Start Your Own
Starting your own local is easy, but keeping it going will require some help.
Here’s the things you should do to get started:
- Join the mailing lists and hop on the IRC channel #freehackersunion on irc.freenode.org
to introduce yourself.
- Read some of the converse archives to get a feel for how things go.
- Read the information in joining to get an idea about how to
run your first meeting and each meeting after that.
- Call up some friends that you think can hang and tell them about it. Get them commit to a meeting
at a coffee shop or some place small and public.
- Bring a recording device so you can make an mp3 of the meeting for the FU podcast.
- Do it. Everyone does their newbie meeting, and since they’re your friends you probably want
to let them in. Nobody likes that asshole Curator who never lets people join.
- After that, you’ll send a message to the converse list detailing
your first local meeting, where to get your recording for the podcast, and ask to
have a local started.
Of course, you’ll be smart and make sure there isn’t a local in your area already.
How To Write Your Local’s Page
First, it helps if you can get someone in a local near you to do be a guest
Curator for the evening. Coordinate with them and they can come down and get
everyone started right. Or, you can go see a meeting in another city near you.
Of course there probably won’t be an existing local near you, so after you get
acquainted in the IRC channel and understand the rules, you and a group of
friends just sit down to write your FU Local’s page.
You’ll want to put information for new people in your area. You’ll need:
- Your location, obviously. Give good directions including cross streets and phone numbers.
- A way for them to contact your Local’s Curator (that’s the person who keeps everything in order).
- Pointers back to other parts of the site that they should read.
- What your particular local likes to focus on.
- When you were founded.
- What/when/where for your first meeting.
Once you’ve got that information, go to the Locals Wiki
and create your page. If there’s a page that exists already for a local near you,
then contact them asking if it’s worth creating a new one.