Here in the Bay Area, we’ve held a RailsBridge workshop nearly every month for the past four years. But demand hasn’t subsided — in fact, every workshop we do still fills up weeks ahead of time. Behind the scenes, the consistent production of 30-100 person events is a lot of work.

We owe this incredible streak to the efforts of our RailsBridge SF organizers and meta-organizers. But our current leadership structure is burning out our best people, so we’re trying something different. We’ve split the role we previously called “meta-organizer” into three roles.

We’re excited to introduce you to the new RailsBridge San Francisco leadership team! Ruchika Kumar will be our initial Chapter Lead, Celeste Layne will be our initial Venue Manager, and Anna Neyzberg will be our initial Organizer Manager. We’re starting with three-month terms that we’ll extend if everyone is still having fun (and we hope they are!). Here’s a bit more about these amazing women who have stepped up to help grow RailsBridge San Francisco:

Ruchika Kumar, Chapter Lead

Ruchika schedules and supports workshops happening in San Francisco. She manages the SF calendar, ensuring that workshops are happening at a good pace — one or two each month. She also recruits workshop organizers and new leaders to our community, by attending workshops and other events, and champions the work of the current volunteer base. As the leader of the SF chapter, Ruchika works to make sure that volunteers aren’t burning out, and is able to step into roles temporarily if needed.

Ruchika, from rainy Manchester, UK, moved to the USA eight years ago. After a few years in NYC she opted for sunny California and has co-founded multiple products with Ruby On Rails, latest being omni channel SaaS SKU IQ. Her first stop in SF was a Railsbridge workshop.

CelestE Layne, Venue Manager

Celeste is the one to talk to if your company would like to host a RailsBridge event! She maintains our good relationships with the companies that host our events, and works with new venue partners. She writes a lot of email, checks out new venues, communicates RailsBridge’s expectations and requirements, and follows up after events to hear how it went. Then she cycles that input back to the leadership team to consider when planning future events.

Celeste is originally from the island of Trinidad and Tobago. She moved to the Bay Area approximately two years ago, after growing up in New York City, to combine her background in architecture and urban planning with tech. She found a welcoming community in RailsBridge. She currently works as an active transportation planner in SoMa.

Anna Neyzberg, Organizer Manager

Anna recruits and supports organizers for individual workshops. Many people don’t think they can organize events, so much of her job is explaining how much fun organizing is when you have a team of co-organizers. She identifies serial participants who should be recruited as volunteers, and works with the RailsBridge board and SF leadership team to recruit organizer mentors and match them with new workshop organizers. She also follows up with the organizers after their workshops to thank them and identify improvements we can make in the planning process.

Anna is a Bay Area native who opted out of med school to enter the exciting world of web development. She loves being outdoors, traveling, and handcrafted coffee. RailsBridge SF was her first real introduction to web development.

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Want to host or sponsor a RailsBridge event in San Francisco? You can email the SF Leadership Team at sf@railsbridge.org. Want to make a general donation to RailsBridge or help in some other way? Get in touch via hello@railsbridge.org.