United States Pirate Party

At Hack Pittsburgh, instead of the usual speech that Ryan gives to hackerspaces, we instead had a much more informal discussion. We spoke to the members and others in attendance about not only our goals and platforms, but also about how they may affect the hackerspace community.
 
The estimated attendance of this event was 25 people.  

During FreeFest, Bethany gave a 15 minute run-down on all the platforms of the party, and our main goals. After that, Ryan spoke about the changes that could take place in the future by ignoring the important issues the party represents. Things such as the fate of the internet, media institutions, and other issues.

Ryan, Bethany, and the intern attended an open mic at Bowling Green State University. This open mic was hosted by the group FREEDOM. A short description about their group:
 
FREEDOM is a non-hierarchical student and community organization dedicated to social justice, cultural awareness, and the art of human expression. FREEDOM members meet every week to dialogue about our society and our lives. We then come up with creative ways to address social issues.  
 
During the open mic, Ryan spoke with the crowd about issues of the future. He also announced the talk we would be giving the following day at the FreeFest. We got to know some of the students and individuals that attended, and their issues with current cultural and social concepts.

During the actual festival, we, Ryan and Bethany spoke with as many attendees as possible. We estimate that during the course of the weekend, we spoke with at least 300 people, individually, about the party. Mostly, we explained to them what the party is, what our goals and platforms are, and how that may impact them as both individuals, and members of an alternative community.

The four of us, Ryan, Bethany, the intern and the mechanic went up to the work week for the Alchemy festival. Information about Alchemy can be found here: http://www.alchemyfestival.com/
 
We helped build the main structure for the event, speaking with the people about the issues they face, as an alternative community, all the while. We find that the best way to learn about people and their thoughts and struggles is to work along side them. Our goal at Alchemy was to discover the issues that they feel underrepresented on, and how the Pirate Party may be able to fill those gaps.  

Ryan, Bethany, the intern, and our mechanic attended a meeting for the Freeside ATL hackerspace, in Atlanta, GA. Before and after the meeting, we spoke with individuals curious about the party. During the meeting, Ryan briefly described the party, some of our main goals, and our basic information.  
 
The estimated attendance of this meeting is 20 people. 

A brief run-down of "hackerspaces," often reffered to as "makerspaces": A hackerspace is a form of shared work space. The members of the space typically pitch in a predetermined amount for membership dues monthly. They use this money to rent a space, and to purchase equipment that they may not, individually, be able to afford. The term "hacker" here refers to someone who uses their skills to make new things or improve upon existing things. It absolutely does not refer to illegal computer hacking; spaces usually look down on this sort of activity, and do not allow it to happen. Members come in all forms, from technologists to artists to carpenters to general handy-man types. Often, they have events, give classes, and are involved in their local communities.
 

 
My dear pirates,
 
It has now been quite some time since I left out across the country to tour communities in a quest to identify possible municipal level policies for the party.  I met with some success on this trip, speaking to and at a multitude of intentional communities about what legal barriers keep them from growing and evolving naturally.  Shared workspaces are now more common than they where when I travelled a half-decade ago.  Makerspaces are popping up everywhere.  I found that many groups feel that their local government does not support the desire to innovate and modernize their cultural makeup, of course; but very few had any idea what could be done to help. 
 

 One of the goals for me, as administrator, during the Support Tour is to find and survey known new ways for living and working.  Armed with the internet, cheap tools, and a national restlessness individuals have been banding together to create some pretty amazing new kinds of shared spaces and living arrangements.  This topic is not to discuss any particular instance found, but to keep a log of what has been observed during the tour and beyond.  If you know of any practical models that are not currently included in this list, please post them!