The Return to MozFest

So, last year was my first time at Mozfest, it was quite overwhelming and an amazing experience at the same time. This year I’m going back as a session leader, rather than just a general volunteer (don’t know whether that’s a good thing yet or not, I’m sure we’ll find out).

I’m now 19 and am coming into this year as the organiser of Kent Jams, an outcome from last year’s festival and a recently started apprentice. So I’m hoping that this year will be less overwhelming, more enjoyable and allows me to get something different from the event than last year, as I’m running a session this year and not just helping out with the drop-in activities.

I felt that because of the enjoyment and the new contacts/friends I got from the last festival that it would be a great opportunity to gain some more friends and to be more involved within the YouthZone, as this year I feel more of a part of the Pi team, whereas last year I was just sort of thrown in at the deep end.

I think that coming to MozFest is going to increase my confidence, or at least stop me panicking about running sessions. Mainly because I’ve avoid running sessions at my own Jams due to me worrying about me not being good enough or someone judging me. Hopefully, running a session this year might reduce the worrying associated with these activities. If I can run my session from the start to the end and have people going out the door feeling like they have learnt something or have at least enjoyed my session, then I will go away from the festival feeling like I’ve achieved something.

I’m running the Raspberry Pi Burping Jelly Baby session within the YouthZone on the Saturday of the festival. Hopefully, we will have enough time to expand the content of the session to include some spooky sounding jelly babies, it is Halloween after all.