Three of the most active Hospitality Exchange Communities (Hospex) are getting together every Monday in Brussels to watch a movie. Afterwards they meet at a café downtown to discuss the movie and much much more.
Members of BeWelcome, Couchsurfing and Hospitality Club are meeting in front of the UGC De Brouckère around 19h30/7.30pm every single Monday. We try to offer a healthy mix of Blockbusters, arthouse movies and local films, but we always try to involve as many people as possible. This means that mostly the movies will either be in English or have English subtitles.
You can read the reviews of some of our recent movies in our BeCultural blog
Do you want to know more or do you want to subscribe to our mailing list : just send us a message asking for access to our Hospitality Exchange Movie Monday Google Group
donderdag 19 maart 2009
woensdag 18 maart 2009
Sustainable Hospitality Exchange
Have you already heard about the SHE-conference? SHE stands for Sustainable Hospitality Exchange and is a conference that organised during the last weekend of June in Amsterdam (27-29 June, 2008). It is based in a local former squat that can host a hundred people and more. The goals of SHE is to increase exchange of knowledge on the different hospex-networks around the world & foster debate and change.
SHE wants to be an open-space conference on topics related to hospitality exchange. SHE wishes to enable face-to-face debates and workshops on how these networks are run, on best-practices, on volunteer-work, on empowerment, on community building and all other related topics. In addition, SHE also wishes to connect the praxis of hospitality exchange to a wider framework of cultural exchange, gift-economy, trust-metrics, sustainable traveling and living a joyful life because above everything SHE wishes to create the debate: what do we mean with sustainable hospitality exchange?
In the end though, SHE is how you envision her. Look her in the eyes and think what you could do with SHE! Imagine a space with enthousiastic people who are very eager to hear about the history of all networks of hosp-exchange. Imagine an open podium, space for art-installations & great food, a self-managed bar and lots of nice people that want to live & learn by sharing.
SHE is curious to know if you are interested. SHE is really looking forward to hear from people such as you to start thinking what you would like to do with her. Would you for example like to facilitate a workshop on any of the topics related to SHE? Or do you have any other groovy ideas that SHE might benefit from? Of course you do!
Workshops that SHE is already envisioning are for example: experiences on volunteer work, how to build up a local hospitality exchange community, sustainable traveling and hitchhiking, trust, hospitality exchange and money system, free software and coding, salsa, cultural western-centrism, history of any given network, et cetera.
The space for SHE is already organised. It has lots of room for plenary sessions & workshops. There are tables, chairs, a bar, a dj-set and a podium as well. But SHE also already exists in wiki-space. So why don't you start getting into SHE? You can check her out for more information. You can also edit the pages and give your input straight away: http://turl.ca/sheconf
For now SHE is being facilitated by a small but committed group of people who would love to hear from you. Please write me with your ideas and forward this e-mail to good people.
SHE wants to be an open-space conference on topics related to hospitality exchange. SHE wishes to enable face-to-face debates and workshops on how these networks are run, on best-practices, on volunteer-work, on empowerment, on community building and all other related topics. In addition, SHE also wishes to connect the praxis of hospitality exchange to a wider framework of cultural exchange, gift-economy, trust-metrics, sustainable traveling and living a joyful life because above everything SHE wishes to create the debate: what do we mean with sustainable hospitality exchange?
In the end though, SHE is how you envision her. Look her in the eyes and think what you could do with SHE! Imagine a space with enthousiastic people who are very eager to hear about the history of all networks of hosp-exchange. Imagine an open podium, space for art-installations & great food, a self-managed bar and lots of nice people that want to live & learn by sharing.
SHE is curious to know if you are interested. SHE is really looking forward to hear from people such as you to start thinking what you would like to do with her. Would you for example like to facilitate a workshop on any of the topics related to SHE? Or do you have any other groovy ideas that SHE might benefit from? Of course you do!
Workshops that SHE is already envisioning are for example: experiences on volunteer work, how to build up a local hospitality exchange community, sustainable traveling and hitchhiking, trust, hospitality exchange and money system, free software and coding, salsa, cultural western-centrism, history of any given network, et cetera.
The space for SHE is already organised. It has lots of room for plenary sessions & workshops. There are tables, chairs, a bar, a dj-set and a podium as well. But SHE also already exists in wiki-space. So why don't you start getting into SHE? You can check her out for more information. You can also edit the pages and give your input straight away: http://turl.ca/sheconf
For now SHE is being facilitated by a small but committed group of people who would love to hear from you. Please write me with your ideas and forward this e-mail to good people.
A Visit from Vishnu
Two years ago my wife and I visited Coimbatore in the South of India, and were invited by a fellow BeWelcome member called Vishnu. We had a great time, and he invited us to an Indian Wedding. His Hospitality was amazing and we felt really at home with him and his mother.
So you can imagine our happiness when Vishnu decided to pay us a visit this year. He came at the end of January, when our daughter was exactly one month old, and we took him to see Aachen. He also stayed with a Polish friend of ours, and even though the weather was not wonderful, I trust he had a good time. He spent three nights at my place and he brought us some delicious tea which we enjoyed a lot since my wife and I are both big tea-drinkers.
After Brussels he went to Champagne area in France. I trust he drank moderately and made it safely back to wonderful Coimbatore.
So you can imagine our happiness when Vishnu decided to pay us a visit this year. He came at the end of January, when our daughter was exactly one month old, and we took him to see Aachen. He also stayed with a Polish friend of ours, and even though the weather was not wonderful, I trust he had a good time. He spent three nights at my place and he brought us some delicious tea which we enjoyed a lot since my wife and I are both big tea-drinkers.
After Brussels he went to Champagne area in France. I trust he drank moderately and made it safely back to wonderful Coimbatore.
donderdag 12 maart 2009
The Linux Hotel and the Unperfekthaus
You can read all about the General Assembly of Bevolunteer (the organization behind BeWelcome, an open source hospitality exchange network) in our internal wiki pages.
So what are the Linux Hotel and the Unperfekthaus, and how can they fit into your projects?
First of all, the Linux Hotel is a luxurious location that offers inexpensive training courses and seminars about OpenSource-software. They have all the know-how, the material, virtual servers and all the equipment you need to create your own conference rooms.
On top of that they are a hotel, and can provide you with top-quality accommodation, sauna, a wonderful park and garden, and much much more.
What's more, they offer something called "FreakTime" where you can stay with a whole group of programmers at cheap rates and have a hackaton. Check our their website (in German, but you can contact them in English) at Linuxhotel.de
The Unperfekthaus is something completely different, but very complementary to the Linux Hotel. It is litteraly an Open House, a place where everybody is welcome to use all the facilities (a walk-in sauna, huge television/computer screen, computers, workshops etc.etc.). They even have a hotel that consists of common rooms (like kitchen, living room) so that guests can come together in the evening. It is a place where there is always something going on, from concerts to movie screenings and art exhibitions.
woensdag 11 maart 2009
Greetings from Essen
We will be here 3 days, electing a new Board of Directors (delegates elected by all the members of BeVolunteer), approving the budget, talking about the general direction we want to take with BeVolunteer.
You can read all about it on our open Wiki pages, because transparency is important to all of us.
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