There is no intention to hide the costs to the chapter of the Chapter's
involvement in the Wikiconference Berlin, but it is not a simple
calculation.
One person was asking for trustee expenses, others are asking how much we
(WMUK) spent on the entire conference (including staff, volunteers,
speakers, trustees etc). I hope to clarify this here.
So for trustee expenses: not all of the board went as trustees, as two (at
least) were invited as speakers - reporting that as a trustee cost wouldn't
be accurate. As to staff – I attended as the Chief Executive, but the other
two staff were also invited speakers. One of the staff had some costs paid
by the Foundation.
As to the cost mine was probably on the low end, as I booked my flight
early and always use public transport or bicycles, but from recollection
(and I have to sign off all trustee expenses) the total cost to the chapter
is close to £2600. My expenses are here
<https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Expenses_2014-2015> and give a good baseline.
The trustees are discussing how best to itemise expenses in a way that
ensures an appropriate level of transparency at the board meeting this
Saturday.
I do not know why anyone would call the conference a 'junket', that needs a
citation I'd think, but it was, as I have explained before in detail, a
productive working three days at a reasonable cost to the chapter. If you
think it was a junket then the whole conference could be judged a waste of
money and the previous ones as well - and they aren't. The reality is that
these are important working conferences where chapters and other
organisations meet to discuss best practice.
Jon Davies.
On 1 June 2014 12:22, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jun 1, 2014 at 4:36 AM, Russavia
<russavia.wikipedia(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
I have read the links that you have provided and I find it totally
unacceptable that an organisation can not provide costs for sending 8
people on a junket to New York.
When I have operated businesses in the real world, I have been able to
pull
up any financial information (expenses, revenue,
etc) within a matter of
seconds and with a click of a mouse. It is astounding that WMUK is not
able
to do the same thing.
That Richard Symonds is saying that it is not a good use of resources,
and
basically putting it in the too hard basket, to
supply the amount of
donor
dollars which have been spent on this
controversial junket is, to use a
great British colloquialism, total bollocks.
WMUK is an organisation which blows its own trumpet on how transparent it
has become in the last 2 years, so it seriously should not be too
difficult
to do this in a timely fashion.
Cheers
Russavia
The conference was in Berlin, not New York.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2014
~Nathan
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
--
*Jon Davies - Chief Executive Wikimedia UK*. Mobile (0044) 7803 505 169
tweet @jonatreesdavies
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia
movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
Telephone (0044) 207 065 0990.
Visit
http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk