Czajkowski

Thanks to all those who came along it was great to meet new people here in Limerick who are users of Ubuntu but also want to get more people using it.

Seven of us turned up the Absolute Hotel in Limerick, I had a table got and had a few things that were on the table to let folks know I was there.  I was really chuffed to see so many people turn up, a lot were end users like myself and others are using Ubuntu but also want to see it more visible in their workplace.

It was interesting to hear their experiences in getting Ubuntu rolled out onto more desktops. The issues they faced, the lack of contacts here in Ireland, we’re rather unfortunate not to have Canonical partners over here, or service providers who can be onsite within 4hrs to help with issues that are needed. But again this hasn’t deterred them in going forward!  I was ecstatic to hear Limerick City Council Manager  uses Ubuntu That made my day!

I think it went well, and I’m glad to say we’re going to try it again next month, same place, time  and hopefully get some more discussion going.

I moved back home to Limerick from Dublin and I thought I’d start up an Ubuntu hour here.  On Thursday 29th July, we’re going to have the first one down here.

The idea of an Ubuntu hour is to just chat, meet new people, put a face to a name and talk about Ubuntu, Open Source, other distros what ever you really fancy.  Just makes a change from doing it via mailing list/IRC.  Everyone is welcome, you don’t have to be a user of Ubuntu. We encourage discussion and interaction, but if you just want to come along and listen you’re more than welcome. You can sign up using the LoCo Directory

WHEN: Thursday 29th July

WHERE: Absolute Hotel Limerick  in the Bar area

TIME: Pop in from 6pm onwards

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bracjun/1968911296/in/set-72157603094085314/

Monthly reports are a really good habit to get into for all of us!  But for LoCo Teams it’s especially good.  It will help you keep track of your events and possibly if you aren’t doing much highlight this to you as you’ll see events decreasing which isn’t a good sign of an active team.

What is a good idea is to appoint one person to do up the team report each month. Mail the team saying the report has been created and let people add any other snippets of information they may not have heard about.  This is a great way to stimulate conversation but also means it’s not just down to one person to add content.

Try and do your report a week before it’s due to allow for any issues, such as people going away or not having it done on time. Or allow for people to blog/upload photos of a past event so it can be included in the report.

Don’t forget to write up a summary of past events, link to these on the report, link to photos.  We appreciate not everyone is on planet Ubuntu, using the reports this way is a great way to learn more about the events that are happening.

Leading by example, as we know we can’t ask folks to do monthly reports without doing them ourselves, here is the July report from the LoCo Council

It went ahead even if it was a miserable wet and windy… Summers day! At least the rain held for the time we all met up and had some lovely food from the farmers market.  Well worth going to if you are in the area.  1st Sunday of the month there is a farmers market in people’s park  in Dun Laoghaire.

Thanks to those who came along and braved the cold it was nice to meet some new folks as well and exchange some ideas and thoughts on Ubuntu and Open Souce and what people were doing.  Big thanks to Jeffrey to organised the Geeknic also!  More photos here

I’ve had some time recently to review a lot of wiki applications for LoCos.  It is truly amazing the amount of work some teams do and is a great source of ideas to try for other teams.

With that said, I’ve also seen some wiki pages which are less than clear on what the team is doing which makes it very hard to judge. So I thought I’d put down some best practices to make it clearer what is expected.

So firstly let’s recap:

The LoCo Council has been tasked with identifying Approved LoCo teams which were approved over 2 years ago and thus are due for re-approval. The criteria for re approval is the same as for approval which is outlined on the getting approved instructions and the LoCo Council guidelines can be found at the team approval guidelines.

It should be noted that from the day your LoCo is approved, you should continue to document all events and history of your LoCo for this re approval process to make it clear and visible to all.

Now it is safe to say some teams do not continue documenting their work so when it comes to re approval time it’s panic stations, all hands on deck!  Things you can do to help elevate this are the following

• Use the LoCo Directory to log all of your events it will make it easier to write up about them and possibly in the future link to past events
• MONTHLY Reports folks, only a handful of teams use them and there are more teams there that SHOULD be writing monthly reports, list your IRC meeting, any real life meet up, projects people are working on in relation to Ubuntu.
• Take photos of your events it’ll help in the long run, assign someone at each event to take photos and even create a gallery in one place to link to them

When it comes to the creation of the Application be it for Approval or ReApproval it’s the same thing just NAMED DIFFERENTLY.  You just need to document it. LOTS OF DETAILS PLEASE! We’d rather have too much then not enough details as the meeting is short and we have a lot of teams to get through.

What is expected of a LoCo Team

• All teams must provide the Council with a wiki page (in English preferably) with details outlined in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoGettingApproved.
• The team should have demonstrated a significant and sustained contribution to the Ubuntu community, from participating in a ubuntu-related project, documentation, localization, development (bug reports and packaging, marketing, participating in FOSS events, release parties. All of these abiding the Code of Conduct and following the LoCo team project’s policies.
• The team should have public wiki pages and an open public mailing list set up, these initial resources indicate open participation and they provide the Council with a log of the Team’s activity.
• The team should have an entry in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoTeamList.
• The team should have been running for at least 4 months and have had a consistent set of interactions with each other (council members should look at mailing list activity to assess how much activity there is) – you should also assess IRC activity where applicable.
• The team should have a good roadmap and a good set of goals that they want to achieve, The Approved status is only a confirmation of their effort and it is also a commitment for further community activity.
• Leadership within the team must be build upon fairness and openess. The team must be in agreement with the fair apointment of a leader. This leader must represent the team in different situations in an efficient and effective manner, so the leader’s commitment towards the team is paramount.
• Has there been much conflict in the team, and if so, has it been resolved?: This is a very important sign of a team that is mature enough to face further situations in the future. Resolving issues is definetely a learning experience for LoCo Teams.
• Do the council feel this team could be trusted with additional resources such as additional CDs and being sent equipment for use?, Extra resources encourage more participation therefore, Being able to administer their resources is paramount, making sure that the team has what they need to promote ubuntu locally .
• Is this team setting a good example to the community? The Team must serve as role for new teams. The teams participation in LoCo team communication channels (Mailing list and IRC) is also encouraged, this way the team can be sure of that the great work done by this team gets shared with the whole LoCo Team community.

We also know that from time to time things don’t run smoothly, but how you cope  resolve and work things out is what we would like to know about.  It’s not a bad thing unless you hide it.  On the wiki page tell us how many is in your TEAM, IRC Channel, Mailing list, Forums and link to them.  We need the details, please don’t expect us to go looking for them, your team is one of a number of teams being reviewed.

When it comes to the IRC meeting if you are called for one, don’t come alone.  You are not in the team alone.  You don’t run the team alone.  BRING PEOPLE  TO CHEER THEIR TEAM ALONG!  It’s a team effort remember this when doing the application ASK FOR HELP, ASK  FOR CONTENT, you may miss something when someone else has blogged or taken photos of something.

Remember the LoCo Council idles in #ubuntu-locoteams if you want us to look over your application to give you some pointers just ask.  Remember being called for reapproval is a normal procedure and do not panic

Finally some really good applications just to give you an idea of what we’re looking for are the following

1. Colombian LoCo
2. Italian LoCo
3. French LoCo