Did you have fun on CC Hope Day?

## This article was posted by a volunteer of CC Korea in remembrance of the Hope Day 2008 for CC birthday.##

Around this time of the last year, there was a web post with the same title on the CC Korea blog. That was the epliogue of Hope Day 2007. However, fast rewind to the moment, hardly was the event expected to be held again, even uploading the post . Because CC Korea had just started to get its momentum here in Seoul. Fortunately enough, there were great changes within and without CC Korea ever since then, CC Korea happily could throw its second CC Hope Day 2008. It was you showing great support and helping CC Korea that enabled the event to be held again and through successfully. Thank you so much.

Cheerful Donations Were Way Beyond Our Expectations

Receiving the attendants through the online registration site, OnOffmix, we didn’t asked participants for participation fees but asked them for bringing “something to share or to give to others” Skeptic thoughts were running through even inside us as we wondered how many participants would really bother to bring something. But we were wrong. What really turned out pleasantly defied the skeptic; all sorts of stuff were brought to share. Actually, it was more than enough to get the party started.

In the first place, they were supposed to be sold at auction but in the interest of time, we encouraged people to trade or just give away what they brought to each other instead of auctioning the items. By doing so we wish to make Hope Day an opportunity where you could experience the joy of sharing. “the good of sharing” is the one of the key values of the CC culture. Thank you for your fervent and warm supports as participants.

Rock the party! Performance by Nevada51! 

Do you remember CC Salon last summer? Nevada 51 was one of the bands who presented such a powerful stage for the party. They really rocked the club. Again, CC Korea had a chance to enjoy the  music of the band at Hope Day party. But there were twists and turns behind the invitation for Nevada 51. Here comes the story. Since it was season’s greeting time packed with parties and events, CC volunteers struggled with fixing schedules with bands and got desperate to find bands to accentuate CC Hope Day. With very slight hope, we contacted this one of the most-sought rock groups. However, upon our request, Nevada 51 said “You bet we’ll be there, we also are CC Korea’s one of most fervent members!” the staff who contacted the band said, “I almost broke down to hear that” Actually we all did. Nevada 51, you rock!

Thank you for your excellent performance Nevada51! And thanks to you, our annual party could become one of the most exciting memories of 2008 for all of us. After what we have seen under the stage for two years, we can be pretty sure that the band is going to be a big hit in the coming year in Korea or furthermore, in Asia!

Passionate participants!

Friday at the end of the year… Well I thought it wasn’t  a good timing for an organization like CC Korea to do something. We were afraid everyone might be too busy to remember our event. But against all odds, the club was packed with people. The number of party attendants was even slightly exceeding our estimate. Indeed, we were amazed by how many people were interested in our group.

More than 10 events have been planned and preceded so far by CC Korea. As time goes by, the participants get involved more and more with great passion. You are the flesh and bones of CC Korea! Your love and support for our entity is the driving force that enables CC Korea to move on despite its budget and personnel restraints. With all due respect, we’d like to extend our gratitude again.

What is Pecha Kucha?

When an idea that we should try PechaKucha on Hope Day came up, most of the CC volunteers asked back, “What’s that?” So, the one who gave the idea had to explain about it. But the original style had to be modified in order to make the game fit for the night - Each presenter was suppossed to complete presentations under three minute time constraint. To make sure the rule work, we put a large count down clock on the screen and an artificial applause was to burst out to stop presenters. We were doubtful to think how many people would participate in it. But again, to our pleasure, we were wrong.

 

Most of them kept the time limit pretty well. But  the very first victim of the time limit was one of our own CC Mixter staff who volunteered who spoke first . Unfortunately, he ended up to come down from the stage before he was through his presentation due to his time mismanagement. What a pity! But he made it clear for everyone to keep the time from the very beginning. Most presenters at Pecha Kucha gave excellent presentations in just three minutes. Everyone was amazed by how deep and wide our guests’ interests were and how devoted they were to what they do and what they passionately pursue. To all the exuberant speakers of PechaKucha, we give our most sincere thanks!!

And there came the time for socials

After the end of Pecha Kucha, we had time for socials. Everyone enjoyed getting to know each other  and exchanged business cards as they were sharing the food they brought. Even one of our CC volunteers who was really hectic to ensure everything was under control during the event, got a huge number of business cards just in a few minutes. So great! We hope the precious connections made during our Hope Day can last a long time.

The purpose for this year’s Hope Day was, as our project lead Judge Yoon had previously emphasized, to make a time allowing people to exchange their thoughts and minds about what they are interested in or putting their efforts on, concerning Open, Free Culture. I guess many of you who worked for or who were interested in Creative Commons Korea could make some valuable acquaintances. I remind you that even some of our current volunteers joined us after the Hope Day of previous years. And there came up a spam post on the volunteers’ community free board recently, as to show how popular we got maybe… I hope that there might be more people willing to join us other than the spam bots.

I am not Judge Yoon. That guy just left the building.

The final blow of our event was the performance of CCKo band, which consisted of our beloved CCK volunteers. The first song they played was “My Darling you, a street singer”. Some of you might have been familiar with the song for it was in the OST of the famous movie “TaeGukGi: Brotherhood Of War”. But there is something else: it is a public domain song, which means that the copyright of the song is expired and anybody can use or listen to the music freely. The song is uploaded on the site http://ccmixter.or.kr/, so you can listen to it at any time.

CC Korea consists of about 30 volunteers. Some of them are outside Korea. Some of them are high school students, university students, still others are office workers. Age gap is wide from twenties to forties but that is no problem for us, for all of us share the common goal which is the free creation and sharing, open participation and open culture.

There is still a long way to go. Each one of our staff knows that we just took another step. We will persistently hang on there with such a great hope. CC Korea is now just in its initial stage. We always expect a “better us”

To all who love CCK and share our views, we give our most sincere thanks.