No points to Mandie M and pink fish who ignored Pats call to help.

I’m also a member of the marketing and PR team so feel free to send me your communication ideas and stories.

spin is a usually pejorative term signifying a heavily biased portrayal in one’s own favor of an event or situation; it is a “polite” synonym for propaganda. While traditional public relations may also rely on creative presentation of the facts, “spin” often, though not always, implies disingenuous, deceptive and/or highly manipulative tactics.

Public relations (PR) is the managing of internal and external communication of an organization to create and maintain a positive image. Public relations may involve popularizing successes, downplaying failures, announcing changes, and many other activities; but ethical P.R. practitioners can also convince companies to work more closely with its various publics and form win-win relationships

can you post the actual link in some form? separate the fields so it doesn’t get stopped automatically by the site, because i can’t find it.

But why the heck do people assume major incidents don’t happen on CS, simply because they haven’t heard of them?? Tons of us know they have.

This is what we call Creative lying.

The other side’s argument. ROLF!! There is NO Other sites. On CS ever one is super sweet . Looks at the new ambassadors !! Welcome !Welcome!!
They do not even know where the new welcome group is located!!

What would they know about the spending tricks of casey and his pal.

Spend spend spend!!
Spend on travel
Spend on Booze , on paying money for 20 of his pals who are to lazy to earn any money on their own for a whole year.
Orgies ! Raves! The STD/LSD/420 spreading network!! wow .
wow!!
The messenger of DOOM!!
Stealing money one couch at a time!!

Collective are Using up all the money the member donated to help cs after the crash . DONATE ! GET VERIFIED !! Give the collective Alaska slackers money to slack to 6 months!! They already slacked for 6 months in Thailand.

Yes, OCS is supposed to be about *creatively* insulting each other. Let’s please get back to our core values.

However…

“Now let’s see some arguments either way.”

Come on, Tg. OCS has *never* been about seeing both sides of any CS-style argument. Why not just be open and honest about that one? Or at least be open that you, as a OCS admin and founder, that you’re interested in creatively insulting the other side’s argument.

Yes yes, OCS sucks. Yes, the LT sucks too. Now let’s see some arguments either way. Or even better, tell the world something it doesn’t know already.

Jerme – what does some Jim being back in SF have to do with the Alaska CSC? Who cares?

You stupid prick do you even read the date the comment was made?

J Stoner no we don’t thrash people till the steal other people work and are stoned lazy like you were in thailand. Stoned and drunk.

OCSad.

So take out your stamps lick em and sent those lovely post cards by snail mail to homer alaska .

Shows how much the couchsurfing managers hate old people and people from Alaska . Yeah .

While three months in Thailand was very, very cool I’m soooo excited to be back in my favorite city in the world. Yay! I’ve already seen a few of you and now, thanks to the blessings disguised by some unfortunate things, I’ll have the chance to see more of you old and even new friends.
Location: Places >> North America >> United States >> California >> San Francisco Bay Area >> San Francisco >> True Primos of San Francisco
What about those unfortunate things? Well, my motorcycle had to be towed to the shop today and it’s going to be sometime next week (Weds or Thurs at the earliest) before i’m able to see it again. Once I get it out (well, probaly after next weekend) I’m riding it 3k miles to Alaska, so while i’m not excited about spending more than the bike is really worth (and more money than i have in all, really) on getting it fixed I’m glad that it’ll be in the best condition it’s been in in a long time AND that I get the chance to meet up with more of you lovely people.

So if you know me yet or not chances are (since you’re in this group) that we’d get along famously. And this leads me to my next question: got couch?

Yep, I’m going to need to hit a few of your couches up if this is going to work, so I’d really appreciate it if any of you wouldn’t mind some extra company in your living room at night. It would be a HUGE help! What do you say?

Hope to see many of you at Will’s tonight! What’s next?

Jim!

BUT the private group has 10 MEMBERS and 7 posts .

picasaweb.google.com/maxduegiga/CSThaiCollective0708

if you wants more check also photomax.shutterfly.com

I want to thank you all for helping me out in various ways to get this house hunting for the next collective going!

Tons of information about the areas, tips to get to the housing market, leads to follow up, lot’s of meet ups over cappuchinos, and a warm welcome from all of you

I was able to present a couple of options to the team and we deceided to be stationed in Homer for this summer.

Thank you all!

susy

I’m sorry you haven’t been able to find a way to volunteer with CS. If you’ve applied through the volunteer application, then you’ve hopefully received a message explaining that we’re behind on bringing in new volunteers because of a lack of team coordinators to manage these volunteers. We’re in a bit of a catch-22 there while we get through this time of huge growth.

The good news is that we’ve made great headway with this issue in Thailand. These Collectives enable us to train and build tools for volunteer team coordinators who in turn are able to bring on new volunteers to their teams. I’m sorry these growth pains have been frustrating – they are for us too!

It would be great if you can help Susy in her search, but if you have interest to volunteer in other areas, check out the Alaska Collective page and see if any of the remote positions are of interest to you.

Other happenings
Welcome to the 33rd Annual Girdwood Forest Fair Website!
July 4, 5 & 6 ~ 2008
.girdwoodforestfair.com
beartooththeatre.net/

Location: Places >> North America >> United States >> Alaska
http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=298&post=833296

Tell me what’s great about Anchorage
http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=1117&post=359863

http://www.couchsurfing.com/people/alaskamatt
Casey Fenton for alaskamatt
“Partied, exchanged computer shit, etc.”

From PINKFISH for alaskamatt Anchorage, United States
Mar 25 Met in person
Extremely Positive <<<<<<<<<<<<<

He set me up with a car, a couch, lot’s of information about Alaska and Anchorage area, and a great party, and that all in 24 hours!

We have submitted an application for 501c3 federal non-profit status, and we anticipate attaining this status during the Alaska collective. However, there can be no guarantees. Fundraising strategies must reflect this evolving status.
http://www.idealist.org/if/i/en/av/VolunteerOpportunity/147017-292

This is the reason the Collective house will not be open to unannounced visitors.

Prepare for a bombardment of “Donate! Donate! Donate!” pressure in the coming months.

This also from the volunteer position ads on idealist site:

“The roles of Fundraising and Grants Coordinator requires a leader and strategist with specific experience in a wide range of fundraising techniques and funding sources. Most importantly, the applicant must demonstrate a solid track record of success increasing revenue for related organizations and be confident in accomplishing the goal of increasing CouchSurfing revenue by at least 25% within six months. Your time will be divided approximately as follows: 30% developing long-term fundraising strategies with specific objectives and priorities, 30% implementing these strategies through hands-on fundraising, and 40% developing and managing a volunteer fundraising team.

We intend to solicit funds from a variety of funding sources including member donation drives,, large gifts from individuals, corporations and foundations, grants, and public events, as well as possible corporate sponsorships and fee based services. We also intend to solicit a variety of funding types including cash, temporary living/office space, equipment, vehicles, and services. This will require an applicant with broad experience and a wide skill set. It will also require the development of a fundraising team consisting of roles dedicated to specific funds sources or types. “

This looks like Mandie will vanish after the csct
http://www.idealist.org/en/volunteeropportunity/147018-325
What we need in your application:
CouchSurfing Username (if applicable):
Are you able to attend the Alaska Couchsurfing Collective between 1 June – 22 August 2008? If yes, there are additional questions you will need to complete.
he was always some slimy weasel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKjiIJTRrY4
JOIN US!!!!
We’re gonna party, party
party till the break of day
and there’s nothing or no one to stand in the way
we’re gonna have us a good time
dancin’ till the morning light

Crystal Murphy from Birmingham, United States
hiya
ok as for communication needs—trust me everyone knows we need better communication. I talked to Mandie for awhile and there really are some cool projects she is going to focus on in Alaska….stuff to help better communication. Better blogging, rss, etc. So that should help.

looks like that huge bucket of alcohol and the orgasm cocktail wiped mandies memory . Now refresh our memory wasent that supposed to be done at the CSCT the THAI COLLECTIVE ?? OK if this is going to be done at the NEXT ONE .WHAT was done at the thai collective??
I think MANDIE is on the payroll of cs now so she is using SPIN.

She also is getting some people to help out out–which is why she posted in the comms group for comms volunteers. Its big job.

Why do people over exaggerate ? BIG JOB

I know there is also work being done to help better communication between groups so members can get the info they need.

she says I KNOW!! WE DO NOT KNOW!!!

People do actually do work at collectives. As for how they chose the location who knows,

who knows ?

but if you are not going to be paid for a few months while u dedicate your time to making the site better, isnt it at least nice that they are doing it at a pretty location? I mean cut them some slack, most of the members arent paid here, so its nice to have a few perks.

PERKS

The collective in general is changing. Its a more of a moving hq….this means if u cant make it to thailand or alaska, it could very well be making it to your part of the world next.

MOVING HQ = making it to your part of the world what BS!!!!!

So yes its frustrating to see things not being taken care of, but i do know these things are being worked on in some sort of fashion….so patience….I know its not what u want to hear, but yelling at people wont get you anywhere either….

In short dissenters shut the hell up!!

Ricardo & Ana Lamego from Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal (Permalink)
Talk is easy and I don’t like to criticize without offering alternatives.

Last year I contacted a CS member who owns a property (under an hectare) between Porto and Lisbon about having an international meeting there. We haven’t talked about the building itself but she said the place was big enough for +- a 100 members to camp. Plenty of water, hiking trails in the mountains and close enough to a lake where we can have activities like canoe trips, river safaris, etc
Back then she offered it at no cost asking only for some work done in return.

Porto, Lisbon and Faro serve a few low cost airlines with dozen of connections to several European countries and daily flights to major hubs. Any location between these 3 cities will work just fine. In the interior everything will be cheaper, including hosting and food.

One of the biggest CS communities (in total habitants/cs members ratio), friendly people, warm weather, good transports and loads of broadband internet connection services up to 24MB, makes this a remarkably good option for holding a collective!

There’s no health issues or visa problems but check it out here: http://www.iatatravelcentre.com/

And to anyone reading this, what about your country? Can it offer a valid alternative to Alaska? Let us know!

Ricardo

This looks like a way better option.Portugal was one of the first countries to put couchsurfing on the map.

What if I just want to visit the Alaska Collective?
In order to maintain a productive and comfortable living space for participants, the Collective house will not be open to unannounced visitors. We have reserved space for several short-term participants who will be pre-approved based on their applications

PRODUCTIVE AND COMFORTABLE hehe .

http://www.couchsurfing.com/news.html?id=184
One lot of event organizers the Collective team (FROM THAILAND???) has been assisting are from the Gigswapping group. They are organizing a string of extraordinary music events in Utrecht, Vienna and Pardubice in April 2008. These events are providing CouchSurfing musicians the chance to showcase their talents – check out the details here!

TAKING CREDIT FOR STUFF DONE BY NORMAL MEMBERS IN AUSTRIA
This reminds me who the CSC NZ too credit for JOHNS search work

Our Nomadic Full-Time Headquarters – from Thailand to Alaska We want more fabulous volunteers to come join us at our next CouchSurfing Collective in Alaska
March 21st, 2008
Participants from Thailand will start arriving in Alaska in the beginning of May and new participants will join us on 1 June 2008. This Collective will operate until 22 August 2008.

How do the participants from thailand get to be selected AGAIN . AND it looks like the tickets are ALREADY BOOKED
FROM ONE EXOTIC LOCALTION TO ANOTHER

Crystal Murphy from Birmingham, United States
Hey Guys!!!

I know to many of you it seems like not much was accomplished in Thailand. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Actually, Thailand has been the most productive collective to date. The team leaders are currently preparing a summary of sorts of exactly what each team accomplished during the collective. Expect to see this very soon

Summary ?? Where was the content ? where was the dialogue with the members ? (ALL the CSCT members LOGGED into couchsurfing almost EVERYDAY from pai and phuket and the other places.
Summary without content wow!!Are we dumb???

Most of what happened isn’t visible to everyone. It was a lot of preparation for what is to come in CS. Think of Thailand as laying the foundation and Alaska as building the framework.

This is the funniest BS part.NOT VISIBLE ,BUILDING FRAMEWORK?
You build framewords without discussion with your ambassadors with the guys who are doing such an awesome job at the wiki. I feel back for lei (his thailand group was a failure)

Personally, on the PR & Media side of things, we have made amazing strides. Not only are we building a reallllly strong team, but we also have a crisis communication policy, a story idea database and media coverage tracking tool, and member media-related documents including a media relations policy.

THis is also funnier. THe PR group had one google document.Jim stone hid the contents of the group from everyone who was not a member out of embarassment. The PR threads where really lost.

How does Crystal Murphy from Birmingham, United States get her news??It definately was not done on the group. maybe a hidden google group ssh ambassadors cannot be trusted.

THEY ARE building? still buidling it took 6 months to even to start talking what did shonali shetty do there?

http://www.couchsurfing.com/news.html?id=184

Our dedicated Public Relations team is developing a media training module that will help prepare our spokespeople for the calls they’ll be fielding from reporters. This module not only clarifies the media’s goals and challenges, but helps a potential spokesperson focus his or her thoughts, develop key messages for a targeted audience, and hone his or her interviewing skills. The training and support will ensure that the CS passion and messaging will come through, loud and clear.

If media relations interest you, stay tuned. The Public Relations and Media Team will soon be looking for experienced volunteers to join them. In the meantime, we’ll be flashing our pearly whites for the paparazzi, with pleasure!

And thats just the tip of the iceberg. Each team at the collective has been doing a great job at putting their volunteer time to use.

I see 100′s of beer bottles, fashion shows ,snorkeling in each photo from the csct??
I would like to see how donna cooks to books to show all those beer bottles

* Public Relations & Marketing Team
Description: This team creates press releases and other documents promoting CS externally. It establishes press relationships and finds marketing opportunities.
Requirements: Established relationships with major media outlets. Press release portfolio. Marketing strategy understanding.
Position 1 filled by: Shonali Shetty
Position 2 filled by: Charish Badzinski

WHERE are the press releases.marketing opportunities?

CouchSurfing also chose Badzinski from among 200 applicants for 11 positions to go to Thailand for two months to work on the group’s public relations and marketing needs.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/11/travel/main3818484.shtml

Wow what did she do ?Aint she special ?

And yes in the next collective expect to see a lot more communication. I have seen some of the really cool things to come, and lets just say I CANT WAIT!!!!! Alaska is going to be awesome!!Hopefully this helps answer some questions! Crystal

Yipped crystal cant wait. but wait a minute how did she know she was already selected?
AWESOME!!! WOOO HOOO . COOL THINGS GOING TO GOING TO HAPPEN
RAD!! HI5

Here from Community Communications group is MSDANNY Australia country ambassador being openly critical of the Communication Guru’s latest newsletter.

“I´ve just read the latest collective news.

It leaves the reader a bit dissapointed. When I receive a newsletter I expect to get news from the current project – not an announcement of when I´ll get them. But better than nothing.

( is there a reason why the picture quality of the slide show has to be so extraordinary bad? )”

Ricardo & Ana Lamego from Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal (Permalink)
> what do you think?

I think I understand less and less of this org everyday.
- First they set a collective in a location remote enough to be far away from not one but ALL the areas with higher density of members.

- Now they set the next collective not only in a remote location but in a country plagued with visa problems and general border hysteria which is going to make it impossible for some people to join.
Really! At last they could cross the border and set it to Canada. It would solve most problems!

- With almost half a million people *already* synced and tuned to the CS ideology and needs, I see no logic in looking for people outside CS.Ricardo & Ana Lamego from Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal (Permalink)
> what do you think?

I think I understand less and less of this org everyday.
- First they set a collective in a location remote enough to be far away from not one but ALL the areas with higher density of members.

- Now they set the next collective not only in a remote location but in a country plagued with visa problems and general border hysteria which is going to make it impossible for some people to join.
Really! At last they could cross the border and set it to Canada. It would solve most problems!

- With almost half a million people *already* synced and tuned to the CS ideology and needs, I see no logic in looking for people outside CS.

looks like more and more people are taking the red pill or at least getting there.

Is it time to start an expanded campaign in the local groups of CS?

NO MONEY FOR THE CSAC

i have used cs for years through my friends, and ‘couchsurfed’ without the site across my country just by meeting amazing people on the streets or bars or wherever, i didn’t think that a site built around that pastime could have such a shoddy top-down ‘ocracy’

- I will follow CouchSurfing’s Terms and Conditions. http://www.couchsurfing.com/terms.html

- I will maintain positive references from other surfers or hosts.

Guess that means you need to ACT super good and be your hosts not to give you a negative

- I will treat my team supervisors and other volunteers with respect.
- I will follow the standards and procedures established by the teams I work with.
- I will follow the priorities and objectives established by my team supervisors.

- I will communicate in a calm and compassionate tone (I won’t flame).

DO your job and smile.Robots are appreciated. And dissenting voice will be

- I understand that if I violate the code of conduct, I may be asked to stop volunteering.

We will also be extending the recruitment beyond the CouchSurfing community and posting all the volunteer roles available on Idealist.org.

We hope this will give us the best opportunity to get the most highly skilled candidates as possible

Looks like there are no members on couchsurfing who are skilled enough to match the high standards of Mandie.Volunteers will need to be sourced from Idealist.org.

However i’m not particularly interested in what they do or don’t do in Alaska – some kind of report from Thailand will let us know clearly this time if collectives are worthwhile. Or not. My concerns have pretty much cycled down to security issues – that is, CS not becoming a perversion of a trust network into a network that just gets people’s guard down inappropriately. I’m simply too aware of previous ‘safety’ episodes and how things are handled, this makes me nervous for people in specific locations and the naive who believe all CSers are trustworthy because they are CSers.

In other words, i care about the members. Otherwise, i’m just waiting for it all to crumble or be sold off to the highest bidder . Real change is blocked and i find it very sad that th success of the CS is seen only in number of members.

This sure looks like couchsurfing is revolving around casey and is still CS 1.0 all the 2.0 yarn was just BS.
http://www.couchsurfing.com/story_cs2phoenix.html about couchsurfing being more than just about one guy and being about the members.

During the Thailand Collective, we invited several participants to coordinate teams of remote volunteers, build these teams and make them sustainable.

This is news!! wow.Now which were the remote teams again?If there were remote teams why did people have to ask at the CUQ?

CouchSurfing will provide all participants with housing and meals. Local travel and some recreation opportunities will also be provided.

I already news it.It is always good to have a collective all year round with guys from all over the world PAYING for your FOOD,GAS,RECREATION

The House Manger will also receive long-distance travel compensation due to the larger burden of that role.

House manager is…. no guessing lol. Caseys cs mommay.Also are we going to see casey JR soon

Who are the Alaska Collective Participants, and what are they doing specifically?
The Collective house will have as many as 20 long-term participants living and participating together for the four month duration of our stay in Alaska

20!! Already filled up slots are……

How often are Collectives held and when is the next one?

There is no set policy on how often a CouchSurfing Collective is held. Each Collective is planned on an individual basis based upon our needs at that time.

OUR NEEDS .

There is currently no date set for the next Collective, however we will be updating our CouchSurfing Collectives page when information about the next Collective is available.

NEXT COLLECTIVE

– _ ROCK ON !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
| | | | YEAH !!!!!!!!!
| | _ _ | |
| || || || |
| || || || |
| || _| || |
| |/ /_|| |
| /()/ |
|/ / \ |
\ \ /
———-

I must add that there is some brief discussion of one of the positions (now closed) for Alaska, lost in a group that few people read: http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=3585&post=803446

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKjiIJTRrY4&eurl=http://www.truveo.com/CouchSurfing-Alaska-Collective/id/2416074535

Don’t think it would make me want to rush off to Alaska to join a bunch of retards, but…

In terms of the selection criteria I will be using. It will be a matter of selecting the individuals that best meet the key skills required for the positions. I will only be placing people in the roles that meet the criteria, and it wont be a matter of how heavily involved they are in CouchSurfing – it’s not my intention to discriminate against people who may have only recently joined (although the key role for Ambassador & Volunteer Comms Coord does requires a significant level of knowledge of the Ambassadory system so this position would be filled by someone who has CouchSurfing experience). If we don’t get suitable candidates for some of the positions, then they will remain open – I wont be putting people in them just for the sake if filling the roles.

Mandie either is a very naïve newbie or an extremely intelligent schemer

If this is like a corporate selection process then it is naïve.Where she just does not understand the how a volunteer organisation works.
Or
She(or her proxies LT/casey) are doing this deliberately to keep out most people while they celeberate their last hurrah.