Australian CS Newsletter July 2008
The CouchSurfing Wiki, an informal workspace which anyone can edit.
JULY 2008
Welcome to the monthly Australian CS Newsletter!!
Your one-stop-shop to all things CS in the Australian community. News from around the states, Aussie CS and general CS updates, stats, opinions, hints and tips. READ ALL ABOUT IT!
Done something fun yourself lately with your fellow CS members and guests?? Wanna boast about it and get your photos seen?? Then help in the making of this newsletter each month and let your CS community shine!
We are currently looking for people to contribute regularly to the newsletter.
This could be on behalf of your local area, for the State News section - especially in Adelaide, Hobart, Darwin, and outside the capital cities. Or, it could involve writing a couchsurfing stats summary or an overview of media on CS from the month, etc. Join the Aussie Newsletter Production Mob if you are interested. Just join up and post something or email the moderators.
News from around the Australian States
The following news is brought to you by your Aussie Newsletter Production Mob
Australia Wide
Macalla watch - Our Aussie CS mascot, Macalla, was last spotted in the care of Mike. Just this month she has been to a dinner party, a hot springs weekend and a Couch Burning and is about to be taken to the US..... and who is Macalla - read more here
Now .... how is that for a Couch !!!!!
Ambfest '08 - Introducing AMBFEST!! An annual week long festival for the gathering of Aussie CS Ambassadors and the chance for local CS members to meet their Ambassador team. This year Brisbane hosts the first attempt at the event, with hopes for many helpful and informative workshops, lots of brilliant and enlightening communication, absolute dancinerating amounts of fun and a day in the park on the weekend with local media. Watch this space for more and please hit Beni MC up if you would like to help with organising!!
Check the Ambfest event post on CS to see who's already coming. Get represented!
Queensland
(Your Ambassadors are Ninja, Beni, Geoff, Sally and Darren)
Ninja and Beni started the month watching the Australia v Iraq World Cup qualifier at Suncorp Stadium. Reminded Beni of a group he created off the back of the last World Cup - have a look in the Aussie Groups section below.
Local radio, 4ZzZfm's Brain Banana fundraiser on the 8th. A great afternoon/evening/night in true Zed style. With a stage for punk/metal/ska bands, an area for hip-hop/reggae/dancehall and upstairs for electronic goodness, the event saw the usual Brissy turnout interspersed with quite a few of us CSers.
A working bee at Sally's Maleny Hideaway on the Sunshine Coast hinterland on the 15th saw about 15-20 of us getting some work done and then some craziness riding around in a hire trailer, playing footy, watching the sunset and doing the whole eating, drinking and talking thing. Great day and wonderful to have some of the Brissy mob meet some of the Sunny Coast mob. Special thanks to Guillaume for the photos. You can see more of them on Brissy's Picassa page. I know it doesn't look like a lot of work going on but I'm still sore. And that bloody trailer!!!
And Sally must've really enjoyed the response from the CS community because she has now become an Ambassador!! Check the Aussie CS Org News below for more about our FOUR new Ambassadors this month!
Maleny
Hideaway
Euro Cup - late nights/early mornings, coffee and a football scarf! Daniela set up a tipping competition and some of us are having a bit of a laugh with that. Been fun going to la Dolce Vita in Milton for the games. Beni MC is considering raising a petition to stop Europe from playing their football in the middle of the night in Winter!!
Darren and Dan are still off galivanting. When they get back we are gonna have a hell of a party!
Monthly meeting was held on June 21st before Fete de la Musique hit Brissy later that day!! We had a BBQ at the parklands under the cliffs where everybody abseils (we climb cliffs in the middle of the city here, didn't you know!) and there was about 10 of us. Once again thanks to Megan for the feed.
CS members Beni MC and Carissa Beu both played at Fete de la Musique and the day was a great random collection of experiences and sensory input.
Western Australia
(Your Ambassadors contributing to this newsletter are Renae and Dhugal,Matt and Serendipities)
June saw two excellent CS Perth Zone Meetups, as always, on the couches upstairs on the balcony at the Brass Monkey pub in Northbridge. Our Wednesday 11th of June meeting saw a huge turn out for the Couchsurfing International Day celebrations (see below for photos). Added excitement was an amazing couch cake, and CS button badges for everyone.
The following Zone Meetup, on the 25th of June was also a big one, and was extra mintox thanks to some very fun Where On Earth Is Perth? stickers, handed out to everyone who purchased a Quiz Night ticket. Send an email to csperth@gmail.com if you want to purchase a sticker, and they will also be available to buy at the 5th July Quiz Night.
The other great event of the month was a Winter Solstice Party at Dhugal's house, which involved drum circles, chanting, fire twirling, crazzzzzy hats and the sacrifice of a llama over the fire!!!! Check out these photos (to see that the llama is a pinata, calm down y'all!).
and Coming Up in WA....
On Saturday 5th of July, CS Perth is hosting a QUIZ NIGHT. So far we have 95 people coming along!! We are almost sold out. There are just 9 seats remaining in the ticket sales, at time of writing (30 June) - so if you want to come along, you better hop to it!! Send an email to csperth@gmail.com. The Quiz night is at Carlisle Bowls Club at 7pm Sat July 5. Its going to be a huge night and super fun. Tix are $10 and all proceeds go towards the Where On Earth Is Perth? festival fund for promotions and events. You can find more details about the Quiz night at this link. Or go to the events listing
Keep Saturday August 2nd wide open in your diary for the upcoming WA BurningCouch party at Matt's farm!! Whooot whooooooot. Watch this space for more details as they arise! Yeeha!
We are getting more and more excited about WHERE ON EARTH IS PERTH? - our local Perth CS festival, on 10th to 20th October. We have a website! And a groooovy logo! Check out Where On Earth Is Perth? We invite EVERYONE across Australia and internationally to come visit Perth for the WHERE ON EARTH IS PERTH? Festival. Do you live in Perth and want to get involved? Sign up to the website and send us a message to let us know you'd like to volunteer to assist in promo/events/other, just go to: Where On Earth Is Perth?
New South Wales
- Sydney CS news. (Your Ambassadors contributing to this section are Lorenzo, Mike, and Quynh, Shoaib, Lynette
June was a bit of a bookend month around Sydney - busy at both ends, but quiet in the middle. The month kicked off with another big Foodies meeting - this time some Czech food. The long weekend saw a gathering at Darling Harbour for the Jazz festival, while the month ended with a night of drinks, pizza and chatting at the Australian Hotel. In amongst all of this, smaller groups got together to tour the city, to watch the football, and just to hang out.
July promises much of the same, with another Foodies group dinner on the cards, along with other regular meetups in town. And of course, in addition to welcoming the Pope to Sydney, we expect to welcome a number of pilgrims attending World Youth Day. So if you aren't getting out of the city to avoid the chaos, get along to events and say hello to the friendly Sydney CSers.
For all the details on what's happening, keep an eye on the Sydney Group
- Regional NSW News. (Contributing to this section is Lei)
The first Official Newcastle Group meetup had 16 members turning up, one of those from Sydney, one from Spain and one from Norway. They met up for a few beers at Sydney Junction Hotel on Saturday 14th June and then decided to have another party the next night and had a homebrew beer evening at Duncans place on the Sunday the 15th.
"Its good to see the local community slowly becoming closer and more united, to hopefully attract other CSers to visit our city and experience what we have to offer." says Duncan."I think that monthly meetings will try and be organised to be as different as possible. Different days, different activities and different locations." A couple of photos
Wollongong and the South Coast did their bit for International Couch Surfing Day by getting together for a full moon party at the Gong and for scoops of Icecream at Kiama. With 113 members now the South Coast isstarting to come alive.
Two of our Ulluadulla members are about to hitchhike their way through Europe to meet up on International Hitchhiking day in Paris with thousands of others. Who said you can't be a hitchhiking backpaker in your fifties ???
Australian Capital Territory
- (Your Ambassador contributing to this section is Alice)
All is fairly quiet in Canberra as the CS Crew settle into Winter. International travellers tend to arrive in waves in summer but not so many in winter as they quickly pass through the city on their way to the snow fields.
Coming up on July 5th however is International Free Hugs Day and Amy is rallying the local CSers to meetup. You can read more here
Victoria
(Your Ambassadors contributing to this newsletter is Alisdair,Peel, Ai,Stu, Lyndes and Ruth)
The second Belgrave Foodies night was held on June 6th. Fifteen people attended and we have another organised for July 4th. It goes to show people are willing to attend gatherings outside the main cities!
Belgrave
Foodies
8 & 9th of June - We had a smokin hot CS weekend at the Mornington Peninsula, where about 55 Melbourne CSers congregated over some great food, great conversation, wineries, art glass and hot springs. The lucky ones got about 4 hours sleep, and most got no sleep at all. Big Big Thankyous to len for organising it - a very sucessful weekend away !!!
June 19 Keriann organised a Shisha outing venturing up to Melbourne's inner north and smoke some quality shisha: {Apparently they don't use real tobacco (what DO they use??) in order to get around the smoking ban} - ah, the diversity of the Melbourne CS Crew !!!
and then the big one Burning Couch 21st June..... An amazing Couch Burning was organised by Erin (and contributed to by many!!) in Mansfield and they came from near and far. The best way to describe the event is by giving you links to the photos that were take so have a look here and also here as well as at this brilliant slideshow here.
...........and to top of the month for total diversity of Couchsurfing Melbourne Style, Ai took them all to the opera 20th June?
Coming up on Monday the 7th is the next Melbourne Cs Foodies night - more info here
Tasmania
(Your Ambassador contributing to this newsletter is Alisdair whilst a Tassie contributer is found
Tasmania is stunning this time of year however not so many travellers find these parts and days are very short - which means nights are very long and ideal for sitting around in front of open fires talking travel with your new Tassie CS friends so take advantage of it and organise a long night of good food, good company and throw in some of that famous Tassie spirit.
Tassie doesn't have an Ambassador at the moment so if you are interested in becoming one please apply
We are always looking to improve the Tasmanian CS Wiki page so if there are any Taswegians who would like to contribute please contact Alisdair
South Australia
(Your Ambassadors contributing to this newsletter are Claire and Letti)
Sat 21st June Meet up at the Wheaty. Was great with loads of new faces there. We cosied up to the fire and talked the night away. I was quietly reminded by the CSers staying with us that we'd been there over 6 hours, time flies when you're having fun.
It's great to see the enthusiasm in the new members, we'll be having fortnightly gatherings in no time!!
Keep an eye out in your Adelaide Group for upcoming events !!
Northern Territory
(Your Ambassador contributing to this newsletter is Steven Pearce)
With so many new NT CS members coming on board (there are now 78) 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.
For everyone else, feel free to use the groups to meet each other, to develop friendships and references and maybe even gain vouches that will definitely improve your own opportunities of being hosted when you travel.
The Darwin Group now has 112 members and is a perfect place to start to socialise and if you are heading down to Alice there are a whole lot of local CSers down there ready to say g'day
Australian Couchsurfing Org News.
BIG NEWS: We have just finished the New Australian CS Members Welcome Kit - check it out.
Our newest Ambassadors
Australia has FOUR new Ambs so welcome to Temujin as a Nomadic Amb; to Sally as a City Amb for Maleny, Queensland; to Jono and Suminda as a City Ambassador for Newcastle, New South Wales and also to Craig as a City Ambassador for Melbourne, Victoria.
To know who your other Australian Ambassadors are have a look at this link.
Meet your Aussie Ambassadors
Our ongoing series introducing some of your Aussie Ambassador team. See the archived newsletters for earlier G'days
Last month it was our Ambassadors Ruth and Beni MC - this month it's : Peel from Melbourne and Renae from Perth !!!!! Go and have a look at their profiles and see what these two hardworking Ambassadors are doing for you !!!
Australian Groups
Ruth's Campervan Group Update After starting the new group in May for the Hosting and Travelling of Motorhomes, Campervans and Wicked Vans, the magical 100 members mark has been reached but of course for this to work really well we need thousands of members. People have started to organise their stays with other Couchsurfers in Europe, the U.S. and Australia.
Even though I had the idea to start the group, Tony and I hadn’t actually had a trip in a campervan. Then when the opportunity came up we decided to give it a go. Organising to travel through the Northern Territory with a Britz campervan and trying to contact someone in Darwin or Katherine was no easy feat as the population of CS in this area is not large but I did get a reply from Claire in Katherine (NT) who said we could stay with them.
Claire and Tony at Claire and Mark's House in Katherine
The driveway at Claire and Mark's place was big enough to accommodate our van. Claire offered us the option to sleep in the house but we chose to stay in the van as it was almost self-sufficient. We used their shower, toilet and internet and we had meals together. Claire is a speech therapist and Mark is a captain of a tour boat in the Katherine Gorge. We had lots of interesting discussions on the problems and politics of the world, shared interesting travel stories and found out about mutual Couchsurfers who had stayed.
Couchsurfers Traveling by Bicycle around the World
While we were being hosted by Claire and Mark in Katherine we also met Philipp and Valeska from Austria who are traveling around the world on their bicycles! They have been travelling for two years already and their journey will take them a total of five years. They have loved being in Australia and meeting Aussie CSers. They also belong to another group called Warmshowers.com to host long distance cyclists. They are currently travelling from Katherine, west towards the Gibb River Road and onto Broome. They need accomodation in Broome and it's the only place that they have had a problem getting somewhere to stay. They also need to store their bikes for a month while they go to Norway to work. Does anyone have any contacts in Broome who might be able to help? They are very interesting people to host. When they arrived the next day we learnt all about their travels – but that’s another story! We were able to stay another night and enjoy the additional travellers' company as we had our campervan and they stayed in the house.
Valeska, Mark and Philipp 
One for the footy minded Aussie Victory in 2010. Says Beni, "My first experience with Couchsurfing was during the World Cup in Deutschland and I didn't know the site too well but one of the first things I did when I discovered the groups was to create this one!! We will win a Cup!! Bloody oath!!!!"
Australian CouchSurfing Zone news
CouchSurf Zones are still popping up around the planet. The latest in Tyler, Texas. Keep these in mind for when you are travelling as they are a wonderful way to meet up with other CSers. The link to the CouchSurf Zone wiki is here
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 present Australian CS Zone is the Perth CouchSurfing Zone
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 Statistics
If you are interested in how many surfers there are now in Australia and where they all are and what they are all doing go and have a look at the Statistics pages - it is all quite facinating and you get to check out the rest of the world at the same time ..... ever wondered how many Couches there are in Bermuda???
International CouchSurfing News
CS now has RSS feeds on the groups. This post talks about it in better detail but basically the feeds are automatically linked to public groups and the option is open to the moderator/s of 'invite only' groups.
International Couchsurfing Day
http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=2125&post=1079387
International Couchsurfing Day in Melbourne
Ai organised Free Champagne and Yummy Asian Food for International Couchsurfers Day at Cho Gao. Everyone had a ball. Just another night out for the Melbourne CS crew and a big thanks to Ai for organising his wonderful Melbourne pubcrawls and eat-outs!!
International Couchsurfing Day in Perth
We celebrated the night before, on Weds 11 June, at our fortnightly CS Perth Zone Meetup at the Brass Monkey. Amy and Cara made an amazing celebratory blue couch cake. We had a huge group of Perth hosts and visitors, and, as usual, we rowdy'd up the Brass Monkey pub and continued partying into the early hours. There is starting to be a trend of sickies chucked every second Thursday in Perth....Curious....
PERTH CS
The happy happy CS Perth crew on the eve before International CS Day and Amy and Cara with their amazing CS Couch Cake creation
CS Website Technical Developments
If you are interested in following the Tech developments you will find what you are looking for here.
NEWS FLASH: You can Now Increase choice in how you can receive CouchSurfing group posts - You can now use RSS to stay informed of group posts!
Don't understand what RSS is? Click here for a basic introduction
Click here to change the setting of any group you are a member to receive notification of new posts by RSS
It is worth noting that many websites (if not most) in the world outsource their server maintenance to webhosting companies. This brings with it several benefits:
Given Moore's Law (speed of computers double every 18 months), our hardware would quickly become outdated if we committed to the full price of purchase. Instead of paying out big cash to own the servers, it is more economically feasible to lease them from a webhost on a monthly basis. included in our agreement with them is upgrading of systems as certain components become outdated.
Additionally, no reasonable webhost provides 100% uptime guarantees. SLA's (service level agreements) typically are found in the 99% - 99.9% range. That small difference would equate to about 10 - 90 hours of downtime per year total. Unfortunately I do not have the metrics on our current downtime on CS, but it is reasonably close to larger end that range. (perhaps 120hrs? I need to ask our team for these figures) Also, keep in mind that a large part of the downtime hours are due to planned server upgrades, installation of new features, etc, so its not always due to errors or failure. That said, our uptime is an area that does indeed need improvement, and we are working on that by implementing systems of scalability.
We currently have a sysadmin team of volunteers that works in conjunction with the paid webhost company to keep the servers running. If we were to purchase our own servers, we would also need fulltime staff to be physically on location 24 hrs/365 days to attend to the servers.
I would estimate this to be handled by a bare minimum of 5 people in shifts and rotations. If you set an average salary of $4,000 per month per sysadmin, you could be looking at $20,000 a month, or $240,000 per year.
If you stack on top of this the cost of redundant fiber optic connections to internet backbones, AC cooling, security, rent, and the purchasing of the servers themselves; it becomes easier to see why hosting with a 3rd party is a much more affordable solution for CS.
saludos,
-Cyril
CouchSurfing Collective News
Newsflash: The Alaska Collective have started their blog and can be read here
The Alaska Collective is now underway. For more info on the Alaska Collective use this link and for the roles of the Collective participants you can find out more here.
and... they have set up a Alaskan Collective: Frequently Asked Questions link here
In case you missed it the CS Thai Collective wrapped up their time with this newsletter that links to this report
This Months things of interest from the corridors of CouchSurfing
Do you know who the Global Ambassadors are?
Are you an Australian Musician ... if so you will be interested in this link
An In Memorium for CS Members who have passed away has commenced with a tribute put on their profile page - you can read more about it here
And if you are interested this is a link to the latest CS Finance report
Couchsurfing in the Media
Beni and his guests were recently photographed by the Courier Mail (Brisbane) for an article written by CS member Rob. Yet to be informed of publication.
And.... if you are just daydreaming at the moment of your next trip away then here is A video every true couchsurfer must see.. and if you enjoyed that here are two more
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 28 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)
Tips and hints for better CouchSurfing
For more tips and hints to improve your profile or your experience of Couchsurfing go to: Australian Tips Hints and links to better CouchSurfing
Other Helpful Links at a Glance
Other CS areas that might interest:
- A new overview of Couchsurfing has been provided called the Cheat Sheet
