On Sat, Jan 22, 2005 at 12:00:14PM +1100, Adelle Hartley wrote: > Has anyone thought of registering a non-profit organisation with Centrelink > so that newstart and youth allowance recipients could be contributing Open > Source code as part of their Mutual-Obligation/Work-For-The-Dole > requirements?
Yes, I have thought about it. When it comes down to it, though, a WftD program for programming is not likely to actually get off the ground. As a sponsor or host organisation, you do not get to choose who you get as a participant -- and since the rules changed as to how volunteers get referred to the CWCs for placement (JobNetwork companies now refer volunteers to the CWCs instead of the volunteers going to the CWCs) there are less participants and they're typically the ones who *really* have to go do WftD. Since a WftD activity is supposed to be primarily about work experience and not about training, you couldn't spend a lot of time teaching the participants the skills of programming -- and considering that I know a lot of CompSci graduates who couldn't program their way out of a paper bag, I'm not sure that it's possible to teach a group of likely disinterested volunteers good programming practices in 15% of 2 days a week... One thing that looks like it might be a winner is the "Community Work" concept -- not as lucrative for the organisation, but far less restrictive in what can be done between the volunteer and the organisation. If you're keen on doing something like this contact ComputerBank Sydney (http://www.computerbanksydney.org.au, which is a pretty dead site at the moment, or you can e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]), who are a community organisation, and who could quite possibly be encouraged into putting on a volunteer to do some software development / modification, or you could even just volunteer to do any of the million things that need to be done to keep ComputerBank going. > If there's already an appropriate organisation that I can officially > "volunteer" for, then I would appreciate being pointed in the right > direction. If not, I would be interested in helping to start one (and > possibly being its first volunteer/participant). Starting one yourself is a pain. Been there, done that. Your PL will probably cost you at least $1000, which is a lot of money for an organisation with no income. The paperwork is tricky, too -- the secretary or public officer needs to check over all the stuff anyway, so passing it off to a WftD participant doesn't gain that much. - Matt -- And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?" They replied, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood revealed." And Jesus replied, "What?" -- Seen on the 'net
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