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Alaska Collective Roles

LIVE: Alaska Collective Role...


Meet our participants for CouchSurfing's 6th Collective, Alaska, USA!

 

After going through hundreds of applications and numerous phone interviews with members around the world, we are proud to introduce you to the participants at the Alaska Collective! Thank you to all members that submitted an application to be involved - we are always amazed at the generosity, skills and enthusiasm of the people that make up the CouchSurfing community.
 

Click on the links below to jump straight to a particular area:

 

 

 

Collective & House Management

 

      Mattthew Brauer, United States

  • Collective Manager, General Manager & Project Management Team Coordinator 
  • Arriving - 1 June
  • "I'm excited to be working with a talented and professional team of new and returning Collective participants for what will be our most productive Collective ever. In Thailand, we made very important behind-the-scenes changes and created sustainable teams. In Alaska, we will launch improvements that will be seen by and inspire all members to get more out of CouchSurfing. As our membership continues its rapid growth, CS is poised at the edge of a new chapter in its history. The Collective will help us prepare CS for the coming months, including look towards one million members, 501c3 status, and many new ways for CS members to make have adventures, meet people, and contribute to a better world."

 

      Cameron Mills, United States

  • Collective Manager
  • Arriving - 1 June
  • "I am very excited and honored to join the returning and new volunteers at the Alaska Collective. I hope to provide focus and to clear obstacles for the expert teams to continue the excellent work from previous Collectives, as well as beginning new initiatives that will enrich the CS experience and our community."

 

     

     Laura Gamse, United States

  • House Manager
  • Arriving - 21 May
  • "I'm unspeakably psyched to continue working with so many awe-inspiring people at the Alaska Collective! As the House Manager, I'll be organizing house operations, throwing group gatherings, and working with the Alaska community to create some adventures that will get us out of the house and into the wilderness. I think that a fun and relaxed everyday atmosphere will produce the most fruitful collective activity and experience and I plan to whip everyone relentlessly until that happens.  I mean - I plan to work with all the Collective Volunteers towards that goal."

 

 

 Member Communications

 

     Mandie McCrea, Australia

  • Member Communications Team Coordinator
  • Arriving - 22 May
  • "I am so grateful for having the opportunity of pushing things forward in terms of how communications are handled. Last Collective was about building the foundations in strategy and getting team members on board, and this time it’s about putting that strategy into action and getting our newly created Member Communications Team up and running. I believe we really have the opportunity of facilitating true connections that know no boundaries around the world through this amazing community – am so happy to have this time available in my life to help!"

 

     Ben Hanna, United States

  • Website Content Coordinator
  • Arriving - 31 May
  • "CouchSurfing has changed the way I travel and the way I meet people. I spend my free time reading, writing, and traveling and there is no better way to combine all my interests than to help a project I love run smoothly. I am looking forward to working towards an open and functional communications team in Alaska - and wrestling bears...we really need to find some bears..."

 

 

Identity

 

     Shonali Shetty, India

  • Identity Team Coordinator
  • Arriving - 23 May
  • "Apart from having worked with all the amazing people and being part of all the madness, during the last Collective we laid a foundation on the CouchSurfing identity (vision, mission and identity attributes) and it will be complete only when it perfectly integrates with the existing functionality of CouchSurfing. Though it takes more than just me to pull it together I would be driving it towards a complete "identity book" that will clearly define the CS Identity! And of course, fill in the existing Identity Team with some kick ass volunteers willing to share their time and expertise on the CS Identity around the globe."

 


Fundraising & Grants

 

     Kelly Patterson, United States

  • Fundraising Guru
  • Arriving - 1 June
  • "As Fundraising Guru, in collaboration with the CS Executive, Communications and PR teams, I intend to engineer and implement a comprehensive, sustainable fundraising and PR strategy which will enable the CS team to maintain, develop and promote CS, and its services, well into the future, in the most economical and efficient way possible. Personally, I perceive CS as more of a "movement" rather than just a "travel service" - CS is a venue for grassroots cultural and ideological exchange; basically, grassroots international diplomacy by ordinary open-minded people." 

 

 

Volunteer Coordination

 

     Jim Stone, United States

  • Volunteer Coordinator
  • Arriving - 15 May
  • "I’m excited about furthering the momentum that we jump started at our Thai Collective. I look forward to furthering our efforts in making the organization far more sustainable by getting more awesome volunteers involved and helping those already inside our organization do what they do easier and more effectively."

 

     Susy, The Netherlands

  • Scouting Extraordinaire & Volunteer Coordination Team Member
  • Arriving - already there - has been since late March!
  • "After scouting and arranging things for the past couple of months for this Collective, I am really anxious to have it up and running. Can't wait to get it started and welcome all our Collective participants to our new home in Homer! Will then be able to get stuck into doing things for volunteer coordination and help the behind scenes stuff for the Collective. I am really proud of participating to making this a world a freakin' better place, one couch at a time :-)"

 

 

Member Disputes & Safety

 

     The Rachel, United States

  • Member Disputes & Safety Team Coordinator
  • Arriving - 15 May
  • "At my fourth (sheesh) CSC, I am happy to continue working with the incredible Member Disputes & Safety Team towards helping members keep CS safe and friendly. We're looking forward to offering members more options for maintaining their privacy, making our tips and guidelines easier to find, and integrating more tools for members to keep themselves safe while using CouchSurfing."

 

 

 

User Experience

 

     Sebastien Le Tuan, United States

  • Co-Founder, User Experience Team Coordinator
  • Arriving - 1 August
  • "At the Thailand Collective most of what I accomplished was "invisible" to the CS community, but it was a necessary first step into setting up an infrastructure to help CS deliver the best experience possible for its members. During the Alaska Collective, I look forward to officially launching the User Experience Team, and start engaging CS talent from all over the globe in exciting and challenging design and research projects, collaborating closely with other teams, especially the Tech Team. I'm also very excited to see familiar faces in Alaska from the Thailand collective, and the new faces that will no doubt make significant contributions to CS. Every CouchSurfing Collective marks a major milestone, and Alaska will be no exception!"

 

 

 

Finance & Legal

 

     Casey Fenton, United States

  • Co-Founder, Finance & Legal Team Coordinator
  • Arriving - 1 June
  • "I can't wait to get to the Alaska Collective. There are many returning participants whom I am excited to continue collaborating with. There are many new participants whom I am excited to get to start building a professional relationship with. Alaska is a beautiful   location and I hope that everyone finds that rewarding because there are many challenging projects to cover this summer."

 

 

 Technology

 

     Weston Hankins, Mexico

  • Technology Team Coordinator
  • Arriving - 16 May
  • "There's an amazing potential in CouchSurfing to enhance everyone's journey in life. I'm here to release this potential, to make CS cross the boundaries of a website and become an instrument of global change. My role is to set systems in place and coordinate the development of tools that not only allow, but encourage people to have and share awesome experiences. In Alaska I will support the creation of tools for alternate programs in which CS can be a great value to the world and will put a lot of energy on website reliability." 
     

     Cyril, Costa Rica

  • Technology Team Developer
  • Arriving - 31 May
  • "I can't wait to get to the Collective and meet and collaborate first hand with the awesome team of volunteers I have been working with remotely over this past year! I will be working on volunteer tools, fixing current bugs, and on the the website's scalability. I have a great feeling about this Collective - with so many tech experts I think there will be big advances in the website's technical quality."

 

     Jeff Knurek, United States

  • Technology Team Developer
  • Arriving - 25 May (maybe later)
  • "My one goal - complete the project matrix. After that, it will be life as usual!"

 

     Walter Heck, The Netherlands

  • Technology Team System Administrator/Developer
  • Arriving - 1 June
  • "Will be programming what needs to be programmed, and making improvements where improvements can be/need to be made (and that's a lot of places :-)). I'm participating in this Collective because I feel that change can only from within. I feel I can help the tech team a lot with my professional experience working as an IT programmer for the past 8 years. Oh, and I'd be lying if I didn't mention how much I'm looking forward to spending time with the great friends I made at the Rotterdam Collective last year. I have great expecations for this Collective and am looking forward to it more every day!"

 

     Andrew Otto, United States

  • Technology Team System Administrator/Developer
  • Arriving - 31 May
  • "My CouchSurfing volunteer experience began back in early December in Thailand with a 3 day crash course from Casey. I learned about the history of the website as well as the ins and outs of how the system currently works. As the technology team grows, keeping the systems we work on organized becomes more and more important. Most of my time is spent on improving the way the back end servers and network are configured. In Alaska, I hope to continue this work from where we left off in Thailand in an ongoing effort to make the CouchSurfing.com system more stable and easier to manage." 

 

   

    Patricia Lopez, Spain
  • Technology Team Developer
  • Arriving - 4 June
  • "I am joining the Collective because I have an earnest desire to save the world and collaborate in creating a meaningful change in people's lives. To accomplish such an ambitious endeavour, I am bringing to Alaska my best superpowers: some computer “geekness”, a helpful and supportive disposition and a mind ready to absorb like a sponge all the lessons of life that this amazing group of individuals will, for sure, provide me with.”

 

    Douglas Deleu, Belgium

  • Technology Team Developer
  • Arriving - 25 May
  • "I will finish the translation tool and help the translation team, making their life easier with better tools. Also I want to clean up the translation database and make all the pages fully translatable. After that I will continue fixing tools for other volunteer groups. The list of tools to be fixed is never ending so I don't know exacty where I will begin. Would also help out Seb with programming the usability improvements."
     


Short-Term Volunteers

 

All short-term volunteers have been designated with a project to complete during their week at the Collective, read on below to find out some of the fascinating things they will be getting involved in!


     Miri Regev, CS Cares Coordinator

  • Dates: 8 June - 6 July
  • "I am really excited to be joining the Collective and see it as a wonderful chance to give back to the project that has given so much to so many people, including myself.  The most important experience as I see it will be the time shared with the other participants, from collaborating with other teams to just sitting down together to enjoy a shared communal meal. In terms of what I'll be doing while at the Collective, I feel blessed to have been given the opportunity to work on developing Couchsurfing Cares, a unique service that will elevate The Couchsurfing Project towards a whole new level of global giving. The idea of Couchsurfing Cares is to facilitate connections between interested CS members willing to share their homes on a temporary basis and displaced refugees of war or natural disaster in need of shelter. It is a huge undertaking and it will take more work to get it off the ground than my time at the Collective but I look forward to the challenge."

 

 

     Wendy Persoon, User Experience Research Assistant

  • Dates: 15 - 22 June
  • "I'm so excited to go to Alaska, and finally be able to give something back to the couch surfing community! I'm going to support Seb in setting up the research, which will help understand where the couch surfing (web) experience can be improved. I believe people-research should be inspiring, practical and a fun experience for both participants and researchers! Although staying just for a week I hope to make a difference and start discovering 'unmet couch surfing needs' :)"

 

     

     Charish Badzinski, Public Relations (media training)

  • Dates: 29 June - 14 July
  • "I'm looking forward to offering personalized media training to team leaders and leadership of the CouchSurfing community who will likely be requested to participate in media interviews. I will also continue my regular duties as co-Team Leader for Public Relations and Media Team. My personal hope for the CouchSurfing project is that we will achieve greater strategic growth and improved quality of external communications to increase international understanding of CouchSurfing's core principles, strengthen the bonds within the community itself, and improve the surfing experience for members."

 

 

     Garrett Perkins, Music & Circus Excursions

  • Dates: 6 - 13 July
  • "Remember when you were a child and encountered something new and unexpected? Some common occurence that you had just never seen before, but at the time gave you a sense of excitement and wonder? I have a trick or two that may bring those feelings back, just for a moment. Entertainment, basically. Whether musical and strange, or circusy (cirusesque, circustual?) and strange, my talents lay in that direction. Also, i do dishes with the best of them."

 

   

     Joel Feraud, French Chef

  • Dates: 6 - 13 July
  • "I'll be a guest Chef for one week. One week is a very short period of time but I expect it to be intense! Cooking is one of my hobbies, and I am very excited to put it to the service of such a diverse and dynamic community of people. My challenge will be of course to deliver on time good meals everyday, but I want more: if I can give real satisfaction and happiness with food, that will be my greatest reward. That will be all the more challenging and interesting, given the cultural diversities of all people, plus specific diets! But we are here to share these differences, right?  I think the CS project is a profoundly human and meaningful initiative, and I feel honoured to be able to contribute to its development." 

 

     Matthew Kerr, Alaska Guide and Tech Team Assistant

  • Dates: 13 - 20 July
  • "I am the Anchorage/Alaska ambassador, and my official job at the Collective is the Alaska Guide. I’ve been working behind the scenes since Alaska was scouted as a location and I am continuously available for any questions regarding Alaska and things to do! I will also be working on the Technology Team for website enhancements."


    

     Oh Donna, Contact Us & Verifications Team Coordinator, Finance Team

  • Dates: 13 - 27 July
  • "I am anxious to participate in CSC Alaska by building my teams to their utmost potential. My first priority is in helping to create a solid FAQ for the "Contact Us" team as well as creating more tools. Making verification accessible to more members is also being discussed, as well as giving input to the finance team. Being available to cook healthy and enjoyable meals for all the participants during my stay will be a joyous undertaking. It is very exciting for me to get to know many of the other volunteers I have worked with remotely. This is an amazing opportunity to be able to help take CS to the next level!"    


  

     Lara Fawn, Muralist

  • Dates: 20 - 27 July
  • "I am painting a mural for the Collective. The idea is to create a mosaic couch in the foreground, situated in morphing surroundings. There will be ocean rolling in becoming long grasses, into the desert, moving up into a waterfall. The background will contain three similar structures in different environments...like a tepee, Eiffel Tower, pyramids (in varying distances), mountains, jungle, organic city and other ideas from surrounding participants. If there is more time I'd like to create more images that CS can possibly use for various visual needs. Personally I want to explore Homer and meet some kick ass, inspired, motivated travelers."

 

 

     Crystal Murphy, Public Relations

  • Dates: 20 July - 17 August
  • "I am so thrilled to be able to be a part of the Alaska Collective :) My goal at the Collective is to get the PR team sustainable and functioning to its maximum capacity. I have a long list of things I can't wait to work on. I will be focusing on making the PR team a excellent functioning group, while firmly establishing clear lines and mutual projects with other teams while keeping the CS image positive!!!"

 


    Ken Flannery, Guest Tech Team Helper

  • Dates: 27 July - 3 August
  • "I'm excited to be a part of the CouchSurfing goodness and meet some of the people who have been involved in making it what it is today. Seeing Alaska will be a blast, and I'm sure I'm going to learn an insane amount from the other techies there and everyone else in the house. I also hear Alaska has some great beers, so I'm looking forward to sitting over a round of those with the other CouchSurfers."



     Anna Miller, Locations Guides (Member Communications)

  • Dates: 3 - 10 August
  • "I am thrilled at the chance to take a more proactive role in CouchSurfing! The site's ability to connect like-minded individuals and make this wide world a much smaller place is inspirational, and it's mission has come to guide me in my travels. I will be helping to develop locations guides, so travelers can easily access information on the culture, sights, and even the CS community in their destination city! I believe it will be just one more step to bringing us all closer together, in an open and more understanding relationship with each other and the world."

 

 

     TJ Kelly, Member Communications Team (Member Publications Coordinator)

  • Dates: 10 - 17 August
  • "I'm part of the member communications team and I'll be in Homer for a week. I'm a journalism student and freelance writer who has been a CS member for about a year now. Stoked to be a part of the Collective and I shall see you all up there at some point."

 


     Elvire Callaghan, Collective Living Research (User Experince Assistant)

  • Dates: 10 - 17 August
  • "As an architect, I'd like to study the Collective habitat as a form of communal living, or community and perhaps compare this to other forms of collectives around the world! I'll make a graphical presentation of my findings."