Our 1st Approval Meeting Application detailing how we became a LoCo is linked, this application page aims to show how we have grown and what we have done since.

The Ubuntu-ie LoCo is a group of active and diverse individuals who strive to promote Ubuntu here in Ireland. We like to meet up and share our knowledge and promote Ubuntu wherever possible by attending events and organising our own.

Key Details

• Date - 21^st of June, 2011

• Team Contact - Rory McCann

• Membership

  • 118 Members on Launchpad
  • 151 people subscribed to the mailing list

• Mailing List - ubuntu-ie on lists.ubuntu.com (Archives here)

• IRC - #ubuntu-ie on Freenode

• Website - http://ubuntu-ie.org/

• Launchpad - https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-ie

• LoCo Directory Page - http://loco.ubuntu.com/teams/ubuntu-ie

• Forum - http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=195

• Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/ubuntuie

• Identi.ca - http://identi.ca/ubuntuie

Roadmap

This group is for anyone in the Republic of Ireland who uses or is interested in all flavours of Ubuntu, whether it's Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu or any other variation. This group caters for people of all technical abilities from the person who has never heard of linux or Ubuntu to a kernel developer.

We plan to build on the momentum we have generated since our initial approval by continuing with our ongoing efforts as outlined in the Experience section of this application and also working on the following:

Advocacy and Education

Build on the relationships we have developed with College Computer Societies and City Hackerspaces with a view to participating in joint events which would promote Ubuntu. Events such as barcamps, workshops and similar will all be actively encouraged. Collaboration with these groups has worked out well thus far. These groups have kindly provided venues and speakers for past events. They are also of pivotal importance for the distribution system we have developed to dispatch our teams Ubuntu CD allocations.

Website development

Update the website and add functionality. We have obtained hosting sponsorship and we have members working on a new theme for our site, we share roles out in the team and this is one way for a member(or members) to contribute back to the Ubuntu-ie community.

Community Best Practise

We try and encourage all user groups to come to our events, and educate them on Ubuntu and how to get involved in a constructive and open arm invitation, there is no user group not welcome and we encourage a diverse range of members to interact. This interaction can be social, like the fun we have at our Ubuntu hours and geeknics, or more technical on irc and mailing lists. We will be vigilant of Best Practises within the LoCo network and implement strategies and initiatives which we believe will have a positive impact having given due consideration to our own circumstances.

Experience

Since our last loco approval we have continued to do the following:

Monthly IRC Meetings

• We have consistently held monthly IRC meetings, refining the structure to ensure efficiency. Minutes and logs of these meetings can be found here. We have embraced the new LoCo Directory Meeting feature for scheduling our routine meetings. We are currently using the Wiki and LoCo Dir to track meeting data concurrently but hope to migrate fully to the LoCo Directory in the near future.

Team Reports

• We have produced 23 Team Reports covering every month since our approval in a timely and prompt manner. ( Full list of Team Reports )

Release Parties

• We have held parties for each Ubuntu iteration released since our initial approval.
  • Jaunty

    • Wiki Details, Write up on ubuntu-ie.org, Photos from czajkowski

    • 

  • Karmic

    • Summary listing, "as it happens" blog post, Photos from Mean-Machine, Photos from czajkowski

      

  • Lucid

    • Event Details in 2010 Event Roundup, Photos from ebel

      

  • Maverick

    • Event Details in 2010 Event Roundup, Photos from ubuntuie pix.ie

      • 

  • Natty

    • Some details of the Natty Release party are located here with a few photos here

Social Events

• We have held and participated in regular social events

  • Details of these social events can be found here, here and here

  • Lots of Geeknic photos here

OSSBarcamp

• We have continued to help organise and participate in OSSBarcamp events

  • Lots of photos of the various OSSbarcamps can be found here. Event details for September 2010 are located here, for April 2010 here and for September 2009 here

Ubuntu Jams

• We have held Ubuntu Jams of various flavours

  • Summary of these Jam can be found here, here and here

  • For the first time in April 2011 Ubuntu Ireland had two venues participating in the Ubuntu Global Jam. Some photos of these events can be found here and here. A nice write up of our participation in the August 2010 Global Jam can be found here

A link page to summaries of our past events is located here

Since our last loco approval, we have done these new things:

LoCo CD pack distribution

• We have developed an efficient system to distribute each LoCo pack of Ubuntu CDs around the country. To facilitate this we have fostered good relationships with University and College Computer Societies as well as city Hackerspaces. A blog post regarding the recent Natty CD allocation to the 091labs Hackerspace in Galway shows how well this system works in terms of Ubuntu advocacy. This blog post can be found here. We also use social media to promote each release and happily dispatch copies of CDs to individuals who request them.

Monthly Ubuntu Hours

• In January 2010 we began holding monthly Ubuntu Hours in Dublin.
• Towards the end of 2010 we started to hold Ubuntu Hour events in other cities such as Limerick and Cork.

  • Details of these Ubuntu hour Events can be found on the LoCo Directory. Some photos can be found here with more here

Increased Geographic activity

• We have worked hard at expanding beyond a Dublin centric grouping with activities now occurring in Limerick, Cork and Galway (Ireland's 2nd, 3rd and 4th largest cities).

• In collaboration with the University of Limerick Skynet Computer Society we participated in a one day series of talks. Details here.

New Social and Advocacy Events

• We have increased our range of regular social meetups (Quiz and Bowling events)

  • Details here and here with some photos of the bowling excursion here and here

• We maintained a booth and distributed CDs at The Business Value of Open Source Software event which was held in Dublin on the 16th of November 2010 (Event details here and here). Mark Shuttleworth presented at this event. A short write up of this event can be found here

• We were involved in the inaugural Code Retreat Dublin.

New Communication Channels

• We started a podcast

• We started using Twitter, identi.ca and Facebook to communicate with the community

• We began to centralise the online storage of event photos here

Global Ubuntu Participation

• We have actively participated in Open Week
  • Laura Czajkowski has lead the following Open Week IRC sessions

    • FOSS Event

    • LoCo Council Q&A

    • How To Go From User To Contributor

    • Helping LoCo Teams Help Themselves

  • Shane Fagan has lead the following Open Week IRC session

    • U1 is Awesome

Ubuntu Members

The following Ubuntu Members are active in the Irish LoCo team:

• Laura Czajkowski

• Maciej Danielski

• Rory McCann

• Shane Fagan

• Declan McGrath