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Ubuntu US and Pennsylvania updates

Ubuntu US Teams

On August 26th the USTeams Project had a meeting:

Huge thanks to everyone who attended! There were a couple of major topics that came up:

Visibility of the team itself, how do State teams know they can come to us for help?

Some thoughts that were floated including getting ourselves listed on the Solar System of Planet Ubuntu, blogging more about the team (oh, hi!) and making direct contact with some of the teams out there (this is something one of our former board members had begun to do)

Thoughts for the upcoming Ubuntu Global Jam, as a mentoring project, how do we help increase the number of US teams participating?

We’ve found that frequent issue with the quieter teams in the US is when you’re not near a major metropolitan area, you can feel isolated and “the only Ubuntu user in the area!” so we have suggested a participating element of Ubuntu Global Jam that you can do from home, and join #ubuntu-us and chat with us, and help your team: US Teams Wiki Doc “Day” 2009! During the Ubuntu Global Jam weekend we’re encouraging teams to fix up their wikis, inviting them to review and offer suggestions on the USTeams wiki, and do reviews of the LoCoTeams wikis in general.

For folks who don’t wish to use an IRC client, I’ve also set up a freenode chat gateway on our website so you can join the #ubuntu-us chat easily via your web browser:

http://ubuntu-us.org/chat

Along with the wiki page describing the event, I published a new article on Ubuntu-US.org. Amber Graner was also kind enough to contribute an article:

Thanks Amber! We’re always looking for new ideas and submissions for articles on the site, so please email me if you have any suggestions!

Our next team meeting is scheduled for this Wednesday in #ubuntu-us: September 9th 2009 @ 10pm EDT, 9pm CDT, 8pm MDT, 7pm PDT

Ubuntu Pennsylvania

The Ubuntu Pennsylvania team is ROCKING! Events are scheduled just about every other weekend for the next few weeks, with ongoing projects like the collaboration with FreeGeekPenn starting to come together, and an LTSP project that Jim Fisher is leading up as a joint venture with the PLUG Into Hive76 crew.ubuntupennsylvania.org

I have to say that aside from having an awesome core team of motivated folks, getting into contact with other groups in the area has been the most beneficial thing to the Pennsylvania Team. We work with our local LUGs, hackerspaces, tech-related non-profits, conferences and local tech groups who don’t have for specific angle but will welcome Ubuntu demos and presentations. Of the upcoming events we’re having, only the Global Jam event is one we’re doing ourselves, and the fellow from the company hosting it one I met through the local LUG – and I asked him if the space was available during a LUG meeting.

So, upcoming events!

September 19: Software Freedom Day

We’ll be out at the Philadelphia Area Computer Society celebrating Software Freedom! The main event of the day is a MythTV presentation by David A. Harding. The rest of the team will be doing demos of Ubuntu and other Free Software, giving out Ubuntu swag and CDs loaded up with free software for Windows.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PennsylvaniaTeam/EventsTeam/PhillySFD2009

September 25: PLUG into Hive76 imaging server training

Jim Fisher and I will be attending the next PLUG into Hive76 meeting to collaborate on running an imaging server. Well, actually, Jim will be graciously imparting his knowledge to me so I can go forth and share it with Free Geek Penn! Awesome example of LUGs working with hackerspaces working with LoCo teams working with non-profits!

October 3: MythJam

As a follow-up to our Software Freedom Day event on September 19th we’ll be hosting a “MythJam” where we bring in our Myth experts to help people build their Myth systems. We’re doing this event as part of the Ubuntu Global Jam, so we’ll also be participating in Bug Squashing and the US Teams Wiki Doc “Day”

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PennsylvaniaTeam/EventsTeam/PhillyMythJam2009

October 17: CPOSC

The Harrisburg regional team is working with some folks making the trek out from Philadelphia to populate at able at the Central Pennsylvania Open Source Conference. Bret Fledderjohn ordered a Conference Pack and organized raising the money needed for a table. Thanks to donations from team members, we were quickly able to raise it.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PennsylvaniaTeam/EventsTeam/CPOSC2009

Should be a fun month :)