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Today's Topics:
1. Montreal/Quebec city report (Canada) for SFD 2012
(Fabian Rodriguez)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 09:20:58 -0400
From: Fabian Rodriguez <
magicfab@member.fsf.org>
Subject: [SFD-discuss] Montreal/Quebec city report (Canada)
for SFD
2012
To:
sfd-discuss@sf-day.org
Cc:
libreplanet-ca-qc@libreplanet.org
Message-ID: <
505C69BA.7060200@member.fsf.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
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(BCC: Gabriel Cossette, SFD 2012 organizer in Quebec city /
CC:
LibrePlanet QC mailing list)
Hello,
This year we had exceptionally low participation at SFD 2012
in Montreal
and Quebec city.
In Montreal we had a full day of activities on Friday Sept.
14:
http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2012/Canada/Montreal/LPQC
In Quebec we had a smaller event, "happy hour" in a bar on
Saturday,
Sept. 15:
http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2012/Canada/Quebec/LinuQ
I was leading the Montreal event while another free software
activist
here, Gabriel Cossette was leading the Quebec city event.
This was
advertised only a couple of weeks before the events,
although it's not
unusual in our context (lots of events in Quebec,
last-minute volunteer
organization).
In Montreal very few showed up, two were presenters. One of
them was a
blind, long-time GNU/Linux user. Instead of following the
schedule we
made the best of our time, trying to liberate an Android
phone, testing
Trisquel for accessibility, testing new USB keys I had
created with
multisystem (
http://liveusb.info/dotclear/)
and generally talking about
community reinforcement and advocacy ( a new local Mozilla
community is
coming up ). The venue for Montreal was graciously offered
by the
/Consulado General de la Rep?blica Bolivariana de Venezuela
en
Montreal//,/ they have a beautiful place equiped with
multimedia
equipment and Internet. While a bit disappointing in
attendance, low
numbers meant we had lots of time to discuss one-on-one and
experiment /
test / exchange.
On the positive side, I reviewed past year's communications,
updated a
few wiki resources, and kept open that important contact for
the venue -
free (as in beer), "compatible" venues for free open source
software
events are not easily found.
In Quebec city something similar happened. I am told by
Gabriel their
meetup there started at 6 PM and lasted until 11PM, lots of
informal
discussion and exchanges: few people showed up but a great
time was had :)
I blame the low turn out on lack of proper planning
beforehand - but
specifically on my choice of Friday for the main event. The
venue we had
available for Montreal on such short notice was only
available on Friday
so I took a bet (and lost). The Quebec event wasn't
coordinated with
Montreal's - although I know Gabriel well the usual
cooperation didn't
happen. We missed the deadline for registrations too so
promo material
wasn't available other than what I produced on my own.
This serves as a reminder we can't improvise, and we also
need to
coordinate better events between different locations. Last
year we had
prepared for over a month and the event was on a Saturday,
very
different (great) results. Keeping all the above in mind, I
hope I ( or
anyone else doing this in Quebec province next year) can
avoid such
mistakes for next year.
tldr; lack of preparation and coordination resulted in low
turnout,
hopefully we learn from this and nail it next year
Happy Hacking,
Fabi?n Rodr?guez
http://fsf.magicfab.ca
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