Senior Mentors Quarterly Update: June 2015

As part of a movement for increased transparency and general awesomeness at SMP we've decided to create a quarterly newsletter to let all of our mentors, pupils, members and watchers know what's going on behind the scenes! We know that sometimes there isn't much going on at the front end of the group so hopefully these updates will remind you that we're here and keeping busy even if you're not seeing journals or deviations go through the group every day.  And my, do we have a lot to cover in this installment!

Three months ago we lost our leader, LostKitten, to the pressures of real life. Fortunately the wonderful JenFruzz stepped up to become our Southie Queen and decided to shake things up a little... and here we are today, with nearly 50 mentor/pupil matches in the last three months and more mentors than ever before!

After the change in leadership the group decided to change the whole hierarchy a little - formerly we had all Mentors as group admins, and some vaguely-defined privclasses, but we wanted some easier-to-navigate systems and the ability to invite Mentors who didn't have a free group admin slot. Currently all mentors have the choice of being a group contributor or just a regular member, and we introduced a standard mentor profile to keep things consistent across the board. We've also created two admin teams within the group, the Applications Team who tirelessly handle all incoming mentor requests; and the Projects Team who have a vague job description and mostly advise from the shadows but also do some fun things like workshops on mentoring, interviews with mentors, and these updates! Big shout-outs to our admins and advisors so far - Astarsia, DarkAlchemistNinja, RavensQuill, monstash and phoenixleo. They've really helped to make everything possible and without them it'd probably just be me and Jen chainsmoking/eating chowder together on skype and being so overwhelmed we'd close the group.


We're never happy with stagnation, though, so we do still have some tricks up our sleeves! In the near future we're thinking of starting a Chats Team - of mentors as well as people who don't have time to mentor but want to help out the cause - who will manage our weekly critique nights in #seniors (which are going great and we have only missed two weeks since November or something). Crit nights usually last two hours or so, and if you're a senior member who would be interested in hosting just drop us a note at the group and we can pass along more information.

We also had a great day on April 1st, when we posted some totally serious no-jokes tutorials on crimson tears in poetry, lens flare, and ms paint photomanipulation.


We've had a few months to settle in, and now it seems like seniormentors is well on its way to world domination!

A few of the mentorships we've coordinated have finished successfully and we're glad to report that the pupils and mentors all seemed all-around happy with how it's gone. Jen is distributing a survey to pupils once they finish with their mentor that is returned fully anonymous for us to review. When you get this survey feel free to be as honest as you want - only Jen and the Projects team can see the replies.


I did a quick exit interview with one of our mentors, quila111, about her first successful pupil and here is her feedback:

I'd say the mentoring experience was great for the both of us! She had been interested in learning perspective, which was something I hadn't used in a long time. Both of us learned something during our month together which I think is a really important thing to happen with this project.

The way I've been mentoring is by giving each pupil a description of the lesson, an assignment, an example, some questions to answer and reference material. This was especially successful in my opinion because this particular pupil does not speak English as a first language, so having all the visual examples (photos and videos) really helped them to excel. It turned out to be extremely easy working with her, and she's given me a high expectation of future student haha!

I think the best advice I can give [other mentors] is be prepared to work! Mentoring is such a wonderful opportunity to pass on our knowledge to others willing to learn. We're helping to shape future artists and writers, and we should provide them with everything we know so that they may surpass us. 

Thanks for talking with us, quila111!

 

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