Newsletter

News - February 2008

Hello %s,
BeWelcome celebrates its first birthday this month! In the next few days we will welcome our 2500th member, as we continue to make major improvements to the website and our organisation. Congratulations to all of you who put many hours and a lot of energy into brainstorming, discussing, implementing, evaluating - making BeWelcome the vibrant community it is today! What has happened in the last months on BeWelcome, and what is planned for the future?

1st BeWelcome (un)conference Antwerp, Belgium, 18-20 January BW volunteer Thomas hosted the first BeWelcome conference in Antwerp, Belgium, from January 18-20. Twenty-eight members from 7 countries attended, including members of the BeVolunteer Board of Directors as well as newer and old-school volunteers alike (the youngest one still in nappies!). Everyone was able to contribute by what proved to be a surprisingly efficient way of letting people create their own workshops ad-hoc. Among the many topics discussed were our privacy and safety, brand new verification system, volunteer management/motivation, a new feature priorities and much more. But it wasn't all work and no play. Saturday night's party provided an excellent opportunity to get to know other volunteers, BeWelcome members, and other fans of hospitality networks!
Read more about the Unconference on our main blog and tech blog or watch the video!

Site improvements

Our volunteers worked on many areas of the BeWelcome site, some visible (translation, design), others not (for example database and system work). One major improvement has been the search page which now allows you to find members via text and map search. The forum has also been improved and the information about the project and the people behind it (the volunteers) has been updated to make BeWelcome even more transparent to you. Don't forget that you can participate with new ideas and if you want to help out with coding/documenting/bug testing/etc: BeWelcome!

Outlook

In the next months we will mainly work on establishing BeWelcome's real life community and providing the necessary online tools for it, like improved signup process, local group pages, tagging, and profile import/export tools - and so much more! We're looking forward to a productive, fun and rewarding BeWelcome 2008! .....
Find other members and more information at BeWelcome - your network for hospitality and cultural exchange!

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