CS Organisation Australia Nuts and Bolts

The CouchSurfing Wiki, an informal workspace which anyone can edit.

Welcome to the Nuts and Bolts of the Australian CouchSurfing Organisation.

This wiki exists to be a single, "one stop shop" that summarises and reports on the status of any current, unresolved topics as well as recording the results of any Polls taken within the group.

The page is to be edited by the Australian CS Ambassadors for consistency so please inform them of any additions/variations you would like to see made.

Further to the Discussions and Poll Results you will find links or comments that will enable this wiki to direct you to all the other Australian CS documentation and areas of interest.

Current and ongoing projects

(as at 3/7/08)

The New Roles of the Country Ambassadors

- CURRENT STATUS: Lei has been appointed a Country Amb to come into the position along with Alisdair and Mike. At some point discussions will be had between the Country Ambs to determine the future directions, improvements and developments of Australian CS

-A posting was raised on April 23, 2008 asking what contribution everyone was making and to date 21 of 36 residing City and Nomadics have answered.

- pre 1/7/08 this post was raised 2/6/08 inviting the last of the 13 as-yet-to-respond City Ambs. See this list for participants (Country Ambs only)

Following on from the appointment of Alisdair and Mike as Country Ambassadors they raised the following post in The Australia CS Org Group

Alisdair - Southern and Western Australia: Vic, Tas, SA, WA incorporating 15 City Ambassadors Mike - Northern and Eastern Australia: NSW, ACT, Qld, NT incorporating 13 City Ambassadors

They will be emailing each Australain Ambassador to begin the individual communication process, but also to get an understanding from them of what they currently do as an Ambassador, to hopefully get a clearer picture of who is doing what, and where Australian CS might need to try and get more people involved if necessary, or work out where we actually are over-resourced!

They also plan to use this to make sure that everyone is making some kind of contribution in some form or another. Having said that, they aren't going to hold anyone to a certain number of hours spent on CS a month or anything, but do expect that as an Ambassador, there is some kind of contribution.

On top of all of this, they are committed to communicating things in a timely manner where appropriate. Tied in with communication, Mike will take responsibility for working with the Global Ambassadors, while Alisdair will be working with the Nomadic Ambassadors to ensure that they are able to be and get involved.

The "Boxing Kangaroo" Award

- CURRENT STATUS: presently under discussion with a Poll

Initially there was a post here in regards to attributing a non-amb with an award for merit and inviting them to join the Australia CS Org Group. A lot of discussion followed and the original idea changed;

- an icon was made
- The Awardis mentioned in the ACSO Wiki
- a new Topic post is to be raised in June 2008 on "An award for Outstanding Excellence for services to CS Australia"
- there is some interesting comment on the subject here
- to be further discussed within the ACSO Group and then polled

Greetings - who is greeting?

- CURRENT STATUS: It was determined 13/6/08 to have Matt, Daniel and Renae greet WA, Renae and Claire to greet SA and NT, Mike to Greet Sydney, Beni to greet Qld (helped when able by Geoff), Lei to greet ACT (until Alice returns), Tas, regional NSW and Victoria..

Still to do: to discuss taking on some more greeters from outside of the City Amb circles to free City Ambs up to simply organise events.

see [1] and [2] for previous discussions

Presently there are sixteen City Ambs registered with the NMW team along with 1 Nomadic, 1 global and one other non-amb Australian CSer.

It is more than evident on a daily basis that of the sixteen City Ambs not all are greeting, in fact only a small handful. The Nomadic is amazing, greeting from places quite often remote and the Global greets between 12 hour shifts...

The efforts of the few are ensuring most new Aussie CSers receive a solid Aussie CS message directing them to Aussie CS info which is fantastic and accolades to those same few who greet when able..

The discussion at the links above however attempts to establish a coverage to determine who isn't being greeted and to also establish a contigency plan to ensure the continuity of the greetings from within the volunteerism of the Aussie Ambs.

As yet this is unresolved and New Australian CSers are slipping through the net of recieving a Specific Australian Greeting which is disappointing as it has been proven time and time again that the first informative greeting sees a higher group join rate and an improved profile from the outset.

- this post summerises the state of Greetings in Australia
- as a result this wiki has been developed and linked to the main Australian group Guidelines to act as a readily accessible reference for new Members
- discussion continued and highlighted some predatory behavior.
- It was determined 13/6/08 to have Matt, Daniel and Renae greet WA, Renae to greet SA and NT, Mike to Greet Sydney, Beni to greet Qld (helped when able by Geoff), Lei to greet ACT (until Alice returns), Tas, regional NSW and Victoria.
- Still to do: to discuss taking on some more greeters from outside of the City Amb circles to free City Ambs up to simply organise events.

Methods for improving communication with Aussie CSers?

- CURRENT STATUS: awaiting advice from the Alaskan Collective

see [3] and [4] for previous discussions

It has been identified that Australia has approx 6500 Active Cs members. The Cs Australia Newsletter is going well however the distribution is poor as it relaies on being dispatched through groups.

Presently there are three Global Ambs and the Communications Co-ordinator as members of this Aussie CS group and with their advice a far more effective distribution tool might be found.

To date:

- an Email to Mandie requesting her to investigate distribution options was sent on 23/5/08
- with no reply to the email as at 27-5-08 the following post was made in the communication group
- a reply to the above question was posted here
- awaiting advice from the Alaskan Collective

Seeking funds from CS Org for the further promotion of CS in Australia?

- CURRENT STATUS: to be further discussed at length - see also this update

This post was first raised here on the 21/5/08.

It is intended to formally apply to CS Org to obtain funding for CS promotion in Australia.

- to be further discussed at length - see also this update

Media promotion of CS within Australia?

- CURRENT STATUS:- still being discussed on and off screen

Jay raised a post here seeking input into promotion of CS in the Media in Australia

CS Organisation Australia Nuts and Bolts Archive

If you can't find what you are looking for in the way of past Polls and Topics then they may well have been moved to the CS Organisation Australia Nuts and Bolts Archive

Topics Archived so far:

- The Australian CS Mascot - END OF PROJECT (moved to Archive 28/5/08)

- Moving the CS Australia Newsletter group to be under >>Australia ? (moved to Archive 14/6/08)

Poll Results

This section will remain as a register of all Polls conducted by the Australian Cs Org.

1-5-2008 Danoz - ACT - nominated as a Boxing Kangaroo by Alice

- To be nominated Dan must receive the vote of at least seven other Australian ambassadors (including one Country Ambassador). RESULT - No Boxing Kangaroo - (5 votes for, 1 against and No Country Amb vote.)

CS Newsletter Contribution Questionaire

- the questions can be seen here andthe votes can be seen here

The Australian CS Documents and links

The ACSO has a variety of wikis, email address and groups that need to be documented here as a means of being able to pass on seamlessly the "big picture" from one generation of Aussie Ambassadors to another.

Wiki Pages

General info

The CS Organisation Australia wiki provides links to: Australian CouchSurfing Ambassadors. These two wikis are updated with each change of the Aussie Amb Roll Call.

To help the new Ambassadors there is an Australian New Ambassadors Welcome Kit and also the chance for Aussie Ambs to meet face-to-face at the annual Ambfest.

To help the new Members there is an Australian New Members Welcome Kit

There is also the Australian Tips Hints and links to better CouchSurfing wiki and the Australian CS Safety wiki

and of course the Macalla Koala Aussie CS Mascot page

For a complete list of Australian CS wiki pages, see here.

Email and Calendar accounts

The Australian CouchSurfing Org has a gmail account being:

australiacsorg at gmail dot com

The password and verification code is known to each of the Australian Country Ambassadors and is to be handed on to the next when appointed. By having a gmail account there is the opportunity to use the Calendar and the Document distribution tools that are availble.

Each City also has its own Gmail address and Calendar maintained by the Moderators of that City Group. Remember to ensure the Calendar link you place in your group is able to be seen by all rather than just GMail Account holders.

Key Australia Org documents are kept in the australiacsorg account along with Photos publically accessible to members as well.

Groups and Guidelines

All the Australian groups come under the Australia group.

Each of the Australian States come under The Australia group as a seperate subgroup and then each City and State interest group can be found within that seperate State subgroup.

Each State and main City group uses the Group Guidelines as a means to provide links to the essential Australian Groups and Wikis.