Collateral Scheme

Summary: I propose a scheme for LibreOffice supporters to get materials to use at events. I ask for collaborators and I request an OK for the Board.

== Explanation ==

You may recall that Jean Hollis Weber made a great offer to LibreOffice from the Friends of OpenDocument group a few weeks ago (March 11th). She said they hold a comfortable sum of money on behalf of LibreOffice and went on to say:

Instead of giving the LO money to The Document Foundation
for general expenses, we think it is better to make it available to
cover expenses that The Document Foundation can't or won't
deal with. Some examples might be the cost of marketing
materials (including copies of the user guides) for tables at events,
attendance at events aimed at potential and actual customers
(librarians, educators, etc), or just about anything that would be
valuable for spreading awareness and growing the community
and the customer base.

I contacted Jean offline and asked more about this. We talked through the proposal I'm going to make now, and in order to make it feasible I applied to and have been granted membership of Friends of OpenDocument Inc.

=== Proposal ===

It would be great if LibreOffice advocates around the world were able to get hold of posters, leaflets, maybe even t-shirts and table displays, in support of LibreOffice at user groups, conferences and the like. One way to do this would be to create items on an online store such as Lulu, CafePress or SpreadShirt (or equivalents accessible to other geographies) run on behalf of both TDF and Friends of OpenDocument. We at the Friends could then purchase items at cost and have them shipped to the event organiser.

I am willing to set up and administer such a store and work with the Friends to authorise and make purchases, but I have no graphic skills whatsoever so would need others to help create items, upload and maintain them.

It's not my proposal at this stage to create a TDF Store for public purchases, but it's obviously a possible future development.

== Call for Action ==

* Who would be willing to collaborate with me on this?
* Is there an upcoming event we can set as a goal so we have a target (lat May-early June)?
* Board: Will you give this scheme your agreement please?

Cheers,

S.

Summary: I propose a scheme for LibreOffice supporters to get materials to use
at events. I ask for collaborators and I request an OK for the Board.

  Sounds great.

== Call for Action ==

* Who would be willing to collaborate with me on this?
* Is there an upcoming event we can set as a goal so we have a target (lat May-early June)?
* Board: Will you give this scheme your agreement please?

  You have my moral support :slight_smile: though I can't invest time in this as of
now. Wrt. the collaboration - what concretely do you need done ?

  Thanks !

    Michael.

== Call for Action ==

* Who would be willing to collaborate with me on this?
* Is there an upcoming event we can set as a goal so we have a target (lat May-early June)?
* Board: Will you give this scheme your agreement please?

  You have my moral support :slight_smile: though I can't invest time in this as of
now.

Would not expect you to! Although of course when you see local events around your area that need copies of manuals or bundles of leaflets, joining in would be great!

Wrt. the collaboration - what concretely do you need done ?

Three main areas:

* Preparing materials
We already have the great manuals plus some leaflet & banner designs, but each design needs some love to make it work at a specific event. I've tried, and I really am not skilled enough to work on them. I'd love to have one or more collaborators who can maintain store-ready artwork that we can upload and order.

I'd also love someone to design us a table cloth that could be used at table-top events. It would need out name and graphics along the edges in particular, so they show when the cloth is draped over a table. No idea how to get it manufactured, but I know where to ask if there's someone with the graphic skills.

* Linking with an event
When there's a local event that would benefit from leaflets, manuals, t-shirts etc

* Sharing administration
I'm notoriously distractable, so having a collaborator here would be great too.

Thanks,

S.

Marc Paré wrote:

FYI, the marketing team had started work on this -- "conference
kits".[1] I have not updated these pages in a while due to health
problems but am getting slowly getting back to work on these. Although
out of date (Italo has left a note on this page), the outline is still
valid but the materials links need to be updated.

Hi Marc, someone added my name, but I was not even aware of the presence
of such a page.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm getting myself into but I am willing to
jump into the deep end of the pool. Point me to the graphics, tell me
what to do with them after giving them some love. As to the table
cloth--what kind of dimensions did you have in mind? I'm assuming it
would be rectangular.

mark

That's great work you're describing, thanks Marc.

I look on this as a "stop-gap" while all those more formal official arrangements are sorted out - I'm very happy for all the work done on it to merge into this official stuff once it's back to full operational power! But I'd not want us to miss out on being able to help local events like the one Danishka told us about but we weren't able to help with, hence my offer here to organise something ad-hoc using what we have now and Jean's willingness to find funding. If you have designs ready to adapt then it should be relatively easy for a suitably skilled collaborator to work on them.

So, still looking for collaborators to get this up and running quickly!

Best wishes,

S.