CS Organisation Canada

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Calgary • Edmonton • Kitchener-Waterloo • Moncton • Montreal • Niagara Falls • Ottawa • Quebec • Saint-Jean-Port-Joli • Toronto • Vancouver • Victoria • Winnipeg


Welcome to the CS Organisation Canada.


Contents

Overview

The intention of this wiki is to establish a cohesion amongst the Canadian Ambassadors, to provide a context for the current status of CS in Canada and to present to new ambassadors an overview of how it is envisaged CS will continue to prosper and develop within this country.

Basically it comes down to developing a Canadian CS model and then maintaining it.

  • - To establish continuity it is essential to establish a general accord with present Canadian Ambassadors of the direction that CS in Canada is going and to then put into place mechanisms, statements and agreements so that these expectations and goals can be met.

Essentially the role of Ambassadors is seen as time based role where there are past Ambassadors, present Ambassadors and future Ambassadors and, irrespective of where they are in that timeline there is a continuity plan in place to ensure that CS members in Canada will always be best served by an enthusiastic Canada team.

  • - To establish development plans that will promote couchsurfing in Canada both at a urban and regional level endeavouring to provide the same mechanisms of trust and community, irrespective of where you live.
  • - To identify and nurture both the collective and individual needs of the CS community in Canada.


Canuck Roll Call (69)

Global Ambassadors (2)

  • Ron based in Toronto, Ontario
  • Mr Rico based in Montreal, Quebec


Country Ambassadors (4)

City Ambassadors (41)

British Columbia (7)

  • Gibson Sell is a CS City Ambassador for Campbell River, Canada!
  • Captain Kitty is a CS City Ambassador for Castlegar, Canada!
  • Felix D. is a CS City Ambassador for Revelstoke, Canada!
  • Erin Grumbach is a CS City Ambassador for Vancouver, Canada!
  • Charlie Latimer is a CS City Ambassador for Vancouver, Canada!
  • Kyle Hobbs is a CS City Ambassador for Victoria, Canada!
  • Garry C is a CS City Ambassador for Whistler, Canada!

Alberta (2)

Saskatchewan (3)

  • Gina Trapp is a CS City Ambassador for Saskatoon, Canada!
  • Al and Anna are CS City Ambassadors for Regina, Canada!
  • Christian Soucie is a CS City Ambassador for Regina, Canada! (but traveling)

Manitoba

  • Al Dunkeld is a CS City Ambassador for Winnipeg, Canada!

Ontario (10)

Quebec (14)

New Brunswick

none

Nova Scotia

Prince Edward Island

Newfoundland

  • Jenn Brown is a CS City Ambassador for Corner Brook, Canada!

Yukon Territory

Nomadic Ambassadors - based in Canada (9)

Nomadic Ambassadors - traveling (14)


Division of Tasks

There are several Ambassador Levels. Ambassadorial Duties as described in CS Org should be aspired to at all times.

At a minimum they should comply with:

  • - The Ambassador Ethics Code This page explains the values Ambassadors share that embody "the CouchSurfing spirit". It also contains the Ambassador code of conduct that is based upon those values. The most important thing to understand about this page is that all Ambassadors must agree to actively promote CouchSurfing's stated mission to increase intercultural understanding.
  • - The Country Ambassador Expectations and Goals : what are the country ambs expectations and goals??
  • - City Ambassadors Expectations and Goals ? ?
  • - Greetings Is there any desire in dividing up greeting new members from canada? does everyone just cover their own province? what is the goal...that every new canadian cs'er has 2 greetings? 3 greetings??
  • - Location fixing who is doing this??
  • - Wiki's who is working on them? ambs? cs'ers? what has been done and what needs to be done?

Wiki Pages

Canada

to be filled in later (national, provincial, city, other relevant wiki pages to canada, couchsurfing and travel)

Shortfalls and Considerations

Due to the sheer size of Canada and the endless stream of new members joining CS who live outside of the city areas, it is crucial that the present City Ambassadors extend themselves into their adjacent regional areas to embrace and encourage these new regional members.

Considerations here might require City Ambassadors to collectively discuss the distribution of responsibilities and a dissection of the individual States to ensure that the regional members are represented.

In turn City Ambassadors should support, where able, the specific projects and goals identified by the Country Ambassador.

It is understood Canada is visited by Nomadic Ambassadors however, the distribution of general CS tasks should be done by the Canadian Ambassadors irregardless of the presence of nomadic ambassadors as there is no guarantee of the length of their stay or of the extent of the committment they can make. Certainly any contribution that a nomadic ambassador can make would be a bonus.

Should a Canadian City Ambassador become Nomadic then they should focus on the country(ies) of their travel(s) and aid, where possible, the local ambassadors.


Canadian CS Membership Statistics


Ideally Couchsurfing Canada should extend itself to offering not only an urban or touristicated experience but also a rural experience .. see Rural CouchSurfing, to travelers, thus encapsulating all aspects Canadian culture. With this in mind it is vital that Couchsurfing is extended to the regional areas. Presently, within the existing framework and with the accelerated growth of Couchsurfing membership in Canada City Ambassadors are hard pressed to promote Couchsurfing outside of their respective cities.

In turn, with the accelerated growth of new city based members, the demands on City Ambassadors is ever increasing and without a mechanism that cultivates new enthusiastic ambassadors and volunteers continuity of CS in Canada could be diminished. Periodic discussion should be made at an ambassadorial level to ensure that those members who wish to pursue this area of volunteerism to CS are supported and encouraged.

Further considerations in regards to the duties of Ambassadors would be for the Country Ambassador to ensure the nomination of Canadian Ambassadors to the Location Fixing group, the New Members Greetings Group, the Verification Group and the Dispute Group to ensure that the Canadian CS members interests are best represented. The intention of this is to also ensure the ongoing developments in these areas can be forged with Canadian input.

Additionally the Canadian CS Organization group should ensure that the Wiki's are developed are maintained and updated to best reflect the content that might enhance and support the Canadian CS experience. Due to the ability of individual non-Ambassadorial members to edit wiki pages it is vital that City Ambassadors review wiki content periodically to ensure that the true intent of the page and the legality of content is being upheld.

In regards to Location Fixing, presently there are ..... Ambassadors need to be aware of the enormity of this task and may be required to assist with local knowledge from time to time. In addition to location fixing the burden of New Member Greetings could be shared amongst ambassadors in the case where an ambassador is not able to, for a period of time, carry out their New Member Greeting obligations.

It is envisaged that Canadian ambassadors will want to participate in on-line and face to face communication to ensure that the tyranny of distance does not impede the opportunity for a universal approach to the ambassadorial functions provided to Canadian members. The intention would also be that City Ambassadors continue to communicate up the chain to the Country Ambassador any ideas or concerns so that these can be openly discussed and passed on, either further up the chain to the Leadership Team if required or determined in a quorum, to then be then be adopted.

As Canada is a country vast in size meet-ups that encapsulate more than one city are entirely possible. The possibilities for City Ambassadors to colloborate in forming and arranging these meet-ups should be encouraged at a local level rather than maintaining the notion that Couchsurfing is just about hosting overseas travellers

Background

Following increased frustration at the lack of any specific Canadian model and following the first hand experiences of new ambassadors who were not able to benifit from a 'ambassadorial starter-kit' the intention of this wiki is to provide guidance for new and existing Canadian ambassadors that might direct them to best utilize their energies in a unified fashion and offer a single point where specific tasks might be handed out ensuring that the minimum requirements of the ambassadorial positions are met and the weight of task is distributed evenly.

Outcomes/Expectations

It is imagined that ambassadors will play an open role in communicating via the Canadian CS Organization group. This forum will present the opportunities for further unique developments of the Canada CS experience. This forum should be a springboard for ideas to be exchanged and discussed. It should also be at the discresion of the country ambassador to invite prospective ambassadors to this forum encouraging the next generation of ambassadors.

The overall intention is to develop the Canadian CS membership into a participatory collective that presents, where possible, through sound profiles, good references and verifications an opportunity for a more secure and enjoyable traveling experience.

New Ambassadors Welcome Kit

A warm Welcome !!!

Congratulations on becoming an Ambassador. As you have already seen from the above text there is an overview of where CS might be heading in Canada and with the Roll Call and General Expectaions and Considerations you might now feel a little more familiar with the tasks at hand (such as Wiki page modification) and who, of the CS Canadian Ambs, has volunteered to assist.

This Kit is designed to be read in conjunction with: The Ambs home page,The Ambassador Wiki,The Ambassadorial Duties and The Ambassador Ethics Code. ALL ambs need to understand the Ambassadors Ethics Code and learn about general procedures, and communicate well. While this is the ideal and widely done, some of the education on general procedures and processes aren't quite as good as they could be, and this can be improved by creating better structured training systema for ambs.... (in the meantime a Wiki like this will have to do)

This section is presented to give you more specific information - the How To - to help you enjoy and particpate in your role as Ambassador. It is wordy however each word, each sentence and each paragraph is specifically detailed to provide the best info possible and will be updated and edited to keep it so. Without making a podcast of it I know of no other way to impart the following:

  • - City Ambassadors are the one´s who are responsible for their local groups.

Each country has a private group that is called "XXX (insert country name here) CS Organization". In this group are all the ambassadors for the country on a city, country, or typically global level. EVERYONE is in there together. CS currently has 27 Global Ambassadors. Many of them have taken on different regions of the world to head up. For instance, in the United States Oh Donna and California Mark manage their XXX CS Organistaion. For Canada, (insert gloabal ambssador) does. Global ambassadors moderate these groups.

By being an Ambassador you qualify as a member of the CS Canada Organisation Group {ask the moderator to add you if you are not a member already} along with being given automatic membership to the City Ambassadors group or the Nomadic Ambassadors Group as well as being able to join the New Member Welcome Group {again, just ask to be added}

Please get in contact with the current moderator of your City Group and express appreciation for their efforts and offer to share the burden, working together and having fun. None of this is difficult.. but it is Communications 101, Etiquette 001, and fundamentally, acknowledgment and appreciation of others.. It is intended at some time to have this inclusion to the group as automatic however presently it is manual and carried out by a current Moderator (whose name will appear in the group you wish to join)... any problems then contact Mikky.

As part of CS structure your involvement, as a member and moderator to your City group is to: 1. provide visitors of the group a quick access to the ambassadors in your City 2. City Ambassadors are responsible in keeping their local community alive, providing info and more, this includes defining group guidelines, managing/raising poll´s and establishing google events calendars if required see for more details.

  • - On welcoming new members.

You will have noticed that you now have a "Volunteer Dashboard" giving you access to the Greetings area - have a read of these posts before you continue for a better overview of greeting.

There have been discussions about what is deemed to be a reasonable amount of Greetings for a new CS member. Initially the new Member is placed in the International Areana to receive a greeting from anywhere in the world. Once greeted Internationally the Member is then moved to a Country list and a City list. If you were to look at your Country list you would find new Canadian CSer from all provinces, The City list will only show you those in your City. Bear in mind that if you live in a City and choose to see the new members in "your City" then you won't see anyone else - the catch to this is that if your city is Vancouver you won't see anyone who nominated their Region>>Country>>State>>City as Granville Island (which is in Vancouver but won't come up in your list!!)

Generally the Ambs for each city would be the best ones to specifically welcome New Members who live in that City or within that State (City Ambs need to realise that there are no Regional Ambs) so their area of interest should extend to the whole State.

Be aware that the screens that show the new Members to be greeted in City and Country are 100 members long from top to bottom where the latest arrivals feed into the top and the oldest "fall" off the bottom. Try to ensure that the ones falling off have a minimum of two greetings knowing then that at least one should be from an Canadian Amb.

When you first start greeting new members you can draft your own greeting and save it (this greeting will then be copied and pasted directly into the "Send Mail" content section of an outgoing email to a new member when you chosse to "greet them". To see any existing greetings (and there are many to choose from) simply click on the "Edit my Greetings or you can "Create a new Greeting". Both of these options can be found on the Greetings page.

BE SURE TO ADD any new members to your city group if you have time.

Make sure that all the Greetings in your language are accurate and in accordance with the site’s mission. Feel free to contact whoever needs coaching in writing a better greeting letter.

  • - Tips for meet ups & activities

No doubt your City already has a structured Meeting arrangement under the direction of the existing Ambs. Ideally you should contact them to find out what they have in mind, bearing in mind that each city has a specific group and as such each City has Gmail accountthat allows a Gmail Calender to collate and present the upcoming meetings and events viewable by anyone who wishes to see it.

Additional to this however is the more formal area of CouchSurfing that manages Meetings - keep in mind that few City Ambs post their meetings to this area keeping notices of upcoming meetings within the City Group page instead... it is advisable however to familiarise yourself with the CS Meeting Planner as it has a few additional tools such as being a repository for meetup up photos.... (on this, by rights, you should have the permission of anyone in the photos before uploading their image to the net...) There is additional info in The How to make a good meeting Wiki and have a look at this as a great example of communicating a formal meeting

CS offers a feature to upload meeting-photos, the only requirement is that the meeting was set up through the CS meeting page.

what you have to do: upload the pictures into a new folder on your profile (boring and takes very long, i know), then go to the meeting (you must be member of this meeting) and go to "my meeting settings". The last line there says "meeting photos" and shows all your cs-photo-folders. just chose the one with the meeting pictures and click on "update meeting membership" - done!

there is however a lot of room for improvement: 1) it is boring to upload every single picture to our cs accounts. 2) the number of pictures is limited by ninehundredsomething per person (not that much). 3) it only works for meetings that were arranged through the meeting page.

Be aware that if you are promoting CS there are cards that you can have made (or make yourself). Simply down load a file from here and print out your own.

  • - Joining various groups supporting the CS Organisation.

If you are not a member of these groups, contact the moderator and ask to be added. This is not done automatically and sometimes new City Ambassadors aren't added to a group they should be in.

As you can see you are already a member of at least three groups. To an extent it is expected that you will periodically visit thes groups as they will provide updated info to you (such as in the Greetings Group) whilst your City Gropu might need your input in terms of moderation of response whilst the CS Organisation Canada group will hopefully encourage you to participate in setting a direction for CS Canada.

The main thing is to keep yourself informed of the continual developments in CS. Ideally these developments will be announced by the Communications Group in a CS Newsletter however in the meantime an more local newsleter is available here.

You should also, at some point familiarise yourself with the text in the FAQ page and Freq Questions answered as the information there is possibly the best to answer any questions you might have asked by new members. Additionally you can always direct them to the CS Tips page.

In the Ambassadorial duties you might see * Verification processing as one team you could join. Ambs aren't required to participate in the verification processing group. It's just suggested as a group that *might* be a good one to check in to. And processing verifications at this time means almost exclusively helping send out the letters to people with their codes in them. For more info on that interested members should contact OH DONNA to see if the need exists to add more people to that team.

  • - Guidelines for dealing with security issues and problem resolution procedures, etc. with contacts/links to pertinent members.

Basically the approach to any problems you might have would be to directly contact your Country Ambassador or a member of the Leadership Team using the standard Contact Us form. Most often a member of the Contact Team will then advise you of the next steps to take or of the answer you need. Familiarise yourself with the contents of the "Contact Us form" including familiarity with the range of items in the pull down menu lable "Communication Type".

- Dealing with crimes such as: theft, abuse, and/or any forms of harassment. What are the official procedures, whom do we contact, and in what order? TO BE ADDED

- Serious absences, failure to show up as planned. What are the official procedures when surfers don't show up and/or don't get in touch after several days or a week from their scheduled arrival date/time? How do we interact with hosts, friends/family of missing surfers that request assistance? When do we contact Police or local authorities, etc? TO BE ADDED

- Dealing with Dating requests: see Hndling Dating Requests

  • - The "chain of command" structure see also of how we all fit together: ie: who our Regional, Country, Global Ambs are in our area and their respective responsibilities along with contact info for them.

Ideally it would be great to meet your fellow City Ambassadors so that you can establish a "collective" approach to the short term and long term plans you have for your city. In time you might hopefully meet others from Interprovince and the odd passing Nomad (no, that's not fair, they aren't all odd!). In the case where you might be required to offer assistance to a CSer in trouble these contacts that you make will assist in providing to you essential contact information of your regional & country ambs in case of emergency.

For more info in regards to the LT (Leadership Team) you could start with this Wiki as well as the Leadership Team and then have a read of this

  • - The CS Wiki page for your City/Province

As stated above "Due to the ability of individual non-Ambassadorial members to edit wiki pages it is vital that City Ambassadors review wiki content periodically to ensure that the true intent of the page and the legality of content is being upheld. "

Ideally anyone can edit a Wiki page simply by establishing a login however the intention of these City/State pages are to promote CS and what it has to offer in your City and State fitting in within the bounds allowable. With this in mind the editing of the Wiki should be carried out by the Ambassador/s of each State/City or in conjunction with members who have volunteered to assist in the development and Maintenance. By "managing" the Wiki page it is then possible to manage the resources to ensure the pages content remain accurate and current.

The Wiki list above identifies all known Canadian CS Wiki pages and the members who have developed and maintain them. Feel free to add yourself to the list of any you wish to edit/co-edit and should you create (or find) any others please also add these to the list to assist in their overall management.

  • - What is an Exotic Couch and a TBM toggle (Travelling Bands and Musos) ?

From the discussions here "an exotic is in areas which are "underdeveloped CS related" where we have no or just a few couches yet, all around. But then a exotic couch could also be a couch on a houseboat on a river, or a place in the mountains, a wooden treehouse, things which we don´t meet in our day by day life, but those need to get choose really carefully. ... Mikky Mouth"

The idea of "exotic couches" doesn't have a great deal of use. All ambassadors, however, can mark a couch they believe in good faith to be exotic, as such. The only place this really shows up is under the sub tab of the Couchsearch option, that says "Exotic".

see Exotic Couches for an overview of some already identified that might help you determine what is and isn't exotic..When selected, you get a random array of them.

TBM was originally designed to assist travelling bands, i.e. bands on the road. They had that icon to symbolize that they are touring and that they need a place to stay to be able to do their tour and for you as a host to know that you will be hosting a band - and thus have a very different CS experience ( heaps of people with a busy schedule and late night arriving and stuff ) Somehow it didn´t work out as planned and now everyone who plays an instrument can apply to become a TBM - thus there is actually no reason to have that icon anymore.

  • - Contact Us Answers- The Contact Us page is handled by a group of ambassadors, mostly Global and Country but some City Ambs as well. This group is highly trained to do this, and very dedicated. Most of the questions asked will be responded to anywhere from 1 minute to 4 hours from the time they are asked, so the response time is excellent.

Members frequently use the Contact Us page to ask a wide range of questions to the site. A team of volunteers answers these questions. You could be one of them. If you are interested contact Brie and tell her you want to be on the CUQ team.

For a discussion on "what it is to be an Ambassador" written by other Ambassadors you might like to read this

Other things that might interest you as an Ambassador

  • - Get some media attention in your part of the globe, or even while you’re CouchSurfing somewhere! Visit the Get Media page… and if you get an interview about CS, tell us how it went! Once again, if you need help, ask your local community! City, Country and Global Ambassadors collectively work on this. You can see some of the media reports here
  • - Help out by sending the Verification letters in your country! Make sure you have an information meeting on the “how to’s” with your CS Country Coordinators. You will also be able to verify members that have no credit cards if you meet up with them face to face and get a photocopy of their passport + another valid picture identification and current address in cooperation with your CS Country Coordinators. You will collect their verification money (check or money order) and send it to your CS Country Coordinators. Only after that you can mail them the verification letter to verify their address. (You might also send out verification letters for countries that do not have their own CS Country Coordinators and CS Country Secretaries). CS has a verification team run by Oh Donna.
  • - Everyone is encouraged to be on the lookout for people that would make great ambs or be valuable on a working group, and encourage them to apply or join! The Canadian Global Ambassador and the Country Ambs are there to assist and encourage all the City Ambs in nurturing new Ambs!
  • - Collectives: Participate in your nearest CouchSurfing Collective if you have the chance. This is a great way to participate in the core of your network. EVERYONE is encouraged to apply for a collective if they have the interest and time, and think they have something to offer! Many of the people that work at the collectives are not ambs at all; they are just fabulous, talented members.
  • - Help out and supervise the Translations made by CS Ambassadors. If you have time, you can most certainly translate parts of the site yourself! CS has a fabulous translations team, which can be found here. Anyone who would like to join can contact one of the Translation General group's moderators.
  • - and lastly have a look at what other Ambs are doing such as at this posting
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