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Contents 1 Brugge - We Were There! 1.1 Workshops 1.1.1 Sharing Cultures 1.1.2 Female Leadership/Representation in CS 1.1.3 Safety 2 Gallery 3 Guest Book 4 Schedule

Brugge - We Were There!

Attendees:
Anick-Marie, Tara, Martine, Veronique, Liz, Anouchka, Elisah, Stefanie, Helga, Clara, Motherandson, Delphine, Aycin, Isabelle, Mock-Turtle, Lai Ting, Little Green Hobbit, Criirsara, Maziwa, Tina, Ilse, Sylvia, Marieke & Tota

Acknowledgements:
Thank you...
Martine - for the exceptional work in getting all this organized
Martine - for the treasure hunt
Anick-Marie, Mock-Turtle & Tota - for organizing the workshops
Anick-Marie, Mock-Turtle & Little Green Hobbit - for the Safety Team input
all Brugge CS members - for the hosting and the guiding
all meeting members - for attending, for the input and making this whole experience unforgettable

Workshops

Sharing Cultures

Ice-breaking activity: The Tribes.

We were divided into 3 groups and given instructions about our tribes. Each tribe had something to communicate, either they were sad, trying to warn the others of a dangerous volcano or happy because they had just hunted a mammoth. Each tribe liked either clapping their hands, patting people on their shoulder, or patting people on the head. Each tribe also had something that they were afraid of either clapping of hands, being patted on the head or the shoulder. All this of course without talking!

After the activity people shared reflections about it: Even though the intentions of the different tribes were good, it was hard to overcome the barriers and communicate.

Facial cues are important when communicating and can be different in different cultures which makes overcoming barriers much harder

We are not always listening. During the tribes, one was so concentrated in getting our message across that we forgot to listen and try to understand the other tribes. We are also not always aware if we are being listened to or not. Feedback is important to acknowledge that one someone is listening.

The discussion continued into more general reflections about communication and culture differences. Also into how it is to be a host and to be a guest, good hospitality is defined differently in many countries.

Washing the dishes is done differently everywhere. Let the water run, use this or that soap/brush etc. The good intention to help out is important even though a guest helps out in the "wrong" way.

Some cultures have a very strong hospitality culture where guests are not supposed to help out. Either way the host needs to facilitate the guest to be a good guest by explaining how the situation is in that particular setting

Thoughts and ideas about how to communicate were brought up. What does it mean to be direct and clear? Expressions like "help yourself", what do they actually mean?

Barriers can at times emerge from different interpretations, people that know a language as a second language may interpret things different or more literally than native speakers

Female Leadership/Representation in CS

A short presentation was held where the CouchSurfing population was shown divided in the categories "female", "male", "several people" and "unknown":

Europe	Female	Male	S. People	Unknown	Total
Global	2	10	0	0	12
Country	14	27	0	0	41
City	89	177	9	0	275
Nomad	26	40	3	0	69
Total	131	254	12	0	397
Global	6	20	0	0	26
Country	23	51	4	0	78
Nomad	55	111	7	0	173
Surfers	179707	240095	28390	11802	459994

It was then compared to the population of ambassadors in all levels divided into the same categories. Further it was compared to the Europe population of ambassadors in all levels divided into the categories. The charts showed that the higher up in the hierarchy the less percentage of women were represented.

The discussion then started by the question: Is female representation within ambassador levels important?

It is important because the ambassadors are the face of the community in a way.

Women face in general more hurdles and that input is valuable in leadership

More female representatives is important because when there are few women in leadership they have to cope with representing all "womanity" and stand for it in all their actions and decisions.

It is also important that women become ambassadors because it is the only way to reach the top of the hierarchy. To be able to reach the decision-making power.

The discussion then proceeded to what the Independent Women Group's role could be in female representation.

The IW group is the 4th largest group in the peoples category. A lot of people are involved and a lot are reading and taking part of the discussions brought up there.

It is like a sand-box, many ideas are picked up by members and passed on to where decisions are made.

Working on the wiki page is important to organize all the ideas and suggestions. A group of people that took responsibility of it would be useful. Through the use of wiki pages follow-up of different topics can be presented and continuity can be maintained.

When an idea is posted/suggested in the IW group people can organize themselves smaller groups and see what can be made of the issue.

Creativity and responsibility are important. Make sure ideas are not lost and never followed up.

The topic of needed tools was brought up, and accessibility to tools. For example country ambassadors do not longer have access to the city ambassadors tools even though there is no city amb for their city and they do both the work of country and city amb.

Being able to send newsletter with information would be good.

Follow ups and newsletters sent a couple of months after joining.

Automatically joining new members to their local group maybe with a small letter of welcome.

Safety

Ice-breaking activity: Honey, I love you

Personal boundaries activity. Everybody sat in a ring, one person in the middle of the ring had to go up to someone and say "Honey, I love you, can you give me a smile" and at the same time get the other person to smile by maybe getting too close, bothering them etc. The other person had to, without smiling, say "Honey, I love you too, but you are crossing my boundaries", if they smiled they "lost" and had to go to change places with the person in the middle.

Afterwards the group reflected on what had happened. Some people found it hard to be in the middle because of their personal boundaries getting in the way of crossing another persons personal boundaries. There was a lot of laughing from both sides.

Eye contact seemed to enforce directness and assertiveness. What was said was then taken more seriously.

Laughing and smiling doesn't always mean that one is happy and agrees to what is happening, but can be a reaction to nervousness and to feeling uncomfortable

The activity was followed by an introduction by the safety team. Many topics where brought up and many questions where asked and answered.

The safety team wants to give the community tools to police itself.

Multiple profiles are not allowed. At the moment you can't start a new profile with the same e-mail address.

If a member has a problem with another member and goes through "Contact Us" but doesn't want to leave a negative reference then the safety team can't do anything to help. The information is however archived and can be pulled up again if something else is reported about that member in the future.

Use the spam-button when you receive spam. It can be hard to define what spam is at times. Communication and education can sometimes help people to not spam. It may be an honest mistake.

All communication between members that is performed outside of the CS system (msn, regular e-mail, phone) can not be used by the safety team when there is a member complaint. Keep all communication between members within the system to be sure to have the help of the Safety team if needed.

A member can not be removed on one complaint and they must be allowed a reasonable doubt if no evidence exists.

The Safety team can't make much changes but they can give advice for changes. It can be useful to contact them with ideas and suggestions anyhow.

We were divided into 3 smaller groups where each group discussed as they liked. The topics discussed where:
- Member identification and verification
- Vouching
- Referencing
- Friend-links
- Connectivity

The discussion was taken into the large group and different opinions and ideas where shared.

Gallery

Brugge - The inspirational setting			Martine - Top management
We are independent women!	Daily fuel		Little Green Hobbit, Elisah & Mock-Turtle
Veronique & Martine	Little Green Hobbit	Breakfast at Martine's - LGH, Martine, Anick-Marie & Clara	Workshops
	Treasure Hunt
Brunch à la Belgique

Guest Book

My head is about to explode! This weekend has been the best empowerment, inspirational boost I've had in a long time. Thank you all for this wonderful time. Can't wait to organize the next meeting... same date next year? /Tota

Schedule

Friday, March 7th	Saturday, March 8th	Sunday, March 9th
	Time: 10:30 - 12:15 Workshop I - Culture Sharing Sign up: Sub-meeting - WS I	Time: 11:00 - 12:30 Brunch
	Time: 12:15 - 12:45 Lunch - Sandwiches for sale provided by coordinators
	Time: 12:45 - 14:00 Workshop II - Female leadership/ representation in CS and IW Sign up: Sub-meeting - WS II	Time: 13:00 - 15:00 Workshop III - Safety Issues Sign up: Sub-meeting - WS III
	Time: 14.30 - 18:00 Treasure Hunt (Geo-caching) Sign up: Sub-meeting - Treasure Hunt
	Time: 18:00 - 20:00 Dinner with Belgian food! Sign up: Sub-meeting - Dinner
Time: 19:00 - 21:00 Belgian Beer Sign up: Sub-meeting - Beer
	Time: 20:00 - Movie night Sign up: Sub-meeting
Time: 21:00 - 22:00 Walk in the dark
Time: 22:00 - Party	Time: 22:00 - Pub Crawl...