This weekend’s opening at [freespace] was fantastic! We started out the weekend with a community potluck. During opening day (June 1st), several people facilitated group discussions around logistics, safety, and general operations around the space. Remember – we’re starting with nothing except space and passion.

So – we not only have to sort out what events will happen when. But we have to sort out who will turn on the lights, who will keep the bathroom stocked with toilet paper, and who will take out the trash. All as a community. With volunteers.

In addition to actually sorting out these logistics, a few other magical things happened –

A mural went up
http://instagram.com/p/aFbuckw1EC/

Walls were painted
http://instagram.com/p/aFJpfPFUgW/

SF Yellow Bikes setup shop
http://instagram.com/p/aFIHsgJHyM/

A public art project went up

And people congregated
https://twitter.com/edmund_huber/status/341409467029676032

This afternoon, I personally organized a team meeting around our website. For folks that haven’t visited the space, it’s just not very clear what’s happening and why. Our calls for participation are also not clear. Much of this organization is happening on Facebook, simply because that’s where our friends (and their friends) are. We’re all okay with that. The less we have to build, the better.

Our Philosophy, Our Needs

We’re building more than a website. We’re building a community. The website, like the space, is in flux. It’s dynamic. And it’s a community project.

In practical terms, it is also very useful for coordination and documentation. So during our volunteer-run meeting today, we discussed what the website should be used for going forward, what some existing needs were, and how we should go about building things. We are, after all, volunteers.

Our needs, specifically include :

• coordinating volunteers
• gathering donations of goods (paint, routers, cleaning supplies, etc)
• planning events
• documenting our process

Some outcomes and [potential] resolutions from the meeting?

We took the wireframes (developed by Jessy Kate), created visual mockups, and are now working on a child theme that we will make available to other community spaces.

Here is a summary of the principles we discussed :

• All our custom code will be open-source (via our newly setup github repo)
• All our contributions (and those of our community) will be licensed under Creative Commons (specifics are TBD)
• We will work to document our process so other can learn from us and replicate them in their own communities
• We will acknowledge and thank those who contribute to the community
• We welcome participation as long as the safety of our community and participants is not threatened

as of now…. freespace media by Freespace is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Documentation

In the spirit of documentation and process sharing, I’ve listed out what we’re using to run our site.

As of now, our website is running on a multisite network provided by WP Igniter.org. The software itself is run on WordPress and WooTheme’s One Pager Theme. Our hosting is provided by Arrow Root Media, and served up by WP Engine’s servers. WP Engine is providing Varnish caching, a CDN, and solid tech support as needed.

Our WordPress Plugins collection include :

• Gravity Forms (paid)
• Events Calendar Pro (paid)
• Akismet
• Jetpack
• Slidedeck
• Woodojo
• Testimonials by Woothemes

Other Assets

Of course – the most important asset we have right now – passionate, caring, dedicated smiley volunteers who care about community, resource sharing, and the power of the collective. Without these key principles in place, we’d all be working on “just another project.” But with vision in action, we are able to catalyze a community of people in a very short amount of time.

Looking forward to more!

Comments, love, appreciations, ideas, and inspiration are welcome. Leave your thoughts below!

Beautiful people – there was some great idea jamming tonight! Tours were held at roughly equal density intervals! We sneaked and peaked, schemed and planned. So many great conversations and new friendships forming.

FUN FACT: If 120 people volunteered for a single 6 hour shift during the 30 days of june, we would be open 24-7 for the entire month straight.

Check out some the ideas people wrote down in old-school analog fashion in the image below. THEN, sign up on facebook for the upcoming opening weekend. And if you have an idea – why not enact it? If you’re hesitating… well, remember Goethe and suck it up! Seize the day!

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back– Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”  (Goethe)

A great turnout  for the Demissification tonight! Please post pics to the freespace facebook page!

What cleaning party for a freaking FREE space would be complete without an impromptu brainstorm of possibilities and intentions! As the evening wrapped up we went around an introduced ourselves. People threw out some crazy and awesome ideas, as well as practical questions about coordination and collaboration.

Some of the ideas included Hack trash – repurpose and rethink the trash we create. Bike sharing. Free haircuts. Pop up cafes – YOUR pop up cafe! Screenings. Regularly scheduled inspirational documentaries.  A daily participatory exquisite corpse sculpture. Make and teach music, and publish an album at the end of the month. Digital-analog calendar hacks. Beer brewing. Wall drawings.

So many ideas! And more to come – this Thursday will be the “official” (as official as it gets anyway) sneak peak of the space, complete with brainstorming facilitation excellent-ness. Check it out on the events page.

On Saturday many people will be attending the World’s Biggest Potluck in UN plaza downtown, as a way to kick off the month! If we’re lucky we’ll get the leftovers! If anyone has a link to that event please post it in the comments!

What can you do to help now? 

• The space needs people to help “staff” (what’s a better word?) from 10am to 10pm. If you are down to be a responsible party for set period or periods of time, fill out the form on the main page of the website… and while you’re doing that others will be scrambling in the background to determine a reasonable process for handing your generous offer… so whatever you do, don’t offer to help determine a reasonable process for handing generous offers, since that would just descend us into a viscious spiral of recursion.
• Greeters! People willing to give tours to new visitors around the space and orient them to the Awesome, for specific shifts of time (of course, impromptu greetings will never be turned away).
• Events in the first week – the best way to get the word out is to be in action and kick some ass right out of the gate. if those of  us who know about the space now hold events in the first week, so many more people will hear about freespace and contribute to holding their own events as the month goes on. so if you have ideas, don’t wait! start planning for the first week and shout your intentions through the sign up form!
• there’s certain more, and this is just the list of notes i took – so feel free to add your suggestions.

Some people are working on additional/improved digital coordination tools (read: mailing lists, decentralized event scheduling, etc.). Leave a comment if you have an opinion. Or if you want to post to the blog.

Hope to see you thursday! Share with all the thingspeople!

Check out this whirlwind video of the raw beginnings to our one month experiment! Look at those beautiful wood floors and great light. This is the beginning of something uh-maz-ing! And soon it’s gonna look so much more RAD because we’re getting started sprucing this puppy up! Join us tonight at 6pm to help Demessify (a technical term). RSVP on facebook or just drop by! Lend a hand, scheme, and get inspired. If you wanted to show up with a 6-pack (either kind), well, we wouldn’t stop you…

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60aKL7XEBYk]

Our events calendar is now live. Check it out : http://freespace.io/events/

But as you can see, it’s looking a little empty. Which means there’s space to host your own event! Be bold. Submit an event.

This past Thursday, we did our first walk-through of the space. In short, it’s awesome! We’ve got alotta work to do to get the space ready for opening. And as we have more people in the space, it will continue to evolve, develop, and get cleaned up.

We’re looking forward to co-creating with you!