Newsletter

Dear %anonymous%,

You are receiving this newsletter because you are a member of the BeWelcome community of travelers and hosts. For those who are receiving this newsletter for the first time, a big, warm Welcome. You have joined a community that is 100% volunteer run. That means no offices, no paid staff and a non-profit since 2007.

Volunteer Developers wanted

BeWelcome needs developers. The available resources we have influences the implementation of new features. The platform is based on Symfony (4.x) components (PHP) using Doctrine as the database access tool. The frontend uses Twig templates and makes use of jQuery for dynamic content. The CSS framework is Bootstrap4. If you have experience and skills in these languages or other development skills, like knowledge of Java (e.g. for a mobile app), we would like to hear from you. For more information, please see GitHub or get in contact with shevek.

New Board of Directors

BeVolunteer - the registered non-profit association behind BeWelcome - recently elected a new Board of Directors (BoD). They are:

• Executive: Johannes - wind
• Secretary: Nina – lososs
• Treasurer: Frank – thorgal67
• Volunteer Coordinator: Sammie – sammiekong
• Strategy lead: David – mountx

These BeVolunteer members, elected to the Board of Directors are just active volunteers. You can also get more active by volunteering. This year, all Board members will focus on increasing activity on the BeWelcome website.

The new website has some great new features

Mobile friendly
A major redesign happened in 2019 and now bewelcome.org is mobile friendly. You can now use the responsive website when you are on the move. The page loads quicker and allows you to get to the feature or information you need faster. A hamburger menu in the top corner – three lines stacked together to roughly form the shape of a hamburger – allows you to navigate easier. As this menu does not require a lot of space, it leaves bewelcome.org uncluttered and gives more screen space for the information you really need.

Host request
Members have long requested a host request system. Until now members sent hosting requests through the general messaging system. Since the redesign, there is now a separate request system which helps you to keep track of the requests you send out and receive. And for the first time ever BeWelcome can estimate how much hosting happens through our community.

Members search – exact location on the map
When setting your home, you can now use a location marker in the map (by dragging map/zoom in/zoom out) to indicate your exact location. This allows for more accuracy in the search. Try it out and change your location! Your profile will stand out by more accurately pointing to where you live.

Report Bugs
If you see any bugs or strange website / platform behaviour, you can post them in the forum. We have a forum thread called ‘I found a problem with the new site’ where you can post your remarks.

To unsubscribe from BeWelcome newsletters, please change your settings in your preferences accordingly. Set ‘I want to receive periodic news about BeWelcome by mail’ to ‘No’ and click on ‘Save settings’ at the bottom of the page.

Finally: Happy 2020! May the new decade be full of enriching encounters for you!

Love, peace, happiness from the BeWelcome Volunteers