Hi Fedora Friends! We made it through another year of living with COVID-19, with plenty of other challenges added on top. To everyone who make up Fedora – thank you for your presence, contributions, and efforts during this trying time. Because we have yet to see an end to living with COVID-19, I opened a discussion with the community about what we should do for this year’s contributor conference.

Based on that feedback, I am pleased to announce that we will be holding the third edition of Nest with Fedora on August 4th, 5th, & 6th.  I will be publishing info on the CfP in the upcoming months. We will also be funding local in person meetups that we have titled Fedora Hatch. If you want to participate in an in person meetup, make sure to read on and suggest your ideas on the Flock pagure!

Virtual events are a success for Fedora

I know there will be many folks that are sad we aren’t holding Flock this year. I would ask you to consider this: the numbers tell us Nest with Fedora has been a huge success. Nest 2021 attracted 905 registrations and 730 participants during the event. The turnout rate for the event was 81%, 4% over Hopin’s calculated industry average at the time of the event. This is a huge achievement, as Nest 2020 had approximately 500 registration and 70% turnout. Nest 2020 also doubled engagement from our in person event, Flock to Fedora, with an average attendance of about 200 people. This does not mean that we will never run Flock to Fedora again in the future, although we might want to re-imagine it. 

There is no question that we are reaching more people with Nest than with Flock. The silver lining to these virtual events is that accessibility to our community and culture has never been greater. I am happy to say we have seen sustained or increased participation at our virtual events. Can we keep it up as we move into the third edition? We are sure going to try, but we need everyone’s help to make it a success! That means we are up for ways to shake things up or improve our virtual events. If you have ideas for Nest with Fedora, I welcome you to open a ticket on the Mindshare Committee pagure. 

So what is Hatch all about? 

Our vision for Hatch is to hopefully provide opportunities for Fedorans to get together in person, if they so wish. The event does not have to fit a specific format, it will be up to who is inspired to run such an event. For example, someone on the discussion thread said they would organize a hike for Fedorans and someone else mentioned that they would like to do a Pub Quiz, IRL! 

We don’t have all the details sorted out. In order to do so, we need to get an understanding of who is interested in organizing a local Fedora Hatch, and what they envision for their mini-event. The coordinators of these events should plan for local, not international. Currently we are not putting a dollar limit on what people can suggest. We want to see what people would do without that restriction. If we get so many ideas that we can’t fund them all, that will be a good problem for us to have! 

We would like to see Hatches happen in July before Nest with Fedora in August. The idea is for people to get together in person locally and them come together with a session at Nest to share the outcomes of the events, and hopefully some pictures! This is a great opportunity for Ambassadors who have been itching to organize something in person. If you are inspired to run a Fedora Hatch or would be willing to contribute with coordination, please open a ticket on the Flock pagure.

Sponsor Nest with Fedora & Hatch 2022

We welcome sponsors for the 3rd edition of Nest with Fedora, and our first attempt at Fedora Hatch. Nest with Fedora is a virtual variation of our longstanding conference Flock to Fedora. This annual gathering is an opportunity for our community to discuss new ideas, share what they have been working on, connect with each other, and revitalize for the upcoming year. Historically we have only had sponsors for Nest/Flock events, but we are open to including sponsors in the local Fedora Hatch events as well. If your organization is interested in sponsoring please take a look at our Sponsor Prospectus and contact sponsors@fedoraproject.org.