This is a mixed post, introducing part of my life circumstances and a call for help.
Because its rather long (TL;DR):
We are evaluating workshop venue software and probably need help programming and/or financing one (preferably with Ruby on Rails).
But in any case: if you are an IT-pro and want to visit an ecovillage or collaborate: send me a Private Message.
1 The ecovillage and information technology
At the ecovillage Sieben Linden (sorry, mostly German content on the webpage) we use some self-built and a lot of self-hosted software to aid our („physical“) community of 100+ adults.
Being a project with deep roots in self-sufficiency, social interconnection and ecology, most inhabitants do not want to rely too much on IT solutions and besides – our internet connectivity is pretty bad (a common issue in rural Germany). Also, information-technical staff is superscarce: its basically me (a common issue in ecovillages and intentional communities, too).
2 The Use Case / Customer
However, we run several businesses and associations and of course their work would not be possible – or at least really really cumbersome – without the use of tools, like for bookkeeping, communication, general management and so on.
As we see our mission also to provide experience spaces and education in various areas to visitors, a rather big business of ours is our workshop venue, where we host and cater guests that take part in (usually) multi-day workshops and seminars. We have approximately 7000 night-stays per year.
We will build a new house to serve the needs of that business (new sleeping rooms, new office, etc. pp.) and want to use new tooling once it is finished (2020). To decide which path to go, we formed a group that evaluates existing solutions and alternatives (i.e. a build-your-own Free Software). The software should integrate with book-keeping, allow management of teams that are responsible for the accommodation rooms, the workshop rooms, the kitchen, the registration of visitors, etc. pp. Of yourse online-registration of visitors is a must (but not necessarily payment). A collection of tools that partly cover these aspects was compiled by matthias.
3 How somebody could help
That said, if you
- know any useful software (not necessarily Free Software, but anything NOT being Free-as-in-Speech Software has to really hit the nail to be chosen by us)
- have the same „problem“ and/or want to collaborate
- want to “hack” something (preferably in Ruby on Rails)
- have some ideas about funding
- know somebody else to whom this applies
write me a line.
Also, I could write a lot more about our setup, the stuff we use already, the problems we face, other software projects on my list, etc. pp. But that would take time. If you want to motivate me doing so leave a comment or hit the heart 