Ubuntu-za (aka Ubuntu South Africa) has been an approved Loco since July 2005. We work with the local LUGs to support the Ubuntu community. There are some factors that make activity in the South African communities unique. We are distributed over large areas and our bandwidth is expensive. It is important for us to spread Ubuntu in the form of install CDs and repositories to people so they can avoid downloading.

To this end we have Global Jams and Release parties and we take part in Software Freedom days.

We now have 4 ubuntu members on our team. We have a sub team in Stellenbosch. We connect with CLUG, LEG, TLUG, FLUG, UCT Algorithm Circle, SULUG, GLUG, LEAD

The leadership changes in the past 2 years have been smooth (another thread).

This document was a team effort.

Key Details

• Date - August 2010

• Team Contact - David Rubin <drubin-a-t-ubuntu.com>

• Membership - 171 direct members as of 24 July 2010 see ~ubuntu-za

• Website - http://ubuntu-za.org/

• Mailing List - ubuntu-za on lists.ubuntu.com - 324 subscribed as of 24 July 2010

• IRC - #ubuntu-za or #ubuntu-afr (for our Afrikaans users) on freenode - 36 active participants as of July 2010

Roadmap

Immediate future

• Global Jam Maverick - initial plans discussed at our last meeting and on the mailing list thread. planning page

• Release Party Maverick - initial plans discussed at our last meeting and on the mailing list thread.

• SFD 2010 event at the dept of Science and Technology in Pretoria

• Ubuntu demo at Python courses, including Ubuntu CD distribution.

Long term

• Getting more Ubuntu developers in SA
• More events outside of Cape Town / Stellenbosch
• More Ubuntu Hours
• More non-geeky users at events
• Get more Ubuntu Members from ZA
• Obtaining funds for free swag for events
• Marketing Ubuntu in the media? To schools?

Experience

Online Activities

Just a note on why our online activities seem very minimal: We recently lost the wiki data for our original website, which contained much of our docs and meetings and reports. You can see Announcement

• Website - http://ubuntu-za.org

  • recent revamp to match the Lucid rebranding

  • page to assist people finding local contacts with a copy of Ubuntu

  • feed of community members' blogs

  • Incorporated easier LP OpenID integration

• Meetings - Record and logs of recent meetings.

• Mailing list - this list is used for the Loco but is also a frequent stop for Ubuntu related support. Mailing list membership has increased from 87 to 324 since 2008 at least one happy member

• IRC - membership has increased from 23 to 36 since 2008.

• Forums - Ubuntu-za at ubuntuforums.org

• Wiki -

  • The Stellenbosch sub-team maintain a useful Ubuntu-wiki which supports the Stellenbosch University Ubuntu community.

  • ML thread on Wiki Jam and Peanut butter day held to clean up the old ubuntu-za wiki.

IRL Activities

• Global Jam -

  • Lucid report and pics and report and poster ML thread planning the Jam.

• Release Parties - .

  • Lucid: pins, cake and pics, more pics and more ML thread on Gauteng party, ML thread on Freestate party

  • Karmic: Cape Town, Stellenbosch, ML thread Gauteng party plans

  • Jaunty: Bloemfontein

• Packaging Jams - Johannesburg 2009

• Bug Jam - Johannesburg 2009 more pics

• Ubuntu Hour - First Friday of the month in Stellenbosch.

• Freedom Toasters - The team maintains the Freedom Toaster at the Shuttleworth Lab and at the JS Gericke Library recently moved to US Student IT Centre.

• SFD -

  • ML Thread to 2009 planning and the Cape Town event together with CLUG

• Computer Redistribution Project - ubuntu-za-maties subteam is working with the Student Community to collect old pc's, install ubuntu and redistribute them to high school learners. ML thread

• Badge Pins, Poster, Cake and Stickers

• Ubuntu demo to 50 school learners at the February Python course run by UCT Algorithm Circle in Cape Town, including Ubuntu CD distribution. Repeating this to 110 learners in August in Cape Town and 30 learners in September in Stellenbosch.

Stats

Website Traffic

• - Note the spike of almost 200 people on the first two days after the site was launched. A number of other LoCo's liked our new theme.

LPMembership

• 

IRC

Testimonials

• The LoCo is doing well, with active an mailing list, IRC channel and some regular events. -- stefanor 2010-07-31 16:43:10

• We have some members who really stepped up and have been doing some great work the last 6 months, keep up the good work! -- jonathan 2010-08-01 05:07:35

• Love the LoCo, great people who are always willing to help the not-so Ubuntu orientated newcomers. -- t3rminatr 2010-08-01 10:00:15

• Add your testimonial here ubuntu-za member

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CategoryLoCoTeams