Updated on October 29, 2016
Trustroots Picnic Berlin
As we wrote before, we’re all team here in Berlin now working on Trustroots. Let’s have a cozy day together with the community at the lake this Tuesday (11.8.2015)!
Picnic around north-eastern end of Krumme Lanke (map).
Time: ~3pm onwards.
If you’re interested in volunteering; coding, translations, support etc we can have sessions about it later this week. We’ll be around for a while.
Bring your grandma, too!
Updated on October 29, 2016
First Trustroots collective: Berlin 2015
From the 7th of August and onwards the Trustroots team is gathering in Berlin for the first Trustroots collective. We launched the website last December and we are very happy with the current situation. We now have an official non profit Trustroots Foundation registered in the UK. Almost 9000 members strong, with a lot of activity all over the world. Mainly in Europe and mainly in Berlin, exactly as we had expected. Now it’s time for the next phase. And it’s time the 5 founding members of the organization to all meet in real life. We each met each other, but we haven’t all five been in the same place at the same time.
What will happen
- We will discuss how to implement references and/or profile tags.
- We will implement new features and fix bugs.
- We will organize a bigger event to which we’ll invite all Trustroots members in Berlin. Follow up this blog or our Facebook or Twitter pages to hear more.
What may happen
- Discuss the future of sharing and random acts of kindness.
- Figure out a good way to put Nomadwiki, Trashwiki and Hitchwiki under the umbrella of Trustroots Foundation.
- Discuss ways to make Trustroots Foundation sustainable, both financially and organizationally.
- We may jam on musical instruments and come up with a Trustroots anthem.
How you can help
If you’re in Berlin:
- If you’re a coder: come over and we’ll get you started with our code.
- Come over to meet us.
- Optional: we want to focus on getting things done, so if you enjoy cooking, baby sitting, and such things, you are very welcome :)
If you’re not in Berlin:
- Come over to Berlin, it’s a great city! It also has the highest concentration of Trustroots hosts in the world.
- We can do one or more sessions on Hangout so you can get to know us. We could also do a specific one for getting started with the code.
Wanna join?
Add yourself to the GitHub wiki page and/or contact us.
More information about volunteering here at GitHub.
Updated on October 29, 2016
The Invisible Key (& 2)
– Is that a river? – I asked out loud while contemplating the beautiful shore of an small river, but big enough to swim. And no easy to find if you didn’t know the area. Picture perfect.
– Yeah, we are so lucky that runs along side this part of the property – Rachel, our good hearted host said while smiling – It’s perfect for the summer!
And it was summer, early July, and although the running water at the house was not working properly (luckily!), we had the best bath ever.
It should have been obvious to me as a guest that people don’t usually live in hotel rooms, and many people do not live in what we could call a “normal house.” Sometimes you may stay in a flat in the city center, and sometimes in the suburbs, or in a cabin in the middle of the woods, sometimes a room for yourself, or sometimes you may have to sleep on the living room floor. In my opinion, the most important part is the willingness to share.
As a previous host, I learnt some tools to understand both sides of a hospex experience, and to be aware of expectations while being a guest. And being a guest is an significant task nowadays, the same way it is to open your house and life to strangers, so you got to try to be your best. And what are the tools? These are the ones I know: kindness (always handy), acceptance (will help enjoying your stay), gratitude (this will show easily), tidiness (of heart, body & stuff), helpful (always something to help with), self reliant (be a light weight), communicative (please don’t make assumptions), fun to be with/talk to (just be yourself), and over all, be open to learn and to share. If I may, a guest is pretty much an ambassador of humanity, big isn’t it?
I must confess that I have been hopelessly spoiled from hosts, each of them offering what they had. From a wonderfully simple meal or a comfy place to a river bank shore, from a bed in the forest to a glacier to a private fly (I know!), a long list of unforgettable places discovered and experienced with some of the most generous people I’ve met in my life. But most importantly, I have been very fortunate by the genuine blessing of meeting them and being allowed to be part of their lifes. This kind of experiences and gratitude, you feel it in your heart and touches one’s soul.
Hospitality Networks has brought back the essence of hospitality, which by the way had nothing to do with money, and fortunately has encouraged us to make that effort to be better persons and grow. It is said that hospitality is “the virtue of great souls that care for the whole universe through the ties of humanity”. This is also a big one but the best part is that the whole thing is not only enriching, but also lots of fun.
So what is next? Plenty, there are so many possibilities when using your invisible key: Trust. Use it to discover the world, to discover humanity on a different light, to discover the people you never expected, to discover hidden places, hidden moments, hidden friends, hidden hearts. Use your key to discover yourself.
This article is the second part of this one. Thanks for reading, and Happy 5 de Mayo!