This start guide is designed to introduce you to event and give you some tips and pointers for organizing your own team event. If you have any questions please join and use the team mailing list. You can also chat with us via Element on Matrix chat #SoftwareFreedomDay:matrix.org if you want to bounce ideas around or get more advice. We are also on Mastodon.
Forming a Local Team can be a fun, effective community building experience for your local user group and community. Digital Freedom Days (Software Freedom Day, Document Freedom Day and Hardware Freedom Day) are outreach days where you can inspire newcomers with the values and quality of Free Software, Free Hardware or Free Document standards and communicate the broader issues through a variety of activities of your choice. Is there something locally relevant to your country or region that you need to express? Is there some great local success story you want to tell?
Celebrating on of these events is your chance to stand united with the entire Digital Freedom world with what you care about: Freedom.
There are three primary ways to celebrate one of these freedom days (xFD):
xFDs will be most effective if we keep some target groups in mind:
Read the Code Of Conduct page and see if you can agree!
Sign up for the SFD mailing list.
Log in to this site (or create an account if you don't have one yet), create your venue if it doesn't exist yet and submit your event to the calendar.
Create a contact form to reach your team if you want.
The average xFD event usually requires only one or a few organisers to share the workload and ensure the event is in hand. You can often recruit helpers from:
We have found that the event can bring the local groups together as well as grow the community as a whole. The number of helpers required depends on the sort of activity you choose, but generally, the more the better. That way people have a good time and it also becomes a social event. If your volunteers enjoy themselves, they will pass on a good vibe and offer to volunteer next year too
Remember, we are all volunteers so it is a matter of what we can, when we can. Always remember to thank your volunteers and make sure they have a good time.
Be creative! You can organise any kind of xFD event you want. Your organising team can find a location / time to have a few meetings to brainstorm / discuss about the event:
But just to get you started, here are a few ideas some people have had:
You may also set a theme for your event / activity, we have a wiki page for team leaders to share your ideas here.
Depending on the sort of activity and scale of your event, you may need to set a budget for the event. It's good to prepare a budget plan and find ways to finance it, there are usually a few ways:
If you plan to raise fund, it's good to prepare a proposal clearly specify the event details suggested as below and then approach different Free Software companies / organisations.
It is very important to communicate the event to your target audiences, there are a lot of ways just to name a few here:
Below is a basic checklist that should cover most events that you would plan on running:
Are you planning to live stream your event? Have you checked our Video Conferencing page?
DFF encourages you to distribute any Free/Libre Open Source Software. Please keep in mind that what you distribute should be pleasantly usable by your target audience.
Look at FreeSoftwareMedia to get information about how to work with installation, etc. media.