The LoCo Council has drawn up this guide on Best Practices and Guidelines for LoCo Teams to follow. This guide has been created to help new teams set up and delegate tasks within the team and become more involved in the Ubuntu Community. It will also help teams when it is time for their Approval and Re Approval as they can show how they operate and by having continuous reports it is easier for applications.

We have broken the guide into three areas, what we would suggest teams do on a Monthly basis, Cycle based and on a Long Term goal. This will help you plan and set goals to work towards.

MONTHLY TASKS

• Monthly meeting - publish mins to mailing list/forums and update wiki.
  • Set a chair for 2-3 months and rotate it
  • Someone to publish mins to mailing list/forums (share out the roles)
• Update/create a monthly report
  • One person to create the report and add content to it. Mail the list and ask for input in case folks had organised or participated in events within the OSS/Ubuntu community.
• Meet ups - face to face , publish you had these events, link these to the report
  • Take pictures!
  • Blog about them
  • For larger events publish a report after the event to the loco contacts mailing list

  • Add All of the events to the LoCo Directory!

CYCLE BASED GOALS

• Release Party
• Global Jam

LONG TERM GOALS

• Create a mentoring program on the below areas and train people in those areas

• Help get existing members of the community into positions in the LoCo where they can do the most good

• Help new ( and novice ) members find members to provide some level of help to ensure the new member can contribute in a useful way
• Encourage and mentor for Ubuntu Membership
• Try to create contact with the locos around you, in order to find any potential cross-action

Delegate the roles on the team

• Chair of meetings
  • Hold the monthly meeting, set the agenda ( create an agenda page under meetings and let people add to it ) process the agenda with the team.
  • Moderate the meeting
• Web Admin

  • Maintain the LoCo's website

  • Maintain the LoCo's wiki

• Forums Admin
  • Maintain the Forums website
  • Clear out the pending queue of messages
  • Moderate when needed.
• Mailing list admin
  • Clear out the pending queue of messages
  • Moderate the mailing list and deal with policy violations over private email exchanges before escalating the issue to the team administrator
• IRC Ops
  • Ensure the CoC is followed in #ubuntu* namespace.
  • Regulate bans, voice and ops ( if needed )

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Reasons to start a LoCoteam, plus some not-so-great reasons to start a team.

• Starting a team because you want to be involved in Ubuntu , you have a passion for open source and Ubuntu and you have the time available.

  Start a team because you want to help others get involved in Ubuntu

  There is an interest in your community for Ubuntu

  Don’t start a LoCoteam if you think it’s going to be a way to promote/run your business, it doesn’t work out well in the long run and leads to conflict

  Don’t start a LoCoteam if there’s another one already created in your area, work with people not against them.

  Try and not fight over leadership, if more than one person wants to lead, have a team of leaders rather than one person.

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How to get new members in your team.

• Spread Ubuntu in schools, colleges and universities, talk to the computer departments or computer societies.

  Participate in other FLOSS events with other communities, give a demo, have a booth, given a talk at the event.

  Always be available to involve new members no matter their knowledge about Ubuntu, remember an open community is a healthy community , find a way to let them be involved with their abilities and interests

  Giving talks at non F/LOSS Events

  Giving a presentation to your work colleagues about open source

  Attend a non technical fair and ask can you give a demo on Ubuntu