User:Herlo/Mentor Letter

Hi manatee,

Thank you for taking the time to choose me as your Mentor for Fedora Ambassadorship. I've been with the Fedora Project since early 2007. My FAS account name is herlo, and my Fedora wiki page can be found at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Herlo. I am looking forward to working with you over the next month or so to get you acclimated in the Fedora Ambassadors project.

The Ambassadors are largely self-directed, so look for opportunities to talk (offer your services as a speaker on behalf of Fedora to LUGs near you) try and make sure Fedora has a presence at nearby installfests and activities like BarCamp. There are also regional conferences that we attend such as the Utah Open Source Conference and Linuxfest NorthWest.

As your mentor, my job is to get you indoctrinated, answer questions and generally move you into an active ambassadorship within the Fedora Project. To do this, we're going to go through some important steps, plus I'll be checking in with you periodically throughout your time here at the Fedora Ambassadors.

1) To get started, please join us in irc and on the mailing lists. Here are a few to get you started:


 * https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/ambassadors - You've likely already joined this list.
 * https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/advisory-board - Very useful to lurk here and learn more about the project.
 * #fedora-ambassadors on irc.freenode.net
 * NOTE: If you've never used IRC before, it's very easy to get started. Here's some good instructions on the Fedora Project Wiki (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate#IRC) (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/IRCHowTo)

2) Attend the next Fedora Ambassadors North America (FAmNA) meeting. We meet the 1st and 3rd Tuesday each month.  The schedule is available at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/Meetings#Next_Meeting.


 * Attending the meetings is imperative and helps you get comfortable with the group, improve your understanding of the project and provides an opportunity for you to participate as an ambassador.

3) Become familiar with the Fedora Project. The Fedora Project wiki can be very useful for this task.  Here's a few pages to help you become familiar with while you are going through your mentoring.  It's likely there are other pages as well, but this is a good start:


 * Fedora Weekly News - https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/LatestIssue
 * Fedora's Four Foundations - https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Foundations
 * Events which Fedora Ambassadors participate - https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Events

4) Consider joining another project within Fedora. As a rule, just joining ambassadors is acceptable, however we recommend you get involved with other aspects of our community so you can better represent.  There are all types of positions available from Marketing, QA, Documentation and of course Development and System Administration.  Check out https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Projects for more options.

The most important part of being an ambassador is helping put a face on the Fedora Project. When approved, you will become a Fedora Ambassador. This means representing Fedora in a good light, providing good information and always being courteous to others while you talk about Fedora and the Fedora Project.

To help you along your way, we're going to provide you with a Fedora Ambassador Kit (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassador_Kit). This kit will contains SWAG and tools to help you promote Fedora at events you coordinate or attend. To get the Ambassador Kit, you must request one from https://fedorahosted.org/famnarequests/.

Again, welcome to the Fedora Project and the Fedora Ambassadors. It's going to be quite a fun adventure helping to promote and build the Fedora Project.

Cheers,

Clint Savage, Ambassador Mentor

PS - As a note, I've had a few ambassadors before whom I've mentored. Each one has taken the name 'manatee'. Mostly it's just a little joke because it's too difficult to say/type 'mentoree'.