Archive:Board10/ChapterCensusEmail

Hey

We're really excited to hear that you're interested in starting a chapter at !

I see that you contacted us a while back on starting a chapter and we never got back. We're transitioning the process behind our chapter database and the whole queue of responses to the online form ended up falling through the cracks. Our apologies!

After sending this email, I'll subscribe you to our chapters mailing list, as well as our discuss mailing list. More on that at the end.

Tips for what to do with your chapter:
No two SFC chapters are the same. In the past, chapters have hosted "Open Art" exhibitions, brought in speakers, and put on movie nights with documentaries relating to the movement. This page on our wiki is a great place to start looking for ideas for chapter programming: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Year_one But you don't just have to think in terms of campus programming. Some chapters just meet weekly to chat about their shared interest in freedom, sharing and openness. Some write really cool software, like youtomb.mit.edu.

In the last couple years there's been an especially large movement among chapters to work as advocates for openness and sharing within their own universities (we call this our "Open University Campaign," and it's described here: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Open_University_Campaign). For example, here at Dartmouth, I just got funding to continue some work that I've been doing on advocating for and creating an OpenCourseWare system here.

Let's chat on the phone or skype!
This part is optional but encouraged. It'd be nice to just take 10-15 minutes to learn more about your interest and answer any questions you may have and hopefully provide a helpful connection or two.

My number is +1(310) 439-8885. Feel free to call any time, or we can schedule something specific if you'd rather.

Just to start you thinking, here're the things I plan to bring up:
 * how did you first get interest in free culture? what issues are most interesting to you?
 * what can we the board do to help you out?
 * what, if anything, has your chapter done so far?
 * what are your plans for the rest of the year?
 * do you have a strategy for continuity through to next year?

Talk to us through Skype by contacting: StudentsforFreeCulture

A few more logistics, including stuff to pass on to your chapter members:
http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss (if you have trouble, follow these simple instructions: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Fc-discuss) http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/conf11
 * If you're interested in getting a chapter blog and/or mailing list, email webteam@freeculture.org with your request.
 * If you or any of the members of your chapter are interested in helping out at all with maintaining and building our web resources, please please please email webteam@freeculture.org to let us know! We could use all the help we can get, and not all of it is super technical (for example, to create chapter blogs all you need to do is log in to a webpage and press buttons, and it would be /great/ to have a volunteer that agreed to take charge on that)
 * As I said, I subscribed you to the discuss@freeculture.org mailing list. This is really the place to be--it's where you'll hear about cool projects, upcoming events (like the recent Open Access Week), and increasingly it's a place where inter-chapter communication happens. Hopefully your chapter can help to facilitate more of that! And feel free to use it to ask questions! Subscribe as many other members of your chapter as you'd like here:
 * Save the date! Our next conference will be February 19th-20th at NYU. If you want to help out with conference planning, join the conf11 mailing list and introduce yourself!

Finally, Some Data Collection:
For our records, it would help a lot to get this info from you:
 * your AIM:
 * your shipping address:
 * your school's website:
 * your school's street address (so we can add you guys to our epic map!):