TSI Volunteering Announcements: January, 2009

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James Hogan

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Jan 17, 2009, 9:43:28 PM1/17/09
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TSI Volunteering Announcements
January, 2009

Hello, seasteaders!

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TOPICS COVERED IN THIS MONTH'S ISSUE

- Overview

High-priority roles:
- Ephemerisle Research
- Volunteer Coordination help
- Website Developers and System Administrators
- San Francisco Bay Area Chapter Coordinator

New roles:
- Video Producer
- Wikipedia Maintainer

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-- OVERVIEW

These monthly newsletters generally cover volunteering opportunities at TSI that are either new or particularly high priority at the time.  Please take a moment to consider whether you know anyone who might be interested in these, and pass the word on.  Finding us a qualified volunteer can make a huge difference.

Interested parties can inquire further by e-mailing volun...@seasteading.org.

As always, a complete list of all of our open volunteer positions can be found here.

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-- HIGH PRIROITY: EPHEMERISLE RESEARCH

Ephemerisle is a floating festival TSI is considering organizing in Summer 2009. Ephemerisle could serve as a proof of concept, and create awareness for, many of TSI's goals, including floating communities and experimentation with different systems of government. To make Ephemerisle happen, we need some people who can help spearhead preliminary research in two areas:

Legal research:  This would focus on questions of what activities are legal, and who will be liable for injuries or property damage at the event. We're interested in the letter of the law, and also very interested in practical applications, e.g. things that are not illegal but might generate concern and involvement from the Coast Guard. We have a friendly contact at the Coast Guard to help with this.

Infrastructural research:  This would focus on an engineering analysis of building a floating community center for the festival, including: Requirements definition (size, transportability, comfort, etc.), design options, cost analysis, etc.

There also a lot of interesting discussion going on at our Ephemerisle planning mailing list -- feel free to join in!

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-- HIGH PRIORITY: VOLUNTEER COORDINATION HELP

This is an important role because it's highly leveraged -- more volunteer coordination help means more volunteers, and that will help all aspects of TSI's vision.

We have lots of people who are interested in volunteering with TSI, but it's a good chunk of work to recruit them and make sure we've got productive tasks ready to go.

We could use many levels of help here, from assistants who could help manage things like our this newsletter and our "list of volunteer roles" wiki page, to experienced managers who could help recruit for and manage large projects. 

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-- HIGH PRIORITY: WEBSITE DEVELOPERS AND SYSTEM ADMINISTRATORS

Our volunteer website development team is off and running, but could use more help!

We've got one sysadmin already, which is a lot better than none.  But having a second sysadmin would give us more overall bandwidth for projects, faster turnaround time when our developers need help, and backup for when someone is unavailable.

On the development side, we've got a lot of great community-building features we'd like to build -- UI improvements, photo feeds, digg-style ratings for blog and forum posts, donation functionality, and lots more.  These things aren't just bells and whistles, they're important; our website is one of our biggest tools for building our movement, and we need it to be compelling.

Drupal experience is a huge plus, but enthusiasm and a willingness to learn is all that's required!

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-- HIGH PRIORITY: SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA CHAPTER COORDINATOR

Those of you who have been to our socials in the Bay Area know that they're a great, fun way to connect with other members of the seasteading community and stay up-to-date about what's happening with the movement.  Having a volunteer to organize these would be extremely helpful, as it would free us up to focus on other high-priority tasks.  

The coordinator would be responsible for finding hosts/venues for Bay Area events, handling publicity, driving attendance, arranging for refreshments, coordinating with TSI colleagues to organize agendas, etc.

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-- NEW: OUTREACH FOR TSI SPEAKING OPPORTUNITIES

There is tremendous potential for TSI to grow the seasteading movement by collaborating with other organizations -- conferences, think-tanks, universities, and so on. Establishing relationships, giving talks, and attending conferences are vital steps to help us build the support network we need to make this movement realize its potential.

There's a lot of research legwork needed to make this happen. We need people who can look around on the web for organizations that are likely to be sympathetic to our cause, and draft letters (probably customized form letters) introducing ourselves and helping them understand why our cause is relevant to them and why they should be excited about it.

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-- NEW: VIDEO PRODUCER

We'd like to create a short introductory video for seasteading and TSI. For many people, nothing gets the message across like a short, simple video.  This will go on the front page of our website and also be included in our press kit and other promotional materials.

Most of the content will probably consist of Patri, our Executive Director, speaking. We need somebody who can produce and edit the video. You don't need to be a pro; strong amateur skills will be considered, too!

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-- NEW: WIKIPEDIA MAINTAINER

The Wikipedia articles on seasteading and TSI are very sparse and contain out-of-date information. They needs to be updated, and ideally maintained by the same person. Obviously we want somebody who is knowledgeable enough about seasteading and TSI to make sure that a decent picture is being portrayed, while still maintaining an ethical and unbiased stance while writing content.

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Thanks for reading; see you next month!


--
James Hogan, Volunteer Coordinator
The Seasteading Institute

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