6810/Berlin meeting/Minutes

6-8-10, hitchhiking is...
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6810 pre-meeting Berlin.

We started the meeting with an introduction-round. Present are :

• Felix
• Stefen
• Valentin
• Jennie
• Elsie
• Ben
• Julien
• Patryk
• Sandra
• Robin
• Anja
• Tau
• Ralf

Destinations

Talking first about the destinations. We give space to everyone to promote one place and then discuss the options again.

One of the points raised is that there isn't a good place to discuss the options on the website, there is the hitchwiki but people feel that isn't enough.

Points

• We want a place somewhere where it is relatively easy for many people to hitchhike to
• Pre-meetings can also be organised in easier to reach places and end-destination can be harder.
• Idea: a challenge pre-meeting if the actual destination is rather easy

Destination Decision

Options for making a decision for a place:

• We make a decision now based on the existing poll
• We make a shortlist of the 3 most popular places and do a new vote
  • This would be combined with a forum discussion for people to put forward their ideas per destination (each place has their own topic) and people can put forward their proposals to organise this
    • For example: Someone steps up in terms of location and make it happen in terms of location (think Portugal).
  • A new voting based either on single-vote or multiple vote (people cast their preferences).
  • Voting only for three weeks max.

Pro

• If we don't leave the meeting now without a decision of where we go, then we leave it unclear.
• It is not possible to have every opinion reflected, there will always be other people.
• Not to have people who just with their laptop make their vote without being involved.
• We can do more work this weekend on the destination if we make a decision now.
• The higher we get in terms of level of democracy, the more complex it may get.

Con

• Old poll is based on suggestions from last year and the discussion is not reflected in the suggestions.
• New ideas are not reflected in the current poll, like challenge pre-meetings
• Maybe too complicated to vote?
• We need to gather some more information first.
• The poll was easy to manipulate. You just vote for your top favourite one and then vote for two others (or none) that are low on the list. Like this you can push top-destinations down.
• Having another poll is another way of getting more people involved in the process and come up with their contributions whereas before they kept silent.

Criteria

Criteria for choosing the destination

• Some kind of organisation/ network of people at the ground to help organising.
  • Speaks the language, can talk with authorities if needed.
  • Can help scouting for a place
• To have a body of water around us to keep us clean
• Easy to hitch to? Or is it a challenge?
  • This can be combined with pre-meetings
  • There are a lot of old HH'ers who like a bit of challenge - but it really doesn't come with "promoting HH'n to everybody". This promoting doesn't mean only "for local drivers", but also for people who don't make long distance hitchhiking - yet. When it's easy place to reach, they'll come and fall in love with it. :-) -Mikael 17:00, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
• Population center, like a city so we are not apart from the people but part of it.
• Easy visa requirements so we can get as many people from different places as possible
• Open space
  • Space to be free to walk around naked and not disturb someone
  • Space where we all can camp for free
  • Shouldn't be laws against what we do, like drinking in public
• Price: not an expensive place/ dumpster friendly

Places discussed

Kaunas, Lithuania

• there is no need to promote hitchhiking there.
• it is on the main road, there is no challenge to hh there, no fun.
• Good visa chanches for people from Russia

Vama Veche, Romania

• no tourists.
• you can put up your tent anywhere you want.
• we can be compact, we can stay at one place.
• we can also stay much longer. you don't have to go, you can stay if you want.
• hitching needs promoting in Romania. Sometimes drivers ask for money.

Somewhere in Portugal

• would like to hitch through Spain to promote hitchhing, it needs to be promoted there
• also cheap country
• need to prove that it is possible
• Santiago de Campost road is there too. Maybe much hospitality on the way?

Pilgrims is industrial business there.

• Promotional meeting can be held in Barcelona. It sounds as a good and easy options to get many people there, and have people to hitch from there to Portugal. Same counts for other places such as in the Basque Country and Madrid

Chişinău, Moldova

• easy to get visa for People from Ukraine/Russia
• good to hitch
• Very close to last year, Odesa

Munster

• internal promotion needed so to get more people
• especially new people
• need more central place for that

Iceland

• if there is also a North-America hitchgathering we could decide to meet up in Iceland instead.

Goals

• Promotion of hitchhiking
  • In the country where you hitch from
  • In the country we hitch to/ through
  • Local promotion
  • Promotion to the hitchhiking Community
• To stimulate more community
  • To have more networking among hitchhikers, stimulate peer hospitality
  • To inspire more people to set up hitchhiking associations
• Having a good time/ fun/ sharing
• To travel
• To show we can travel without money
• To catch up with fellow hitchhikers
  • To exchange stories and skills
  • To have fun with each other
  • Meet hitchhikers from other countries
• Try to get more connections with locals who live at the place where we're meeting
  • Somehow get them connected to what we're doing, inviting them to our gathering

Criteria

Criteria for choosing the destination

• Some kind of organisation/ network of people at the ground to help organising.
  • Speaks the language, can talk with authorities if needed.
  • Can help scouting for a place
• To have a body of water around us to keep us clean
• Easy to hitch to? Or is it a challenge?
  • This can be combined with pre-meetings
• Population center, like a city so we are not apart from the people but part of it.
• Easy visa requirements so we can get as many people from different places as possible
• Open space
  • Space to be free to walk around naked and not disturb someone
  • Space where we all can camp for free
  • Shouldn't be laws against what we do, like drinking in public
• Price: not an expensive place/ dumpster friendly

Funding

There is a possibility to get money from EU for Youth in Action. Stefen volunteers for this.

• This is money we can use for promotion-material: website, posters, stickers, flyers, random roads
• Not necessary to put logo on the public things. So you have to explain why you didn't do it. This program is not about the EU but about education and having more integration on of the event etc.
• Needs to make a documentary about it
• For each cent we spend we need to have a bill
• Need someone to collect the bills/ make bills
• We don't have to organise this with money. we always did it without
• Need to put logo on promotion? But we don't have to put the logo on all promotion material. This is an EU-logo, might not attract all the people we would like. There is much opposition against using the logo of the EU
  • Later we found out: Not necessary to put logo on the public things. So you have to explain why you didn't do it. This program is not about the EU but about education and having more integration
• Do we want to be affiliated to some kind of government institution? We are grass-roots. Are these two different things?

• Money could be nice for promotion of the event
• Donations
  • Mention it on a flyer for example

Conclusion for now

• We will think about it and discuss it again Sunday

Day2

Today we are with:

Julien, Patryk, Robin, Anja, Tau, Sandra, Ben, Platschi & Stefan

Fundraising

• Someone has to open an bank account
  • Stefan is proposing to open an account and use it for the gathering
• We want to have clear on what exactly we want to use the money
  • But how do we value the money? It's to difficult to define a line on what to spend it and what not
• We can at least try this year, if it turns out to be bad we can skip it in 2011. At least we tried and can say if it's good of not.
• It's not clear if we want to have a consensus on this now or ask the community before
• Probably the EU thing is not a good idea, we could better do some fundraising through the community.
  • We might only need cash for printing, sending flyers, random roads magazin -- probably the magazin itself can ask for the EU money
• Conclusion: We want to get different hitchhiking related clubs etc. to join and promote/sponsor money maybe, but no EU money.

Promotion

• We can print vcards to give out on to drivers
• Waterbottles
• We want to have an insane place with like 400 people +++

Coordination

• Idea to have one website instead of two (hitchwiki&gathering site), robin wants to integrate hitchwiki to the gathering site.
• Proposal is to disable the googlegroup and replace it with a coordination forum on hitchgathering site which is also an email list where you can

reply by email.

• Let's have a monthly/frequent meeting on the IRC Channel