Fisl is also an opportunity for the Free Software communities to arrange meetings and mini-events related to their groups and projects. Thus, communities gain a broader view, promoting their initiatives, and build a stronger interactions of their members – which in many cases happens only in major events – and also with the general Free Software community.

How does it Work?

• There is a Track and a Reserved Room specifically for the Community Meetings in fisl programme. This year they are happening in room at building 40, with room for up to 110 people.

• Each community event is to be proposed by three coordinators, previously registered in the Papers System of Speakers, and referred in the CM’s proposal.

• Each Meeting is entitled to one or at most two 50 minutes session.

• Use of two 50 minutes session must be justified in the proposal (shorter events = more communities participating!)

Got it... And how do I propose my Community Meeting (CM)?

Registrations are made through the Call for Works System. One of the coordinators registers the proposal and invites all the other coordinators as speakers at the porposal’s System.

Submission of community events must be made and confirmed up to April 8.

The following data must be listed in the proposal:

• Community/Entity/Project/Group Name
• Name and theme of the event
• Public estimate (in number of people)
• time needed (1 or 2 50 minutes sessions)
• event’s programme
• Programming brief
• Event’s URL (site, blog, social media...)

Community Event Programme

Mandatorily, each community event will have at least two of these items in their programme:

• General speech – general presentation of the project and its goals, activities, results

• Lightning talks - mini speeches of 5-10 minutes with their participants presence

• Discussions/Questions – interactions with room for questions and discussions

TIPS (“Secrets to success!!)

• Set up your event well in advance. Speak to members of your project/community before proposing your CM. Check out which people have already confirmed their presence and will be available to speak at your meeting into the programming grid of fisl.

• Use a list to build the programming collaboratively. Define themes, programming, activities, make a general evaluation of what can be presented and how you can draw both the public and potential collaborators' attention. Attractive programme = more interested people = more visibility to your community.

• Create a page for your event (at Noosfero or in a channel of your liking), so we can link at the official fisl13 webpage, and that the organizing committee have autonomy to update informations about your event.

• Disclose your event! Disclosure of time, room and date in websites, blogs and social media is paramount for the success of your event.

Last, but not least...

It is very important to be aware of the following questions:

• Because the community events are tied to the major fisl' grid, there's no great time flexibility. We'll try, as much as possible, to accomodate the grid to please the biggest possible number of events.

• All registrations will be evaluated by the organizing committee and the approved ones will be informed of their approval, as well as of time and dates.

• The events tied to a community or users groups will be prioritized.

• Only events considered relevant will be approved: events not related to Free Software will be discarded.

• Each CM Coordinator will be able to coordinate only one community event at fisl14.

• The event's coordinators must be the proposal's authors.

• Changes in event's coordinators after the the registrations deadline won't be allowed.

• It is indispensable that you send the complete programme for your community event and an abstract so we can include it in fisl' programming grid.

Still have doubts?

Write to programa at softwarelivre ponto org