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| At every event, there will be experienced people from the FSFE present to support the booth volunteers, so it is not necessary at all to be an expert in every single aspect of Free Software. However, some basic knowledge about Free Software and the FSFE is helpful. |
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| = Time factor = How early in advance should you start organisation activities in order to effectively organise a booth? The most important factor is letting people know in advance, so that other potential volunteers can plan a participation to the event and help you. In our experience, organising a booth is easier if you follow a simple timeline that can be reasumed in three steps. We also think that a booth is a good opportunity to meet fellows who live in the nearby area, so there is some additional work to contact them (that we described in "The Social Booth" section), but nothing you should worry about ;) |
= Timeline = |
One of the main tasks of the Free Software Foundation Europe is to inform the public about Free Software and related topics. For this, it is essential to be present with a booth on tradeshows, fairs, expos, and other local events. Helping at such a booth is a good way to get active for Free Software. Booth volunteers talk to people to explain Free Software and answer their questions. Working as a booth volunteer means at the same time supporting Free Software, meeting interesting people, and having a lot of fun.
The purpose of this page is to help you organising a booth, or participating toa programmed booth. Before starting to think organising a new booth, you might want to consider helping to the organisation of an already programmed booth. Your help is important to us, we don't want it to be wasted!
Timeline
First step (8 weeks before the event). Communication is crucial!
As an organisation, FSFE relies on communication among team members and volunteers, in order to assure an effective coordination and cooperation. Please always consider that point. For instance, if you fail communicating properly your intention to organise a booth, you might lose the opportunity to have other volunteers helping you through the organisation process. So the first step is to communicate your intention of organising a booth.
- Notify the Country team of the country where the booth will be organised.
--> e.g. uk@fsfeurope.org; germany@fsfeurope.org; italy@fsfeurope.org ...
Notify the Public discussion list. Write to discussion@fsfeurope.org for posts in English; fsfe-de@fsfeurope.org for German; fsfe-it@fsfeurope.org for Italian... Other lists available in this page.
Create an event on our Website. A new .xml file should be added to our event list on the main FSFE repository, in the folder /events. If you have problems doing that, or if you do not have writing access to the repository, please ask web@fsfeurope.org.
Add an event to the Fellowship Events Calendar.
Ask Fellows from the same geographical area for help at the event: write a nice, friendly and inviting text and send it to fellowship@fsfeurope.org, along with the proposed subject and a list of countries and postal codes to send the text to.
Second step (4 weeks before the event). Obtain communication material and meet volunteers.
The main purpose of our boots is to inform people about our Free Software in general, and about FSFE's actions to promote it in particular. In order to help you spreading the word, we have leaflets and Posters which can be used at the Booth. In some of our Booths, we also have t-shirts, sweatshirts and other merchandising that might be sold. Selling merchandise is an important source of financing for FSFE, but it should not be intended as the main booth feature. If you want to sell our marcandise at the booth, we will be happy to provide our assistance!. See our merchandising page to order the material you want to sell. Please ignore the payment.
Be sure to contact other fellows and volunteers (See "The Social Booth" section), to motivate them to participate to the Booth.
Third step (1 week before the event). Prepare the material. Download and print the Communication material, including the "Support us" form (see below).
The Social Booth
A booth is also an occasion to meet other fellows who live near the event location. There might be people interested in helping you with the Booth organisation. So, organise a Fellowship meeting nearby the event location.
- Think about a place where you could meet. That could be the booth but also a bar, a restaurant, or a nice picnic in the nearby zone.
- Is there a fellowship group? So coordinate with them.
There is no fellowship group? Write fellowship@fsfeurope.org and forward a message to the fellows living in the area by specifying the postcode of the town where you're organising the event.
People like to be noticed with some advance, so please be sure to follow these procedures at least one month before the event. Send a remindal two weeks before the event, and add an event entry to our website (if you are not sure how to do, just notify web@fsfeurope.org)
Materials
Check out upcoming booths
All Fellowship events in our calendar, you can add different RSS feeds and import the events in the ical format.
Useful resources
Please help to improve the booth FAQ.
Those organising the booth might find the BoothCountdown helpful
Materials
ToDo
- create eye catching slide show
- create a map and show our Fellowship groups on it. Give people the chance to add themself to the map
- create better posters for the booth
language code and version control on leaflets