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Tag Archive for 'volunteer'

Three easy ways for direct action

Published by on 17 September 2007 at 21:05 in 501c3, Leadership Circle, Participation, Transparency and volunteer coordination. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Did you ever volunteer for CouchSurfing? Please edit this (incomplete) summary of time spent volunteering for CS.

If you’re active in the CS groups you probably found out that it’s not allowed anymore to discuss politics and policy in the Brainstorm groups. Threads are moved to the newly formed Politics and Policy group. Since groups are ordered by number of members, it is not so prominent yet, but with 39 or 42 members (39 on the group page, the number 42 can be deduced from Casey’s profile; and I hope this is just a normal bug) in its short period of existence it is a sign that couchsurfers do care about the politics of this organization. You can help by joining the Politics and Policy group, so that it will be a bit more prominent (hint: you can set it to “No Communication”, if you don’t want to be on it at all times, that’s how I set all my groups, and that’s how I found out that someone kicked me out of Brainstorm and then joined me again).

If you haven’t already, please fill out this survey about the questions that will be offered to the Leadership Team. And although I would have posed them in a different way, I think the most important questions are:

  • Are there any full bye-laws of the corporation, further than the Articles of Agreement, or a draft thereof, and if yes, will you post it?
  • Are you willing to adopt a clause in the corporate bye-laws that irrevocably dedicates all assets to charitable purposes?
  • Is there any draft of the 501(c)(3) application (Form IRS-1023), and if yes, will you post it?

But of course, just pick your own favorites. You can choose 20!

My last post to CS

Published by on 21 August 2007 at 12:13 in BeWelcome, Culture of Appreciation, Leadership Circle, tech team leader, volunteer coordination and Volunteer coordinator. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

“I agree. I’m also Anu’s #1 fan :) ”

And I thought I was! :)

Although I have moved on to support the hospitality movement through BeWelcome.org, where a true democracy exists and no one is making money off the generosity of others, where volunteers are respected and treated with honesty and fairness by other volunteers acting as leaders with the consent of the community, I sometimes check in at CouchSurfing to see what my friends are up to and to check on the community I love and gladly worked for as a full-time volunteer until it was led away from the CS 2.0 vision by the current management.

Not well, I would say.

I feel that trying to influence the power elite of CS is futile through any other than legal means, but I feel compelled to speak up on behalf of Anu.

I worked very closely with her for more than six months. During this time, she demonstrated excellent qualities of self-motivation, leadership, responsible communication, and technical competence. But more impressive was her tireless devotion to the community, always advocating for it, always nurturing it, always defending it (even with anger at times). And above all, most impressive was her direct honesty and integrity.
She was the obvious choice for Tech Team leader, in the minds of Kasper and I, and I believe she had the support of Joe by that time. We were the 4 core volunteer developers who together did the bulk of the technical work on this website during most of the year following the Montreal Collective, where CS 2.0 was launched.

Anu was blacklisted by the CS elite, and passed over as leader of the Tech Team. After many months of devoted work on behalf of the community, the wishes of the Tech Team on this matter were completely ignored, not even consulted.

Anu has been unappreciated and treated with disrespect. This is unconscionable. Myself and other volunteers of the Tech Team were mislead and treated with disrespect.

When I resigned as a volunteer, I had strong suspicions about the motives of the CS elite, but I gave them what benefit of the doubt I could and was willing to support CS as a corporation providing a service to the hospitality community. After what I have seen and what has come to light since, no longer can I support it under the current management.

Casting dispersions on Anu’s integrity is going too far. She deserves an apology.

Calling people who gave heart and soul to this community, but now feel mislead and betrayed by the CS elite, and are angry about it, “CS-haters”, is reprehensible.

This is in the style of the Bush administration, which brands all critics of its policies “unpatriotic“.

Let me out of here. I’m deleting my profile.

John

HC might soon be open source!?

Published by on 14 August 2007 at 11:00 in Hospitality Club, Open Source and Participation. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

I read the news today oh, boy! HC might soon be open source!

I’m really excited. I have been somewhat disappointed about certain policies in the past (?). But I appreciated the frankness of Veit and other HC people. I never felt to volunteer for HC before. However, opening up the source could also open up a lot of possibilities. To solidify the legal framework of HC, to create stronger links and share code between the different networks. Of course there are many more implications, but let’s see and wait how it turns out. I always wanted to help out many different initiatives, so in the meanwhile I already offered my help on the HC forum.