I'm happy to announce that the first version of WarmShowers for Android is now available in the the Google Play store. Android version 2.2 or newer is required. You can find the app using the "warmshowers" keyword or directly from the app page:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fi.bitrite.android.ws

If you don't have a Google account you can grab the APK file from here:

https://github.com/jstaffans/wsandroid/downloads

Main features:

- Map and textual search
- Host contacting directly from app
- Downloading and storing of host information for off-line usage

The application is free and open source under the Apache 2.0 license. You can help out over on GitHub:

• Project page
• Issue tracker - Bug reports and feature requests go here!

Thanks to Randy and Chris Meyer for support during development!

I sent out this note to some long-term contributors to Warmshowers.org via email a few weeks ago. I should have posted it here so that all friends of Warmshowers could see it.

I've been thinking that perhaps in the long-term interest of Warmshowers, it would be good to think through some governance strategy, like a Board of Directors or something. Right now, I and other volunteers just do what we have the energy or interest to do, but perhaps we need something better. Also, it would be nice to have an organization to make sure WS keeps going in the future; it's not reasonable to expect that I'll take care of it for the rest of my life, or that I'll live forever.

Do any of you have ideas about a governance structure? Experience with tiny organizations like this?

One thing I'd also like to do is have a little more formal tracking of donations, but I just haven't done much beyond accepting and acknowledging them. Perhaps we could find somebody who would be treasurer.

Thanks for any ideas.