We had yesterday for Italy a workshop from FSFE about PMPC.
So I am a FSFE member since few years and I got that news because I got it from a telegram group, not from a communication from FSFE as italian.
There was just 14 people (with 2 fsfe employees) and I guess that there are more italians inside FSFE.
Looking at lists.fsfe.org Mailing Lists there aren’t lists for country but there is just the monthly newsletter. I guess that is required a bit of coordination between members of the same country that maybe are not part of a local FSFE group like me (in Italy there are just 3).
This would help with grow the community and create networking between members to work together as every country is different.
As Europe are built with 27 countries, I think that is important to start thinking of this community organization side.
Yeah, having a national news letter would be nice for such official announcements. In the Netherlands the BNL newsletter is low-traffic but still important for these announcements. Going by the team page you could Patrick Ohnewein as vice-coordinator for Italy. Otherwise you could reach out to the Core team using the contact@ address. Also the XMPP service is quite active and useful for direct communication.
In the Netherlands we don’t have local groups, just a loose collective of engaged supporters. We now organize monthly online sessions on the FSFE conference server, and it is a nice way to keep in touch. Maybe something similar could work for you to strengthen the ties between the local groups.
Feel free to reach out if things don’t get moving.
I know Patrick
The problem to me is the missing communication for that workshop to the FSFE member of a specific country.
If the focus is to do promotion it is important to reach all the possible interested people and I think that a group per country for a european foundation is important.
The monthly newsletter I think that is something that can be used also for this stuff but not once in a month.
I know in italy there are 3 local groups but they are outside of my area.
It would still have been nice to tell them. The FSFE Milano mailing list is the only active one in the country and it’s where I get most of the information about FSFE activities in Italy. If you had written there I would have most likely have known.
For a while it was the de facto national mailing list and every Italian in FSFE knew/agreed (or did I imagine it, with the usual arrogance of a milanese like me? :-p). Why don’t you join, if you didn’t already?
Well I saw Milano and I didn’t know that was a national newsletter.
I guess that if I had those doubts, I am not the only one.
My question for this discussion wasn’t just for Italy but for all the countries in Europe with their members.
If FSFE is asking the members to coordinate for PMPC I think that is the case that there are communication channels by country instead of all this fragmented and confusing organization as it is now.
I joined FSFE 4 years ago. I only followed the monthly newsletter mailing list and I don’t think that I am the only one in this situation.
I think that there is a communication issue and is probably part of the fact that the FSFE is sawn as a German foundation.
I don’t want to be rude but talking with people the comments that I listened in years was that the FSFE care more about Germany than the other countries. From a point of view is understable they work from Berlin (mainly) but if there is no attention to the members this can degenerate sadly.
I understand that you’re unhappy with how this went. Please let me explain the background.
The FSFE is a pan-European organisation. We are active wherever our volunteers are active, because that’s the root of the whole organisation. FSFE staff are often working on overarching activities (like PMPC or Router Freedom) that can be picked up by local groups and other volunteers.
Now, I am not fully aware of the Italian situation, but IIRC there was some kind of a reboot in which a new coordination team tries to start new activities in Italy involving the existing local groups. There are ways how people can contact e.g. all FSFE supporters and registered volunteers in Italy who agreed that the FSFE can send them emails. I am not sure whether it was done this way for the said event, but the option exists.
Whether there are country-wide coordination channels and in which form is up to the local and national teams – if they exists and if they are active. From long-term experience we can say that it does not make sense to establish a list for example if it is not being used at all by the people who form a country team. Something like this has to be lived, not just created.
I will point a few people in Italy to this discussion. Perhaps something like an Italy-wide public mailing list or forum category is already planned.
I don’t think that should be a list, can be also a category on discourse.
The real issue to me is not the communication channel, is the missing of a communication channel per country by FSFE to their members.
If there is as example a workshop for Italy about PMPC what is the plan to reach all the FSFE italian members?
That’s it, the italy issues of channels, etc whatever is anothper discussion. I am just talking as the discussion title if FSFE has a way to reach all the members by country, because I don’t think that something exists except the monthly newsletter is not just for the members.
As I said in my previous mail, something like this exists, and it has been used for the workshop. Lina sent an email for the PMPC workshop to everyone in our community database (supporters and registered volunteers) who set Italy as their country. For unregistered people, we need streamlined communication channels.
I have already outlined the problem that FSFE communication channels in Italy have become quite fragmented, and it’s known to Francesca and Patrick who do a lot of coordination of Italian activities. They currently discuss a few options currently but since I am not very deep in the matter I will refrain from laying them out here now.
As I know, the people joined the workshop didn’t get any email because we discussed it.
Me neither, and I am configured as Italy for the country.
Anyway if there is a way to reach all the people by country by FSFE is enough to consider this discussion closed, because this was the big question from the people joined the workshop.
About the discussion channels from members this is something that can be discussed in a different thread and way
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