Hi all,
a few weeks ago, the FSFE together with M6-IT organised an event in London, taking place at The Hub near Angel. The event was part of the STACS project that we're working on and was intended to bring NGOs to London to learn more about Free Software. Ryan Cartwright, IT manager of Contact a Family, a UK charity for families with disabled children, participated in the event and wrote about it on the Free Software Magazine:
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/blogs/how_to_host_a_free_software_advoca...
Generally, the feeling from the event, which Ryan also writes, is that we need to do more such events in the future, in other places in Europe, to give more NGOs that opportunity to learn more about Free Software and get some hands-on experience from using it.
There's some ideas about doing similar events in Berlin and Gothenburg or Stockholm, but nothing definitely decided yet.
Jonas Oberg oberg@fsfeurope.org wrote:
a few weeks ago, the FSFE together with M6-IT organised an event in London, taking place at The Hub near Angel. The event was part of the STACS project that we're working on and was intended to bring NGOs to London to learn more about Free Software. [...]
OK, now I'm confused. Was this an NGO event (as in the above, in which case I don't care that much but can think of some people I would have told) or a Third Sector event (as the article suggests)? If it was meant to be a third sector event, it's pretty shameful that the national union for cooperative and mutual enterprises, Cooperatives UK, seems not to have been told - cooperatives and mutuals are a very big part of the third sector, but the NGO/NPO/CIC part seems inclined to forget us.
Any way, I'm glad it went well for those who did know about it. I'd suggest including any future events in the FSFE newsletter.
Regards,
MJ Ray wrote:
OK, now I'm confused. Was this an NGO event (as in the above, in which case I don't care that much but can think of some people I would have told) or a Third Sector event (as the article suggests)?
Well, in the strictest sense of things, the event was for Civil Society Organisation. However, as The Hub includes a number of companies from the Third Sector (and indeed, our partner in this, M6-IT, would also belong in the Third Sector), this obviously rubbed off a bit on some of the discussions (not surprisingly, some of the participants from civil society also ran Third Sector companies).
But the idea was, and still is for future engagements, to engage Civil Society Organisations.
Any way, I'm glad it went well for those who did know about it. I'd suggest including any future events in the FSFE newsletter.
Thank you for that suggestion! Indeed, since the last newsletter, we're actually including the events we know about in the newsletter before they actually happen :)
* Jonas Oberg oberg@fsfeurope.org [2007-11-19 17:12:03 +0100]:
Any way, I'm glad it went well for those who did know about it. I'd suggest including any future events in the FSFE newsletter.
Thank you for that suggestion! Indeed, since the last newsletter, we're actually including the events we know about in the newsletter before they actually happen :)
You can also subscribe to the RSS feeds for events: http://www.fsfeurope.org/events/events.en.rss
Best wishes, Matthias
Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org wrote:
- Jonas Oberg oberg@fsfeurope.org [2007-11-19 17:12:03 +0100]:
Thank you for that suggestion! Indeed, since the last newsletter, we're actually including the events we know about in the newsletter before they actually happen :)
You can also subscribe to the RSS feeds for events: http://www.fsfeurope.org/events/events.en.rss
That's fine for people who want to know about events but not news, but surely the RSS feeds for events should just be unnecessary duplication for newsletter subscribers?
Regards,
* MJ Ray mjr@phonecoop.coop [2007-11-19 19:18:43 +0000]:
Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org wrote:
- Jonas Oberg oberg@fsfeurope.org [2007-11-19 17:12:03 +0100]:
Thank you for that suggestion! Indeed, since the last newsletter, we're actually including the events we know about in the newsletter before they actually happen :)
You can also subscribe to the RSS feeds for events: http://www.fsfeurope.org/events/events.en.rss
That's fine for people who want to know about events but not news, but surely the RSS feeds for events should just be unnecessary duplication for newsletter subscribers?
The newsletter is only written monthly. So in some cases it could happen that we do not know about an event at the time the newsletter is written, and it is already over if the next newsletter is written.
So the RSS feed could also be good for people already subscribed to the newsletter, who want to receive a note about new events ASAP.
Best wishes, Matthias
PS: Some Fellows proposed to have an iCal calendar with our events, so you can include it in your calendar application. Do you also think it makes sense?