BeWelcome News

A small team is focussing on redesigning the entire website since some months. The current design of BeWelcome.org is a couple of years old. In the recent past some small design changes have been made but most of the design didn't change for a long time. You might think that this is no problem as long as the site still works. But it is in some ways:

• Our statistics show that more and more people use tablets or smartphones to access our website. This is very logical as we focus on travelling and…

As the year is almost at its end, BeVolunteer and the Board of Directors wish all members and volunteers of BeWelcome a Happy New Year!

We would like to use this moment to update the community on what's going on and what can be expected this year. We appreciate all the energy and time that members give for BeWelcome, be it for volunteering on one of our teams, giving us feedback or by simply hosting or being a great guest!

What's on our agenda?
Behind the screen, we're working on several…

Dear Community,

as announced, the General Assembly (GA) of BeVolunteer, the association that runs BeWelcome, was organised on November 7th and 8th in Düsseldorf (Germany).
During the GA many active volunteers discussed several topics, proposed suggestions and made decisions. For those who are interested in more details of what was talked about, there are minutes of the meeting.

One of the tasks of the GA is to elect a new Board of Directors. This year the BoD is formed by duesseldorf (Anja), amn…

Every year, BeVolunteer, the mother organisation behind BeWelcome, organises a General Assembly (GA). This year, the GA takes place in Düsseldorf, Germany, on Saturday November 7 and Sunday November 8.

Who joins this GA?

Theoretically, everyone could join the General Assembly. In reality, a part of the active members of BeVolunteer comes together. Some members chose to follow the GA and participate online. Although everyone may join, only active members can participate in discussions and vote…

Everyone can find the basic information about the Board of Directors (BoD) of BeVolunteer and what it does. Not so many have actually encountered one of the board members to get an idea of who they are.

That's why the board decided to interview themselves, as active members of BeWelcome, to show the persons behind this entity. If you have any interesting questions to ask the board, feel free to write them here!

BeWelcome is driven by its volunteers only! Every volunteer supports BeWelcome with any amount of time they can spend: from 1 hour a month to sometimes 20 hours a week. Any help is welcome and appreciated, there's practically no minimum limit of time someone has to spend volunteering.

There are 2 volunteering groups specifically helping out our members and visitors:

• The New Member BeWelcome Team (NMBWT) welcomes every new member in a personalised way: they explain how our website works, what…

Hi all,

after a month of development a new version of Rox was just deployed to the server.

With it you get a single stop for all your subscriptions and you can temporarily disable all of them with one click (see /forums/subscriptions). At the same time the mail notifications now contain links to disable and unsubscribe from notifications for groups and forum posts.

All messages send through Bewelcome now use a new template.

During signup members now have to select a hosting status directly and…

Did you know we have a budget for organising events in your local community to help spread the ideas of hospitality exchange and BeWelcome in particular?

If you ever wanted to organise a special event on BeWelcome, but were held back because of some costs, this is your chance to get active! We'll pay for the t-shirts, stickers, banners, flyers, rent of a (small) venue (incl. utilities costs), other materials and even part of the food and drinks of the participants! Basically for everything you…

One more time, the BW duck team from Toulouse is inviting everyone to attend a long week-end of festivity, from Friday the 1st of may to Sunday the 3rd.

Happening for the fourth year in a row, Seek the Duck is the longest BeWelcome running event and include lot of different activities:

• local wine testing
• giant BBQ
• Easter omelette
• museum and city tour;
• story telling;
• pic mic

...all the activities are free (except the wine testing, requiring 3€ to cover the costs).

Start packing your stuff, the…

As you can see, we've started a new donation campaign! This year, our donation goal is €1620!

In other good news: after a long procedure, Paypal acknowledged our non-profit status, which means our transaction fees are down to €0,25 + 1,4% (previously a higher basic fee and a higher percentage, dependent on the origin of the donation).

Please consider donating, as the donations guarantee a free (from ads), transparent and independent hospex network.