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''This is drafted from the [[6810/Berlin_meeting/Minutes|minutes of the organization meeting in Berlin]].'' On During the week end weekend of the 13th and 14th of March, a handful of hitchhikers met up in Berlin to kick off the organization coordination of the next European Hitchhiking Gathering. This newsletter is here to tell you what happened. Thirteen people showed up physically, all of them had hitchhiked from the 4 corners of Europe, except two that came by car and we will keep their identity secret to protect their life :) . One was very present on VoIP, from Australia, many others showed up online, by email, or even by telephone. Anja and [http://hitchgathering.org/users/tau Tau] hosted the event in their home.

The meeting happened without much preparation and when we met, we were left to find what to start with...First, we went around the circle to see what everyone was expecting from the festival. The main point points were:*To promote the concept of hitchhiking in the European society*To stimulate the community of hitchhikers.*To have a good time doing thatthe above, while travelling and meeting old and new friends.

We At the meeting we soon attacked the big question that was on the tip of everyone's mouthtongues: WHERE? There was already a vote going on on the website, and it was a bit unclear what we were supposed to do with the results. The main issue discussed was:*Is the result of the vote representative of the wish of the community?*Are we, as a small group, mandated to decide against the vote?

We finally decided After various discussions, we agreed to push follow the vote forward, close it on the second day result of the meeting online location polling at 14:00, and follow whatever the result would begathering website. Even if the result gives a destination where we have If no contact and no hitchhiking clubs support(logistical, locational, etc.) was to help. And if no support can be found in after one month, to go for the second or choice would fall subsequently the third next on the listuntil a suitable location with the required support was located.

Sure enough, After polling closed it's one of those was determined that won. If , if everything goes well, we'll meet you on the 6th of August 2010 in '''Portugal'''. : The End of Europe.

One really nice scenario was suggestedA necessary passage to Portugal is Spain(aka: Spain allegedly needs the Gorilla in the room) and the general impression is that this country is in need of a lot of hitchhiking promotion for hitchhiking. And, given the shape of the land, many hitchhikers might want to go through Barcelona. That's why we thought of the following:

Thus:We also invite all hitchhikers to converge in Barcelona for on Sunday 01/08/10. On Monday, we stay there and the 2nd, will be our day reach out to the people and media. After that Afterwards we'll leave the city again, possibly through different routes and all meet again on 06/08/10 "Somewhere in Portugal", where we can spend the weekend together, with all mediatic bullshit behind ussuch worldly concerns many hundreds of kilometres and another country away. We don There't s not even any need to meet in a big city, like we did large centres as in Odessa or Parisprevious years.

 The previous editions of the festival were realized with almost no budget. And , the "almost" was rest paid for by the volunteers. Which we felt wasn't really fair, as they already donate time and energy. [http://hitchgathering.org/users/korn Korn] came up with After a plan to get a budget for the European Union that would not only remove the financial burden from the hitchhikers that help with the organization, but would allow us to things that were out of our reach before. After long (and painful) discussion, we reached a sort of consensus to stay away from that moneyany official sponsorship or public funds. We have good hope that the various hitchhiking clubs of Europe would will provide us with some financial support. Like [http://lasophiste.com/ La Sophiste] or [http://www.hitchhiking.lt/ Kelia Vis] that have already given support to the , as has been done for previous editionsgatherings.

 During that meeting two Two major pieces were produced: A [http://hitchgathering.org/node/153 short 789 short movie] from [http://hitchgathering.org/users/terrehappy by Mitch] and a couple of [http://hitchgathering.org/logos-and-artwork-gathering 6.8.10 logo designs] by [http://hitchgathering.org/users/sandra-sunshine Sandra]. We brainstormed many ideas for promotion and you can help with new ideas on the [http://hitchgathering.org/forums/coordination coordination forum]of the website.

Our main coordination tool is now the [http://hitchgatheringwebsite.org hitchgathering website]For an ongoing list of updated features please refer to the wiki pages.

We decided to dump the Google group, which so far had been out main coordination tool. Now we have a website that works good, with nice forums. Already you can receive notifications when there is new content in a discussion you are subscribed too and soon it will even be possible to send your reply by email (like in a group or e-maillist). Hitchwiki stays our wiki tool, and all 6.8.10-relevant content will soon be pulled from the wiki into the website for visitors to see. We also decided to have a monthly IRC meeting (IRC server: freenode / Channel: #hitchhiking). The next one is scheduled for '''Sunday 28th March at 19:00''' (Berlin time). If you don't have a IRC client, you can join from your browser [http://hitchwiki.org/en/Chat here]

The content of the website is translatable in as many language as we want. Which , which means "as so many languages as we have a translator for". We have enabled Esperanto, Français, Deutsch, Italiano, Polski, Português, Русский and Español. If you know one of these a language, you can translate any content on [hitchgathering.org] the site by clicking the "translate" tab on top. You need to be logged in. ===Profiles===Some more features will also be added on the website soon, such as the choice whether your profile is public or private (only for logged-in members to see - which is currently the case). We will also be adding support for photo-galleries and other fancy stuff, so that we can have all information in one place to see and read. Ah, and if you don't have a picture yet on your profile, get on it!