had any Code Club involvement and registered with us in Wales, you should have received an email from me recently (and if you’ve not registered yet, go for it now: https://www.codeclub.org.uk/register – you’ll be on my radar!). Other than that, I’m also in the midst of setting up what I believe to be Wales’ first Code Club meetup – so keep an eye out for that too.

If you’d like to meet up for a chat and have any involvement (or would like to get involved) with Code Club in Wales, drop me an email at wales@codeclub.org.uk or tweet me @tinybigideas – I’d love to say hello!