<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 2:45 AM, Andrew <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:orderinchaos78@gmail.com">orderinchaos78@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Hi,<br><br>Before I reply, I'll note that I actually agree with Sarah here re Melbourne - it's also evidenced by Victoria's membership following the national trend rather than NSW/ACT's.<br></blockquote><div>
<br>In fact, melbourne's situation may actually be even worse that elsewhere as far as the typical uptake of memberships goes. Of the 8 Victorian members, 3 are current committee members and two are former committee members (and one of those two now actually lives in regional NSW but was counted as a Victorian for the purposes of my stats of last years memberships), so only 3 members from Victoria are "typical" (for want of a better word) members and at least one of those is from regional Victoria and not from Melbourne. So if you're considering the regular uptake of memberships, Melbourne really only has two members that don't have some kind of atypical connection with the chapter.<br>
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2009/12/13 Liam Wyatt <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:liamwyatt@gmail.com" target="_blank">liamwyatt@gmail.com</a>></span><div class="im"><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
So, if there is a concern that the chapter is focusing too much on Sydney (and/or Melbourne), I wouldn't want this to be the perception, off the back of local Wikimedians being particularly interested in hosting meetups. </blockquote>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br>Liam, I agree that meetups organised outside the chapter shouldn't be attributed as chapter activity. But I also agree with Andrew that it's really not the meetups that give the impression that Sydney is the central focus, but more an unintentional attitude thing. It's very difficult because as I said last night, I don't see an easy or simple solution to these issues. I've been telling Andrew for some time now, and Craig referred to this as well in his earlier email, people in other states who want to see the chapter active locally need to become active themselves and make things happen in their local regions because the reality is that we're all volunteers and we just don't have the resources to swoop in and organise things for people around the nation. So it's really important that members around the country become active, create and build connections with their local organisations and organise functions, events etc but in turn the committee needs to be able to come on board and provide support, both in the form of emotional/mental support, facilitating connections, and potentially also financial support of some degree. I think everyone on the committee is on board with this and I've never sensed any kind of resistance to providing support to local members pursuing local activities, but from my perspective, it's really vitally important that local members who want the chapter to be active in their local regions take on some responsibility for that as it's really not going to happen otherwise. <br>
<br>At the same time, I think we also need to be careful of unintentionally or inadvertently penalising the more vibrant regions because they've only become active due to the efforts of local members. For example, Glam was only organised because Liam had an idea and followed through with it to the fullest extent. Same with the Backstage program.They weren't projects the committee or even the chapter came up with or organised or pursued, but rather an individual member had a vision and pursued it and the committee played more of a support and facilitation role. and we can do that kind of thing for other members in other states if they keep the committee informed of what they're doing but they need to be prepared to basically do what Liam did - come up with an idea, pursue it and work to implement it.<br>
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