effiejayx’s blog

UBUNTU-VE

After the party it was our turn to pick up our stuff and leave. the ubuntu-ve guys definetely wanted to meet at a bar. I honestly was too tired to go, I decided to go home and take a shower and then head back to the place they were going to. It was the first time ubuntu-ve would sit and talk face to face.

Next Event

It was, Rolando, Nathalie, Santiago, Cesar and me who spoke about the community and how it should shape up. we talked about the event. we were satisfied with what we acomplished. we did talk about follow up. Next year an event in the capital city of Caracas.

New Structure

In this very interesting first year, ubuntu-ve learned how to stand, walk and run. and one thing we did learn is that we have to be always open to new people wanting to help. and taking a hint from what’s going on in the comunity at large, I suggested that teams be created to better handle the different administrative task. a Website Team, an IRC team, a mailing list Team and a forums team. the idea is to have a group of people and not just one person at each task.

NEW LoCo TEAM CONTACT

If you read rolando, I am the new LoCo team contact =D. I was handed the position by Rolando and with the approval of the ubuntu-ve council. I feel honored and I feel full of energy to undertake what lies ahead this year. more involvement from people in Venezuela and integration with other Latin American LoCo’s shall be key (documentation proyect among all spanish speaking LoCo’s).

A big THANK YOU to IGLURBE (What a great University LUG) :

I had my first taste at running a lug at IGLURBE. and they are always dear to me (Shall tell that story later):

Andrea Bravo, (For being so motivational, her energy is so contagious that it makes you do anything so that you do no dissapoint). Rocmer Hurtado (for his neverdying spirit), Mario Briceño (Coordinator of the Technology Transfer Center) (for his guidance and his support regarding the advercities), Irais Mejias (for her insights and her help at the day of the event, always a great mentor), Angie for volunteering. the Newcomers to the IGLURBE team… Manuel, Eva and Kristian. May you lead the way for even more IGLURBE members.

Ubuntu Venezuela Rocked the House CHECK ALL THE PICS HERE

BEWARE: LONG POST

Well, After two days of “final touches” (preprinting certificates, id tags, getting the banners, Burning CD’s, etc (check the pictures for more details). It was the day of the party. and boy did that day  really live up to be an ubuntu release party day.

  Me(effie-jayx) and Santiago Zarate (santiago-ve), Nathalie Colina(Art3misa) and Vanessa Gutierrez (titacgs) to the venue at 6:30 am to set up the registration table (give out CD’s, ID tag and printed info on ubuntu). we made sure the registration system worked. and it did but later died on us … a very long line of people to check attendance. So we had a list of attendees and 5 volunteers started verifying manually. It all moved along nicely. The event started on Schedule 9:00 am with a turn up of around 200 people.

I offered a talk on the Ubuntu as a distro and the way the community works.  Rolando Blanco (LoCo team contact) talked about his experience on commercial support in venezuela, giving attendees some insights on what to expect when promoting ubuntu, Santiago Zarate offered his insights on web development through Ubuntu,  Luis Puentes broke myths showing some really cool games in Linux. All of the talks had very interesting questions at the end and People asking received ubuntu-ve tatoos .  Closing the event, we had a General Q and A session with the Ubuntu-ve Community and Work Tables.

A very interactive session with members of the University Lug (Rocmer and Yohendry) offered a more unconference like atmosphere. Participants got the chance to drain all their questions and SEE UBUNTU.

Mesas de Trabajo (work tables) is a format unusual to me but familiar to Nathalie and Cesar. These workshop like session gave the chance to the attendees to help out with different issues ubuntu-ve is trying to solve. A very specific situation was Ubuntu Translation to Wayünaiiki, One of the attendees happened to speak the language and study computer science. he and a group of 5 sat together and wrote down some ideas on how to help the proyect lift off. Other tables included “Donating PC’s”, Spanish Documentation Team (ubuntu-doc-spa). the ideas and the contacts made will surely help us get out of some internal bottle necks.

It is the first year of Ubuntu-ve and we celebrated in style. All spirits up and new blood pumping and ready to do even better the second year.

FYI:

Rolando Blanco is the LoCo team Contact and drove 10 hours to get to the city of Maracaibo.

Santiago Zarate 10 hours by Bus.

Nathalie Colina 6 hour drive after work.

Can’t thank you enough guys…

More to come on the final Installment commenting on all the happenings of the ubuntu-ve party in Maracaibo.

Next Installment and final installment:

• The University DREAM TEAM (Thank you IGLURBE).
• New structure of UBUNTU-VE.
• Energizing our projects.

Well This is the first post to document what lies behind the release party for venezuela this saturday at the planning of the Venezuelan Release Party. I am writing this LONG post to release some of the stress.

To give you some background, the Venezuela Team had been debating over having an event since MARCH 2007. Many arguments as to how to plan, who did what, and what to have quickly turned the organizing team (senior members of ubuntu-ve) into very puzzled people. Feisty was released and we had small parties around the country. But we were still needing something.In June, UBUNTU-VE turned  1 year old. We needed a celebration and we decided the next release party would do. It gave us enough time to plan and it gave us enough Hype to get going.

So after many weeks later, Nathalie Colina put a deadline for a venue and time. and I luckily found a great place. The Auditorium of “Universidad Rafael Belloso Chacín”. usually universities are pretty open to let you promote.  OCTOBER 20th. It was like finding that perfect picnic spot in your favorite park.

I called the founding members of ubuntu-ve and they are delighted to participate (Rolando Blanco is even driving 12 hours just to be there), and people from all over the country started saying. I’m going there. For this little grasshoper, It feels like a bunch of people headed for the Ubuntu woodstock. It feels amazing.

What do we do to promote?

We did the usual mailing list, wiki and other. but we decided to get One on One with people. and I decided to hand out flyers around the University and not only in the Computer Science area “ALL OVER THE PLACE”. It took me 2 days to deliver 500 flyers to people. I took the delicacy to talk a bit when I gave the flyers so that people picked up the idea right.

The GRUB

We sent 5 letters for food sponsorship and we got 1 very positive response. The very gentle people at the “La Chinita” International Airport have kindly sponsored food for 300 people (yes, you heard right. The Local Airport is involved ). Food is covered .

Decorations:

I am on an ART ATTACK rampage and did some pretty cool banners for tomorrow. All homemade just like the Software Freedom Day Banner last month (READ THE GEEK BANNER HOWTO HERE).  It is a very relazing way to spend time with friends and get some Varsity like decorations going for your event . Some balloons and confeti should do as well.

The CD’s:

The Stable Iso’s were released yesterday at 7:34 am venezuelan time. so We are facing the challenge of burning 350 cd’s of Gutsy. Rolando Blanco even bought his Car power Cable for his laptop and another ubuntero and He and his Ubunteros from Caracas will be burning Cd’s all the way to Maracaibo.

350 copies WIL BE DELIVERED…

Today we are working on the different aspects prior to the party

More to come on the next installment

Check out more behind the scene pictures here