Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it is that time of the year again – it is time to start organising your Ubuntu Release Party! This time for our friend, Ubuntu 9.04, the Jaunty Jackalope.

Every time we kick out a new version of Ubuntu we like to get together, celebrate the release and have a great time. And you know what, I think we all deserve it. After six months of hard work building our lovable Operating System in the many different ways in which we all contribute, we are all about ready to let our hair down, get together and toast to Ubuntu and Free Software in general. If you have not contributed to the community you are not only welcome but encouraged to come and party with us – release parties are a fantastic opportunity to get to know our friendly and bustling community! Good times!

So, with this blog post I want to kick off the call for parties. The last two releases have generated a great selection of parties from all around the world, but for Jaunty I want us to get out there and smash it: lets make this the release with more parties than ever before! When Jaunty is released everyone should be close to a fun, welcoming release party. We can do it, folks.

Making It Happen

Alrighty, so how do we make this happen? Simple, follow these simple steps:

• First you need to pick a date. Jaunty is released Thursday 23rd April 2009. Some people party on the same day, some on the Friday and some on the Saturday. Pick a date that works for your group party people. Sometimes you may get different opinions on when to hold the party: don’t let this get the better of you, so make sure you don’t spend too long debating the best date.
• Find a venue to have the party in. This can be as simple as just nominating a bar or restaurant. More details on how to organise a party are available here. If you have any questions, check out the ubuntu-event-planners and loco-contacts mailing lists. Also, check out the #ubuntu-locoteams IRC channel on Freenode.
• Add your party to this page. Make sure you add the name and preferably the email address of the main organiser(s) of the party. This is the page we use to tell people where all the parties are.
• Spread the word! Blog about it, twitter/identi.ca it, put up posters, tell your local computer groups and anything else you can do to make sure that everyone knows about your party! The more people who know the more people may come!

OK, so there we have it. Lets get this show on the road. I myself will be at the release party in London, but I can’t wait to hear which parties you are all organising! Oh, and one quick tip: don’t put it off. I have heard many stories in which someone decides they want to organise a party but they don’t have enough time. The reason I wanted to announce now is that it gives us all plenty of time to get together a rocking set of parties. Wicked.