[Linux-aus] Acknowledgement of country

[Clinton Roy]

With my i've-just-organised-two-la-conferences boots on,

On 5 November 2015 at 09:02, Russell Coker <russell at coker.com.au> wrote:

> I think we should have a policy that all LA events held in Australia
> should start with an Acknowledgement of Country or Welcome to Country.


An acknowledgement of country is a pretty low bar to meet, and it's less
than tokenistic.

A welcome to country should be just that, a genuine welcoming. A welcome to
country
seemed the right thing to do when pycon first came to Brisbane, and I was
encouraged
when Maroochy wanted to understand what our conference and community was
about,
and when she realised it was all about sharing knowledge and skills, I knew
we had a
meeting of minds.. I tried to continue that feeling of connectedness by
encouraging people to mix with those they wouldn't ordinarily mix with
during the conference.

In our second year, I organised someone from engineers without borders to
introduce the conference, to continue the theme of sharing knowledge and
skills
with those outside your own circle, which was really just a continuation of
the theme
from the first year. Acknowledging someone's existence is the first step,
walking together is the goal.

A welcome to country is quite common for government conferences in Brisbane,
there are places up north where they're considered beyond the pale.

Context, community, communication and understanding are more important
than a blanket rule.

-- 
Clinton Roy
Software Developer
Netboxblue.com
Total Internet Management
Control Internet usage within and outside your organisation.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/linux-aus/attachments/20151105/5f4a9d61/attachment.html>