During the meeting in Essen, we had one work shop in which we discussed best practices for doing advocacy work on a local level. As local politics usually have different competences and regulations and vary a lot throughout Europe (they vary a lot inside Germany alone). It is impossible for FSFE staff to cover all this. A lot of work could be done by local groups like us though. The question we asked ourselves was: What do we need to help people getting active and promote Free Software in their neighborhood?
The condensed results of this workshop went into a wiki page where the thoughts and best practices will be available for everybody to learn and share their own experiences.
It includes topics like
- How to establish the first contact with politicians
- Who to contact first
- staying in touch
- What else you can do even if you are “in the middle of nowhere”
- And a few more topics of interest for the local activist
So, please have a look, use, share and improve the page! (Non-Fellows may simply request write access to the wiki here or send me an email with the proposed changes).