First Thursdays are a series of online chats that take place on the First Thursday of every month. To take part see First Thursday Meeting Updates

"First Thursdays" have met at various locations online. They began in the Minciu Sodas worknets chatroom, and stayed there for around three years, until the chat room closed in 2010. At the start a few experimental meetings were also held as audio-graphic conferences using Elluminate - but the technology was not accessible for most people in our network. Something typed is best for us. We need low bandwidth and ideally the online venue should be accessible from a phone or from a cyber cafe (so there should not need to be any software downloads nor any need for sound input or output, nor any bandwidth-hungry photos or videos).

The main link is between the UK and Africa - especially with people in Nigeria, Cameroon and Ghana in West Africa, and Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in East Africa. People have also come from Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Serbia, various parts of North America, and a couple of locations in India.

Topics

Over the years "First Thursdays" have ranged widely, depending on the interests of participants including:

• a series of discussions on the ‘World Without Poverty’ book,
• a series on the ‘Bucket’ biomass stove
• a detailed business planning meeting for a micro-business of carting water.
• meetings with special guests
• many "learning from each other" sessions where we share knowledge and concerns related to our practical projects on various aspects of sustainabiliity, ICT, ecoology, and development.

After the chatroom

In 2010, when the chatroom closed, these meetings moved over to skype. They were typed skype meeting (similar to our UK-NIgeria team weekly team meetings) but open to people beyond the core team. There is more about this history at http://www.dadamac.net/node/401

In April 2011 we started to experiment with etherpads as an alternative venue. We are gradually buidling up a group of people within the Dadamac community who are developing our "normal way of doing things" when we hold First Thursdays on an etherpad. When we have established that normal way of doing things, we will widen the invitations to attend.

Finding First Thursday on Etherpads

In mid 2011 we started to use the format below for naming the etherpad venue - so we could be found by following the format and inserting the appropriate month.

First Thursday August 2011    http://etherpad.openstewardship.net/August-First-Thursday
First Thursday September 2011    http://etherpad.openstewardship.net/September-First-Thursday
First Thursday October 2011    http://etherpad.openstewardship.net/October-First-Thursday

New format for 2012

From January 2012 the link has year as well as month. A typical Frst Thursday page has links to the next month and to the previous two months which also helps to find ua.. (Early in the year abbreviated month names were used, but later full names were used). Later we may get a dadamac etherpad (instead of using the openstewardship ones).

• First Thursday January -  http://etherpad.openstewardship.net/Jan-2012-First-Thursday

Final Skype First Thursday

• First Thursday - March 2011 -  http://www.dadamac.net/blog/20110310/march-2011-first-thursday

Earliest  Etherpad First Thursdays

• First Thursday - April 2011 - http://etherpad.openstewardship.net/KjO2m2kWH5
• First Thursday - May 2011 - http://etherpad.openstewardship.net/0w8jG05iwR
• First Thursday - June 2011 - http://etherpad.openstewardship.net/VK1tei6Bws
• Extra session  - Topic Thursday - June 16th 2011-  http://etherpad.openstewardship.net/F89LcEA7iz
• First Thursday - July 2011 -  http://etherpad.openstewardship.net/July-First-Thursday

More history

• Evolution of First Thursday - http://dadamac.posterous.com/evolution-of-first-thursday

Early annnouncements were always make through the LearningFromEachOther yahoo group. Since 2010 announcements, reports and meeting archives have also been posted from time to time on dadamac's posterous and collaborators connect. Examples:

• Invitation to "First Thursday" on May 5th  2011 - An experiment with an etherpad    http://dadamac-collaborators-connect.posterous.com/invitation-to-first-thursday-on-may-5th
• First Thursday September 2010 - http://dadamac.posterous.com/first-thursday-september-2nd
• First Thursday August 2010 - The People and Trying Skype Public Chat         http://dadamac.posterous.com/first-thursday-august-2010-the-people-and-try
• July 1st - First Thursday Topic - and mini-project on dentistry         http://dadamac.posterous.com/july-1st-first-thursday-topic-and-mini-projec
• July 1st - First Thursday Topic - Phones in rural Africa: practicalities and potential         http://dadamac.posterous.com/july-1st-first-thursday-topic-phones-in-rural
• Topic Thursday May 13th - more on bucket (biomass) stoves.         http://dadamac.posterous.com/topic-thursday-may-13th-more-on-bucket-biomas
• May 6th First Thursday - India, Africa, Europe and USA         http://dadamac.posterous.com/may-6th-first-thursday-india-africa-europe-an
• Second Thursday - twitter in the chat room         http://dadamac.posterous.com/second-thursday-twitter-in-the-chat-room