Australian CS Newsletter April 2008
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Australian CS Newletter Archive
April 2008
Welcome to the Australian CS Newsletter.
The idea of this newsletter is to provide, hopefully, a one-stop-shop of anything that you might be interested in that is happening within CouchSurfing in general and within Australia in particular.
It is understandable that some folks are traveling and MOST folks don't have time to subscribe to the CS Groups or to read of new developments so we attempt to keep you informed.
As always, please feel free to contribute yourselves by contacting leimondo
Breaking News
As you may have read in the latest CS Newsletter the Thai Collective is packing up and heading to Alaska. For more info on the Collective use this link
The crew who brought you the Thailand Collective film clip now present The Alaskan Collective Invitation
March saw a record number of new members sign up worldwide with 7,894 signing up in just one week! Maybe it's time to think about getting your backpack down from the top of the cupboard with nearly 500,000 Surfers out there ready to greet you!!
Technical Developments
March saw less downtime as the glitches of February were left behind. From time to time however there will be ongoing modifications made to the databases and servers.
The most recent Feed from the Tech Team is:
The "Nearby Travelers" box on www.couchsurfing.com/home.html has been temporarily disabled while we work out several big performance issues. It sucks up too many resources and causes the server to be v... e...r...r....r.......y slow and creates a lot of server timeouts and "site down" messages. : (We all love this feature too and will have it back up again as soon as possible! Sorry for any temporary inconvenience but thanks for your understanding while we put every effort into making CouchSurfing run as quickly and smoothly as possible.
if you are interested in this tool then have a look here
and.. If you are interested in following the Tech developments you will find what you are looking for here.
Australian Statistics
In the last month 916 new Aussie CSers have joined up -
This now brings the number of Aussie CouchSurfers to 14,678 from 1,024 towns across the country with 571 Unique Languages Represented 571.
Some More Stats
- Australia, Victoria, Melbourne 3,395 23.1%
- Australia, New South Wales, Sydney 2,946 20.1%
- Australia, Queensland, Brisbane 1,514 10.3%
- Australia, Western Australia, Perth 1,205 8.2%
- Australia, South Australia, Adelaide 694 4.7%
- Australia, Australian Capital Territory, Canberra 370 2.5%
- Australia, Queensland, Gold Coast 271 1.8%
- Australia, New South Wales, Newcastle 212 1.4%
- Australia, Tasmania, Hobart 212 1.4%
- Australia, Queensland, Cairns 114 0.8%
Australian Couches for Surfing (surfers)
- Traveling at the moment 5,035 34.3%
- Yes 3,296 22.5%
- Maybe 2,452 16.7%
- Coffee or a drink 1,814 12.4%
- No 1,738 11.8%
- Definitely! 343 2.3%
Australian CouchSurfer Genders (surfers)
- Male 7,107 48.4%
- Female 6,345 43.2%
- Several people 1,150 7.8%
- Unknown 76 0.5%
Australian CouchSurfer Ages (surfers)
- Average Age 27
- Ages 18 to 24 7,626
- Ages 25 to 29 3,776
- Ages 30 to 34 1,327
- Ages 35 to 39 708
- Ages 40 to 49 622
- Ages 50 to 59 408
- Ages 60 to 69 106
- Ages 70 to 79 7
- Ages 80 to 89 6
Australian Couchsurfing Org News.
March was a big month for CouchSurfing Australia with the appointment of six new City Ambassadors !!
Sydney: Rah-Rah
Toowoomba: Geoff
Brisbane: Ben who is Nomadic but living in Brisbane
Perth Renae
Adelaide: Claire
Surfers Paradise: Darren
A warm welcome to each and all of them. And to know who your other Australian Ambassadors are have a look at this link.
Starting this month we are going to present the opportunity to meet two of your Australian Ambassadors.
MsDanny - Hello, I am the current Australian Country Ambassador looking very much forward to having a few other country ambassadors for Australia soon to share this amazing field of volunteer work.
I've been with Couchsurfing as an active host first and nowadays as a happy guest and volunteer for over 30 months and participate actively in various CS working groups. Most of my contribution is done in the background and through direct communication between supervisors,team members, other volunteers and members. I especially love the challenge intercultural communication and behaviour offers.
It's my main goal to show the rest of CS how awesome Couchsurfing is in Australia and to enhance it in a region where we're not that well developed yet. And of course to be the best guest (and hopefully soon host again) I can be - 'cause thats what keeps the project real, brings inspiration, creates new ideas and lets me travel around our lovely continent
Leimondo - Lei has been a CS member for nearly a year and in that time has enjoyed hosting at his South Coast NSW home. Lei's true passion with CouchSurfing is in his desire, working behind the scenes, to see CouchSurfing continue to develop across Australia and to make this one of the CouchSurfing meccas of the world.
"Australia's warmth and generosity is known world wide. I want to give every Australian CS member the opportunity to enrich their CouchSurfing experiences as travellers or hosts. If I can keep them up to date of site improvements and changes and continue to encourage them to develop their profiles, references a friendships by getting out and meeting each other it can only be for the best"
Lei is on The Location Fixing team, the Contact Us Team, the New Members Welcome team and the Communications Team.
Aussie CS Safety
No news this month on Safety. For any new members there is an Australian CS Safety Wiki with lots of good tips, links and advice.
Australian Groups
This last month has seen a major tidy up of the Australian Groups with some being archived away.
Generally most Australian CSers won't be affected by the moves and those groups you presently are members of will remain in happily listed in your Groups List totally unaffected.
The main change was to place sub groups into their logical States such as moving Hobart to come under Tasmania and Sydney to be a subgroup of New South Wales. Keep this in mind if you are searching out an Australian Group or see for yourself
Just whilst on groups. Are you gay friendly? There has been discussion for some time about adding more tick boxes saying if you are "dog allergic", "gluten intolerant", "kid friendly" or "gay Friendly". It is important for our gay CS members to know where they are welcome as some hosts are not "gay friendly". If you want to communicate that you are gay friendly you could mention it in your profile or simple join a Gay group to show your support. If interested, you could start here or here
Australian CouchSurfing Zone news
No CouchZone news this month. Things are happening in the CouchZone development area and we will keep you posted as soon as they come on line !!! All very exciting. In the meantime, if you live somewhere where there is the opportunity for a CS crew to get together regularly for a coffee or a chat why not think about it as a CouchZone. For more info read this
Your Australian CZs are Perth CouchSurfing Zone and at Tuross Head
Australian Rural CouchSurfing news
In the last newsletter we told you about the intitive to promote Couch Surfing into the Rural areas of Australia. A proposal has been sent up the line to the leadership team for them to consider. It is still early days. If you would like to participate in discussion of how to best attract travellers to see the uniqueness of our stunning countryside a Rural CouchSurfing discussion Group has been set up if you would like to join.
In case you missed it last time the proposal can be found here.
What is the current Status of your Couch?
As you know you can edit the status of your couch from Available to Coffee to Travelling and to Not Available.
Did you know that if you have your Couch unavailable the "Request to Couchsurf with" button is removed?
So as not to be pestered with CouchSurfing request whilst you are Travelling or presently unable to Host, make sure the Status of your Couch is what you want it to be. It will solve a lot of unwanted emails. Just on that, did you know that for every "CouchSurf Request" you don't answer it decreases you Replied to % percentage, which then places you towards the back of the queue when someone does a CouchSearch of your town/city?
So easy peasy, if your couch isn't available change the icon !!
Adios to Aussie CS members who didn't log in in the last six months
Over the last month Australia has lost 13 or so CS members who have not logged in to CS in the last 180 days. The process is that these members receive an email from CS and should they fail to log in as advised their profiles are frozen and can't be seen by other members. The profile will however be unfrozen when they next log in so fear not for your profile info if you choose to take a break from CS. The best option if you do want a break is to alter your profile Privacy settings here making a change to the "Hide in Search" field
Remember to log into CouchSurfing periodically (there are always new things being developed so at the least read the main menus after you log in)
News from around the Australian States
The following news is brought to you by your State/City Ambassadors giving you an idea of upcoming projects or major events.
- - Australia Wide
As said above this last month has seen the addition of six new Ambassadors to Australian CS which is fantastic. Over the coming months you will begin to discover what your Aussie Ambassadors are doing for you.
The following is a just a taste of some of the events that happened around the Country in the last month.
- - Qld
An enormously successful outing to the New Circus Now was organised for Brisbane Csers by Marina Cwho organised some free tickets. Now that is hospitality Plus!
Meanwhile Darren, Adrian, Nicole, Pauline, Irene, Matilde, Emma, Phil, Hannah, Michelle & Zach-Bob all managed to get in on the Free Hug Day in Brisbane - the world is a better place for it !!
There is so much happening in Brisbane the only way you can keep tabs on it is by checking out the Brisbane group and keep in mind that with a new Ambassadors at the Gold Coast and Toowoomba the opportunities multiply so keep an eye out in The Gold Coast Group or the Toowoomba Group
- - NSW
- Sydney CS news.
Sydney is rapidly growing as an international CS destination !! and why shouldn't it with Ambassadors like Mike organising a brunch at Manly for one and all and Soraya oganising a walk on the Manly Scenic trail.
- Mike organised a very successful BBQ for CSers BBQ/Picnic on Sun 9 March at Centennial Park
- Sydney CSers participated just as hard as their Melbourne counterparts in the International Pillow Fight down on the steps of the Opera House.
...and coming up there is a post looking for some starters for a Bondi to Coogee walking trip
- Regional NSW News.
Yet again there has been a steady increase in the numbers of new members joining from Inland NSW.
Most often travellers only manage to see the cities missing out on the "real" Australiabut word is getting out that there are Regional Couches.
There are several groups now for Regional NSW of which you are members. Go out and meet each other, have a BBQ, a beer and a chat about travel and travellers and the hospitality of the Australian bush ..... 'cause that's exactly what we share.
Duncan in Newcastle did just that organising a meetup BBQ with Lorie in Coffs Harbour wanting to get the Coffs crew a bit more social as well. Remeeber that the more you make aquaintances the more friendships and references you gather which dramatically improves your opportunities to be hosted or sought after as a host.
- - ACT
After the great success of the first monthly meeting at Edgar's, the next to be, equally successful, follow-up event is to be held at King O'Malley's Irish Pub in Civic. Thursday, 3 April 2008, from 7:00pm
Edgars was a great venue, sitting outside in the warm evening air worked really nicely, we took over a number of tables and commandeered a whole corner of the open area. The food was good, well priced and complemented the beer nicely. We had about 16 people there at the peak, with a few more passing through during the evening. There was a great mix of nationalities, age and travel experience. The evening started promptly at 7:00pm, Alice was there with the Couch Surfing Signs, making her easy to spot, (thanks Alice). The last of us pulled up stumps at about 11.30pm.
There were lots of new faces which was great to see, several new hosts, a number of new people who had just moved to Canberra, and of course a number of cs travelers.
- - Vic
As always a huge variety of activities were on offer in Melbourne. About the only way you can keep up to date with what is coming up is here. A few of the many events however...
- Alisdair organised a more than sucessful weekend away in the Grampians. See Martins photos here and some more from Hightower
- The 22nd of March saw Internation Pillow Fight day held in Federation Square - as always there were CSers in the middle of it.
Looking from the outside and Looking from within and the great photos from our Melbourne CSer Rose
- Nigel organised a most sucessful Foodies night on March 18th.
- - Tas
Tasmania - What a wonderful State. I have just wandered around it for the last three weeks and it is just brilliant !!. The Tasmanians are so hospitable and the food - the quality of the produce andthe commitment they have to preparing and presenting anything from a sandwich up shows such a pride. Thankyou for your warmth (in fact it was amazinginly warm whilst I was there with 34C plus in Hobart!!)
As you know all the Tassie CSers are members of the Tasmanian CS Socials and Gatherings Group and it is only a matter of time before larger get-togethers are planned.
In the meantime Humdrum and a band of enthusiastic CSers continue organising social meetups so keep an eye out on the Group postings for any upcomings in April.
BIG NEWS - with the steady increase in New Tasmanian Couchsurfers registering there is now room for another Tasmanian Ambassador !!! So if you are interested in helping Humdrum out and learning more of how the CouchSurfing organisation works have a look at this link.
EVEN BIGGER NEWS - The Tasmania CS wiki page is now underway with its first edit. As most of the Tasmanians will recognise the Wiki page was written by a non-local and has effectively missed all the best spots, cafes and things to do. With this in mind you are encouraged to add your own info to the Wiki page or type it into an email and send it to Leimondo who will happily add it for you.
- - SA
The best news out of South Australia this month is the announcement of Claire as your new SA Ambassador !!
With 444 South Australian members now registered in the Adelaide Group you are about to see South Australia become the next CS Social zone as everyone does a CouchSearch and realises that they have other CSers just around the corner.
Keep an eye out in your Adelaide Group for upcoming events !!
- - WA
Welcome to Renae - WA's newest Couch Surfing Ambassador !!
For those who missed it in last months newsletter Daniel has set up a CS Perth Map where, over a period of time the Perth crew will add eating spots, points of interest and most likely Pubs that they recommend. If there is a venue you would like to see added contact Daniel.
CS Perth celebrated International Free Hugs day with their usual passion.some photos
If you didn't know already the Perth Couchsurfers Social Club was archived and all its members warmly invited to join the boisterous, enthusiastic, hedonistic and welcomingPerth Group where, once again they have broken new territory by adding a Perth Group Photo album and an Upcoming CS Events Calendar
One event that was NOT to be missed was the Bush Doof which was an enormous success !!! In the words of Dhugal" The doof was delightfully excessive...everyone had far too big a night and it took a couple of days to get over ... well done Dhugal !!!!
and Coming Up ....
The Fairbridge Festival is running over the Anzac Day long weekend at Fairbridge (of course) about 5kms north of Pinjarra.
As you might expect the fair Dhugal has taken things in hand and it will have a strong CS presence. If you would like more info have a look at this link
and then...
down the track in October "WHERE ON EARTH IS PERTH
OK, we shall set the scene .. remember the song "It Started with a Kiss" by Hot Chocolate ? It started with a thread, I never thought it would come to this. Come to what ? What is Perth up to ? Perth ? Who is Perth ? Where is Perth ?
Lots and lots of very good questions. Really, our ambassadors should know better, ask for us to come up with some big wild ideas and well, this is what you get.
Its such early days yet and we don't want to spoil the surprise and yet its nice to let out a few hints. To tantalise and entice. Lets just say for now keeping mid October free and finding any way you can to get to Perth would be a VERY good thing.
Where On Earth is Perth ?
We are about to let the world find out. If you are going to be the most remote city in the world, then you have to go off with a very very big bang to get everyones attention. Of course, there are many that will not appreciate this, they have been keeping the magic of Perth a big secret and let me tell you, they are not going to be happy that we are about to let this one out.
Watch this space as the news and events unfold. I can hint at music festivals featuring some of WA's up and coming finest. We won't mention how many of WA's bands have made it big in Oz, is it something in the water ?? Oh what else, Dolphins, Penguins, Surfing, Sailing, Kite Surfing, Wine/Song/Wine/Food/Wine/Dancing/Wine and Spring in the Valley, Picnics, Pubs, Fremantle, Beer, Chocolate, Theme Parties, Beach BBQ's, not to mention the most amazing attraction yet and that would be the awesome people of Perth.
Keep Mid October free and make sure you find any way you can to get to the biggest, best event this country has seen in a long while. If you are traveling around Australia, this is a MUST DO event !!! If you are one of our own, don't miss this opportunity to come and visit the Wild Wild West.
Start planning for it NOW .... don't let this be one of those events you wished you didn't miss. Perth is champing at the bit to host all you wonderful CS'ers and to show off our magical kingdom.
Keep watching this space .. lots, lots more to come.
- - NT
The Northern Territory CS Crew has very much arrived !!!
Your hardworking NT Ambassador Steven Pearce set up the Northern Territory Group, the Alice Springs Group and the Darwin Group and meetups have already happened in Alice with a big thanks to Aicha
Steve has also been working on the Alice Springs Wiki page. Let him know if anyone is interested in helping out on the NT and Darwin wikis - it is great fun and very addictive.
With so many new NT CS members coming on board there is a spot available for anyone wishing to apply to be an Ambassador. So if you are interested in helping Steve out and learning more of how the CouchSurfing organisation works have a look at this link.
International CouchSurfing News
If media relations interest you, stay tuned. The Public Relations and Media Team are looking for experienced volunteers to join them. More Details here.
If you ever wondered what Casey, the founder of Couchsurfing looked like here is lookeAn interview with Casey
CouchSurfing Org had to delete several postings about the recent problems in TeeBet (the reason TeeBet is spelt incorrectly is because trawlbots go looking through the net for the correct spelling with a view to close down sites that might be seen to support Teebet - Cs is a democratic site with members from all across the globe. There is little in the way of censorship here so free speech reigns - in order that Cs isn't banned in Chyna comments about Teebet have been diplomatically deleted. For more info go to this link
Tips and hints for better CouchSurfing
This Months DID YOU KNOWs?
Did you know that: When you update a friend's reference, they will now receive an email to let them know you've updated it?
This is just one of the many small changes occurring all the time in the CS website as our tireless team of tech volunteers focus on improving the site. Some of the changes fix problems that have been identified by members. Other changes are refinements to features that make things easier for you as a member.
Did you know that: If you are Verified Level Three and wish to move house you can change your adress here
You will be downgraded to verification level 2 and a new code will be sent to your new adress. As soon as you enter the code to the website you will be verified level 3 again.
this does not cost anyting :o)
LOCATON MARKERS IN MAP SEARCH
There is a feature which might help you a lot - so please just take the time and have a glance
It's the exact location feature
What is it good for?
When you first registered with CouchSurfing you told them the name of your city/town. From that point on whenever anyone goes looking for a couch the Mapping tool shows your location using a small red flag that sticks up from the map.
We have some huge cities in Australia. I'll use Brisbane as an example. When you search for Brisbane you find hundred of members. They all live in the city - but you have no idea where. There are a zillion suburbs...and when a person is about to come here, he/she doesn't know where a certain suburb is just from its name.
This can be changed now
How does it work?
If someone couchsearches for your city you will still be listed under it.
The new feature, called "location editing" is VERY easy to use, and allows us to put a flag on the place where we live, so ppl can have a rough idea of how close or far we are to the places they want to go to.
And hosts in your city will find other hosts who live close to them more easy.
You'll have to click the Lat: Lon: field ( which is located at the top of your profile for example under Australia, Queensland, Brisbane) to be guided to the map.
Please follow the simple steps outlined at the Fixing wikipage
Happy surfing!
For more tips and hints to improve your profile or your experience of Couchsurfing go to:
Australian Tips Hints and links to better CouchSurfing
This Months CouchSurfing stories from the road
A few CouchSurfing stories to stir your travelling spirits. (feel free to drop me a line if you have a CS Story of your own)
1 ) From Western Australia comes the words of Amanda Juang
"Experiencing of CouchSurfing
To be a member of the CouchSurfing could be the brilliant thing that we’ve done so far.
For us, this is our first time flew away from Taiwan, we need to confront the different languages, culture diversity problems at the same time. But thanks for Matt’s host at his farm during the Easter Holiday. We get to know many people from all over the world, like kiwi, French, Belgium, Dutch, and local Australia friends. It’s a wonderful thing that ever happened in our life.
Without Matt’s reference and host, we will not be able to get along with others this soon, except we got lost in the Australia bush for few hours to make us to be famous right now.
During the holiday at the farm, we share our own backpacker’s experiences with everyone and having yummy BBQ under the moonlight. Or go swimming in the pond and learning how to control the canoe. Therefore, you will never know how pleasure life it could be with a Couch.
In a word, if you want to be a world traveller, you shall never miss to be the part of CouchSurfers!!!!!"
2) From Labrador in Sydney "I had hosted a surfer and helped her buy a car and set off in September on her six month tour around the country. We'd arranged for her to come back to Sydney for the massive New Years Eve parties and in the mean time I'd booked in about four or five others from around the world for the NYE night.
Whilst in Adelaide, over two days driving away, my guest had randomly met two travelers at her hostel who were heading to Sydney for NYE as well and agreed to share the fuel costs. It was whilst they were driving on the second day and working out where to drop them off in Sydney that everyone came to the realization that they were all being hosted at my place. I love it when stuff like that happens, and it seems to happen a lot :)"
3) Recently, when travelling around Tasmania i wandered into the supermarket of a small East Coast town.The guy behind the counter was a traveller, stopping in town long enough to save a few more dollars before heading off again. He was French and we discussed his ideas of travelling to Western Australia. I told him about Couchsurfing and he smiled saying he was already a Surfer. I told him about the Australia CS groups that might help with any questions he had and he said he was very much aware of them via the Australian CS Newsletter that was written by some guy in NSW. That "some guy" was me.
Other Helpful Links at a Glance
Other CS areas that might interest:
- A new overview of Couchsurfing has been provided called the Cheat Sheet
Newsletter Archive
