AussieChix

AussieChix is an Australian group that is part of LinuxChix. LinuxChix was founded by a Canadian woman, Deb Richardson, in 1999 and has continued as a very active group since. A number of regional chapters of LinuxChix have formed over the years, allowing members of LinuxChix to meet locally and interact with their local communities.

Before AussieChix: the Sydney and Melbourne chapters 1999–2007

Two small LinuxChix chapters in Australia were founded in 1999 in the very early days of LinuxChix: Julie Gibson founded a chapter in Sydney and Kirrily Robert a chapter in Melbourne. Mary Gardiner organised the Sydney chapter from 2002–2007, with vital help from Sara Falamaki, Pia Waugh and Myrto Zehnder in continuing it in 2006. Claudine Chionh convened the Melbourne chapter for most of its lifetime. Both the Sydney and Melbourne chapters met periodically for many years until the foundation of AussieChix, but remained quite small, with an ebb and flow in both membership and active involvement.

The foundation of AussieChix, 2007

In January 2007 Mary Gardiner from the Sydney chapter ran a successful one day LinuxChix miniconference at linux.conf.au 2007 with help from Sara Falamaki and Stephanie Miller. Speakers and attendees at the miniconference came from both the Sydney and Melbourne chapters as well as from the international LinuxChix group. More than 60 women attended the event and was part of the cause of the highest female attendance numbers at linux.conf.au in the entire history of the conference.

Mary met a number of women from outside Sydney and Melbourne at linux.conf.au who wanted to be part of local LinuxChix activities. The community heard about the success of the Brazilian chapter, from its founder Sulamita Garcia, which was also part of the inspiration behind Mary's decision to form AussieChix.

After the conference Mary spoke to a number of people inside and outside the Sydney and Melbourne groups, all of whom were enthusiastic about expanding and combining the separate Sydney and Melbourne chapters into a single Australia-wide group. The name "AussieChix" was chosen. The slogan "AussieChix are LinuxChix" was coined after Donna Benjamin made a reference to the "Aussie kids are Weet-Bix kids" jingle used by Sanitarium to promote Weet-Bix cereal on Australian television.

The AussieChix website and mailing list were set up in February 2007 ready for the official launch on March 8 2007, International Women's Day.