Day Three Part III - Flock To Fedora 2023
With the last activity done at the Fedora Mentor Summit and the closing note delivered by the Fedora Project Leader and Fedora Community Architect, the conference came to an end. The attendees freshened up and headed out to the city to see what the Cork City Ghost Tour had to offer in the evening.
A couple of equivalent-sized groups were formed around tables in the dining area beside the Harbour 06 room at around 0230 pm Ireland Standard Time. Once the rules for the "Interactive Story Stitch" activity were explained by Justin W. Flory and Jona Azizaj, the folks in a group were passed around a set of cards. The faces of these randomly distributed cards governed the extent of people's ability of sharing their own experiences by "starting" a new story and adding their own perspectives by "stitching" into their story. With folks like Troy Dawson, Amita Sharma, Nikita Tripathi, Anushka Jain and Jona Azizaj joining my table, we started off by discussing our stories one by one.
People were really engrossed in the stories narrated by someone else. They showed how much they related to them by sharing their personal anecdotes and hypothetical scenarios. At around 0300 pm Ireland Standard Time, it was again time for a social snack/beverage break. This was followed by the closing note at around 0400 pm Ireland Standard Time delivered by Matthew Miller and Justin W. Flory in the Tivoli hall occupied again with the attendees coming back from across various parallel tracks. Being the first occurrence of the event after a span of three years, attendees were encouraged to ascend the stage to share what they loved experiencing here and what they would like to see improve in future.
While many people have been attending Flock To Fedora for years now, there were a bunch of folks like me who were attending for the first time - who got to share their experiences with attending such an in-person conference on the stage. Justin W. Flory also announced that the next Flock To Fedora event, i.e. Flock To Fedora 2024 would be returning to the United States of America as a hybrid event. It had been over seven years since the last time Flock To Fedora happened there so that sure felt like a welcome return. Being a true hybrid event in the next year would benefit the event significantly by increasing the number of both physical and virtual attendees by improving interactions across the globe.
With the last talk getting wrapped up, folks dispersed off to their rooms to get themselves freshened up before heading off to the next activity in the evening at around 0500 pm Ireland Standard Time. A couple of shuttle buses were arranged for the attendees to convey them from the hotel to the square where the Ghost Tour would begin. The attendees were divided into two groups, the first heading earlier for the tour at around 0615 pm Ireland Standard Time and the second heading later at around 0815 pm Ireland Standard Time. Once I got back from my room, all freshened up and equipping my favourite Fedora Ambassadors' threads from my found luggage - I decided to join the first group for the tour.
The scenic bus ride from the hotel to the activity spot got over soon and we soon found ourselves taking group photographs at around 0630 pm Ireland Standard Time. The second group headed off to have their dinners while I along with the first group met up up with an interesting pair of folks. One of them began taking us around the city, telling us stories about how a certain place was haunted while the other one enacted the ghost, making appearances every now and then. As we started off with the trip, it started drizzling but it was not a huge downpour to spoil the tour. By the time we got ourselves back to the place we started from, we had gone through a bunch of scenic spots and historical locations of the city.