Moosecamp Presentation Proposal: Vancouver Transit Camp

Presenters: Karen Quinn Fung, Will Pate

Audio for this session: http://northernvoice.podcastspot.com/episodes/26A73E

NEW!  Google Group for further discussion: http://groups.google.com/group/vantransitcamp

Summary

The first Transit Camp was held in Toronto on February 4th, 2007, specifically to deal with the TTC website, but it eventually encompassed other issues and was a great gathering of people who enjoy transit. (link)

Vancouver's transit issues are a wholly different thing from Toronto's. What should a Vancouver Transit Camp look like? Does Vancouver have a comparable transit-loving or transit fan community? (In which case, how should we go about building one before holding a Transit Camp?) What would the focus of such a hypothetical camp be? (And can we pleeeeeeease have it in May when I'm back from Toronto?) How would we build on it for something lasting longer than just the event? What kind of partnerships would we need to make in Vancouver in order to make this event amazing?

Inspiration

Some Toronto Transit Camp inspiration:

• Design Slam - having groups self-organize in order to design and prototype solutions to specific issues. In Toronto, the issues were the website, the subway care and the bus shelters.
• Speed Dreaming - having artists collaborate, brainstorm and inspire each other on a variety of topics, such as integration of art in subway stations, slogans, wordplay...I personally just thought up snappy t-shirt ideas in my speed dream hour, but it was nice to chat with artists, illustrators, musicians and designers as well as bloggers and tech entrepeneurs.
• Opening and Closing Circles - it was a pretty dramatic use of the space.
• Putting a venue where buses pass by - good photo ops. ;)
• A policy of reinforcing a positive, constructive atmosphere - this applies in BarCamps, I believe, and are equally important for Transit Camps. Even if we're not a solutions playground, we're definitely not a complaints department.
• Involving Translink staff. They know things that we don't know. How are they with their community outreach?

Vancouver thoughts

Issues raised for Vancouver's version during the session:

• GVRD-wide, not just Vancouver. Could be an issue in naming or marketing.
• Including a wide cross section of people is very important. Not just bloggers. This means recruiting people using the phone or real-world. (Translink flickr group and the SFU City Program/Urban Planning were mentioned as places to find transit enthusiasts. Others?)
• Coming up with a core issue to start with. Toronto had wide agreement that the TTC website needed work, and they grew out of that issue.

More to come. Please comment! :)

Vancouver Transit Camp Organiser Mailing List

Sign up here if you are interested in finding out when the MooseCamp wiki gets set up and when there are more details.

• Karen Fung
• Phillip Jeffrey
• Richard Eriksson
• Will Pate
• Dustin Sacks
• Luke Closs
• Gene Blishen
• Jeff Summers (email at jeffsummers.ca
• Theo Tonca
• Paul Le - www.moneybeat.com

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