November Newsletter
things to do before sending
The Newsletter itself
This newsletter is targeted at participants of the 888 project and/or to people that showed interest in 789 project. It deals mainly with planning the event. Input from everyone is welcome. Below you find a draft version, feel free to edit.
Title: 789 Newsletter: Let's hitch with Frankenstein!
When was your last hitchhiking trip? Looking forward to yet the next!? Try this winter in Europe! Why not spend New Year somewhere completely random, maybe even with your driver! Hitching can be relatively easy in winter: no hitching queues, people don't like to leave hitchers standing in the cold, and why wait for summertime?
It also gets you into gear for the next hitchhiking week in Europe, taking place on 789, the 7th of August 2009. According to the latest polls, with 34 people voting already, almost 50% of the votes are for Ukraine, mainly Odessa. We invite you to cast your vote and to share your opinion. You can vote on the forum, to be found at hitchwiki/forum
Website and discussion forum
For communication, we have set up a website at http://the789project.eu. There the forum with all discussions can be found.
Deciding the location
In Paris at the 888-event we agreed we want to have a kind of welcoming group that can facilitate a location, and possibly arrange communication with local authorities and press. So far we have not succeeded in having good contacts in the Ukraine. We will therefore have to put more effort in getting in touch with the right people and continue to discuss the location. Join that discussion! Also, if you are think that another place is so much better, make yourself heard.
Slogans: seven, eight, nine!
789 needs a good storyline, a sentence that grabs the attention immediately, one that is easy to remember and great to use. When we were in Paris for the European Hitchhiking Day at "8/8/8/ Paris wants you for a nomadic date", thinking about the next slogan for 7/8/9., all we came up with was, "789 the road is mine". Obviously that slogan will never hold. So we came up with an additional 35 so far, feel free to add yours and share your opinion. Check 789/Slogan
New website - css-geeks wanted!
A new website is up for 789. It is based on Drupal and has a crazy amount of options, it can basically look like however we want it. Potentially we can change the whole layout, plus it offers possibilities for blogs, forum, photos, a special entry page, and so on. Check http://the789project.eu
To make things work we are looking for css-designers and people who want to help out with text, ideas, and so on. Feel free to drop a note on the forum.
Happy hitching!
Notes
The vote on the forum / Reaching a consensus
There's already a vote going on on the forum. This vote should not be binding but rather consultative. The best would be to reach a consensus through discussion and keep the vote for last resort (if we can't agree).
The voting stays open as a permanent opinion survey (you can edit your vote). For now 29 people gave their voice to the voting already, most of them voted for Ukraine, mainly Odessa. So it looks like it'll be Ukraine, but if you're convinced that another place is so much better, make yourself heard.
Local welcome
One particularly sensible point is: how the local citizenry and administration feel towards us. If the third most popular choice shows to have a really cool mayor that wants nothing more than a crowd of hitch-hikers, then we should go for them.
For that, we need support from the local communities. It would be a good idea to contact the local people with whatever tool available in the, say top 6 cities, and see if they can find an arrangement with the people they elected.