How to organise FSFE meetings

This is an FSFE guide about organising local meetings. It assumes you already have an FSFE local group. If you don't, but are interested in forming one, you can read more in our Coordinator's Handbook about the role of being a coordinator and how to start a group.

Who can attend a local meeting?

Anyone! You should not restrict participation of your meetings to FSFE supporters. Give interested people the possibility to participate. A lot of people join the FSFE and get active in our activities after they took part in a local group meeting.

What to do during a meeting?

• If there's a talk at the meeting or something specific to do, more people show up. See the announcement section for more information about how to advertise your event
  • What else can you do instead of a talk? Here's an incomplete list of what other local groups have already done and/or could do:

    • Watch a movie and discuss afterwards (e.g.: Patent absurdity, Yes Men Fix The World, ...)

    • Info-booth in pedestrian areas on special occasions like DFD or SFD

    • Invite local politicians to discuss
    • Phone or video conferences with other groups
    • Draft (open) letters to politicians or public institutions

    • Visit public institutions for advocacy work as this group in Norway did: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/touring-norways-municipalities-kindles-open-source-interest

    • Start a new campaign!

    • Participate or organize your own cryptoparties

    • Provide info events in schools

    • Have a booth at "non-nerdy" events, like the group in Vienna did in 2013

• Depending on the people attending your meetings, try not to focus too much on technical issues. Political and social issues are FSFE's speciality and talking about it helps reaching wider audiences. Note that technical discussions can be very excluding for non-technical people
• It is advisable to "embed" the local group in other local groups (hackerspaces, LUGs, etc) and network with them, gain forces and resources for events, talks and the like. Don't try to "compete" with existing groups, rather integrate and connect. Being well connected also helps in getting slots for talks to reach a broader audience for our message.
• For the first meeting it may be a good idea to give a short introduction to the FSFE.

Announcements

To FSFE's network

• You can send an e-mail to all supporters in a certain ZIP code area. Include a planned agenda so people will what will happen. Please send an e-mail to <contact AT fsfe DOT org> with a range of postal (zip) codes, subject and the text. Then we will send an e-mail to the supporters in that area.

This should be send out at latest 10 days before the event as it will also take a while until we can send it out.

• Blog about your activities, if possible also in English to allow others to see what's going on and that something _is_ going on.
• Feel free to make extensive use of this Wiki as well. All supporters and volunteers have an account on the wiki.

  • You can create a wiki page for your group http://wiki.fsfe.org/LocalGroups

• You can have your posts added to planet.fsfe.org. Send your RSS feeds to <contact@fsfe.org> so we can add your blog to the planets. It inspires other people!

  • Note: We try to make the planets language-dependant. Please try to make use of categories or tags which are language-specific so that we can generate language-specific feeds and add English posts to the English planet and other languages to each language's planet.

• You can add the event on FellowshipEvents and if possible also on FSFE's event page: See FSFE's information page for webmasters to find out how to edit the web pages. Alternatively, you can send an email to <web AT fsfeurope DOT org> and ask our volunteers to put the event entry online for you. It might be a good idea to follow the style of existing entries on that list.

To your local network

• You can announce your meetings on the mailing lists of local user-groups. At least in the beginning it is also useful to announce it on the public discussion list and other places.

Personal contacts are important! Check who in your network could be interested by Free Software, and make your event attractive to those people! If you are part of other organisations, promote your event on their usual channels, highlighting their link with Free Software

Design your announcement notice

• If your announce your meeting via other means than email, have a look at the designer section of the website, you can find the official FSFE colours and other designer guidelines.

Tips for your activities

Of course you are free to just meet, have drinks, discuss about Free Software related issues. Here some tips gathered from experienced event organisers:

• Do not try to make too complex activities. It is better to start with small tasks which you really can implement. When you have doubts it is a sign that it is too much for volunteers. You can discuss planned activities on <coordinators AT lists DOT fsfe DOT org> and see what other group coordinators think about it.

• Document planned and done activities in the wiki or on your blog so you can point others to it, and they can comment on it.

Activities ideas

• Activities for DFD (Document Freedom Day), SFD (Software Freedom Day)...

Issuing DFD awards is a lot of fun and rewarding. Every coordinator who participated in such an event described it as one of the most positive experiences with the group. Which confirms that positive campaigning is a good thing to do.

• Preparing a local booth at an event
• Small workshops
• Release party

You can have a look at the planet to see if there are any current topics that might be of interest

Know your group members

• People who don't get our message need to have it explained. Don't be mad at them. That's our audience. Tell them where to go and how to get help. Distribute Free Software CDs/DVDs if possible (e.g. Valo-CD or FramaKey for Windows users).

• Some questions you might want to ask:
  • Does anyone know of Free Software being used by local government bodies? Do we want to support them? If not, do we want to lobby them?
  • ...or in schools?
  • Does the government have a policy on Free Software / Open Standards?

  • Can anyone help with webpage translations, design work, or other things?

  • Is anyone involved with related project such as OpenStreetMap

  • What other groups and meetings exist in this region?
  • Is today's meeting format good, or what's the best way to meet next time?

Inclusive groups

Here are a few tips to make your group meetings / mailing list attractive and welcoming to new people especially if they are not technical:

• highlight the link between Free Software and other topics
• be very clear that newcomers are welcome to ask any kind of questions. Sometimes checking with them if they are lost can be a good idea.
• beware of super technical discussions, it can be very excluding
• careful with inside jokes - at least try to include newcomers by explaining your jokes and sharing your group's culture. Sexist, racist of homophobic jokes are not funny

Implement our Code of Conduct

The FSFE community activities and FSFE events are covered our Code of Conduct. In a very simple form it says: Be excellent to each other. But please, take 5 minutes to read through it once and make yourself aware of desirable and undesirable behaviour. A welcoming and inclusive environment starts with an atmosphere in that every participant can feel safe at all times. If you need help with implementing the Code of Conduct, get in contact with the CARE-team.

How to get more women involved

There is no magical solution.

Being excellent to each other and welcoming in general is clearly the first step.

2 cents from a female fellow on this: try to avoid women specific behaviours, even if it's to be especially nice. What makes a group inclusive is a global atmosphere.

Moderation:

• During the working session, Q&As, etc. you can ease things for everyone by moderating the discussions

Group coordination

Coordinators, if you don't have a backup coordinator yet, get one! Spread the load on more shoulders.