<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">Dear all,<br><br>last weekend the annual Chapters Meeting took place in Berlin. Each year<br>two representatives of each Wikimedia chapter meet there. During the<br>
meeting South Africa was recognized as the first african chapter.<br>Wikimedia CH and Austria have been represented by Manuel Schneider and<br>Kurt Kulac. With this report we'd like to share our experiences with the<br>
Wikimedia community. Additionally all sessions have been logged and<br>published on Meta:<br><a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Documentation" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Documentation</a><br>
<br>A short TV report on the meeting for ARD Tagesschau (in german) can be<br>viewed online:<br><a href="http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/video/sendungsbeitrag101886_res-.html" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/video/sendungsbeitrag101886_res-.html</a><br>
<br>== Current State of the Chapters ==<br>Traditionally each chapter meeting starts with a three minute report of<br>each chapter about their current state: Members, budget, past and future<br>projects, good and bad experiences.<br>
<br>Most of the "State of the Chapter" presentations have been linked on Meta:<br>*<br><a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Schedule#State_of_the_Chapters_I" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Schedule#State_of_the_Chapters_I</a><br>
*<br><a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Schedule#State_of_the_Chapters_II" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Schedule#State_of_the_Chapters_II</a><br>
<br>* WMCH: <a href="http://wikimedia.ch/State_of_the_Chapter_2011" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">http://wikimedia.ch/State_of_the_Chapter_2011</a><br>* WMAT:<br><a href="http://mitglieder.wikimedia.at/Archiv/2011-03-26_State_of_the_Chapter" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">http://mitglieder.wikimedia.at/Archiv/2011-03-26_State_of_the_Chapter</a><br>
<br>== Fundraising Summit ==<br>There will be again a Fundraising Summit for all chapters participating<br>in the Wikimedia Fundraiser by the end of the year. This year's summit<br>will be organised in June by Wikimedia Österreich.<br>
<br>* <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011/Fundraising_Summit" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011/Fundraising_Summit</a><br><br>== Movement Roles ==<br>
There are the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Chapters as branches of<br>the Foundation, but there are also other entities and organisations<br>withing the Wikiverse. While the relationship between Foundation and<br>chapters has been settled by the chapters agreement there are many open<br>
questions in how to handle other organisations which are not chapters.<br><br>A "Movement Roles Working Group" has been set up a year ago that is<br>researching this topic. Recently surveys have been sent out to chapter<br>
people (I have forwarded them to the respective boards) and a public<br>survey is planned to be published soon.<br><br>All members and inhabitants of the Wikiverse are urged to participate in<br>this process, to shape the roles of chapters, foundation and their own.<br>
<br>* <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_roles_project" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_roles_project</a><br>* <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_roles_project/New_group_models" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_roles_project/New_group_models</a><br>
*<br><a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_roles_project/Sue_Gardner%27s_input_on_Movement_Roles_Project" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_roles_project/Sue_Gardner%27s_input_on_Movement_Roles_Project</a><br>
*<br><a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Documentation/Movement_Roles" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Documentation/Movement_Roles</a><br>
<br>== Collaborations with Galeries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAMs) ==<br>The other chapters have presented their experiences with talking to<br>GLAMs. In many countries discussions and talks happen and GLAMs are<br>
willing to cooperate, but a there is little visible output.<br><br>The Wiki Loves Monuments project interacts here, aiming to be a<br>pan-european project to define, list and illustrate all monuments<br>throughout Europe. Ideas are currently being discussed, WMAT started<br>
talking to the administration bodies taking care of monuments, lists<br>need to be digitized and unified. A photo competition and reimbursement<br>of travel costs should foster the communities will to take good pictures<br>
of all monuments. WMNL has been able to get sitenotices up to attract<br>more people for the project. Other ideas are to provide extensive<br>amounts of swag, such as sticker, pins, T-Shirts etc.<br><br>*<br><a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Documentation/Working_Groups:_GLAM" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Documentation/Working_Groups:_GLAM</a><br>
*<br><a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Documentation/GLAM_outreach" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Documentation/GLAM_outreach</a><br>
<br>== Hiring Employees ==<br>Many chapters - as Wikimedia Austria and Switzerland - have been<br>thinking about hiring employees or to outsource work to paid people.<br>Many projects are time-intensive and participating at the Wikimedia<br>
Fundraiser is hard to be handled on a volunteer basis due to the high<br>amount of donations which need to be booked correctly, thanked and reported.<br><br>Several times statements like "Wikimedia chapters are no fan clubs" have<br>
been made. Conclusion: Wikimedia chapters are primarily administrative<br>organisations which enable volunteers to do their work better and<br>"enable others to be fan-clubs". With the needed professionalisation of<br>
the chapters their boards change from executive to overseeing<br>committees. Along with this it is important to transfer (seed) the<br>enthusiasm by the board members into the director / manager of the<br>chapters office.<br>
<br>A few chapters have already stepped forward by applying different<br>strategies:<br><br>* WMDE: "Management Approach" - They hired an employee that can manage<br>himself and is looking for new tasks and implemented them on his own.<br>
This is important as management and monitoring of employees - which is<br>also a big effort - can be minimised. A good manager can also fund<br>himself by finding new opportunities and is able to find new employees<br>to support him as the work load increases, a scalable solution.<br>
<br>A manager writes proposals which the board will review and decide. By<br>that the board actually gets more power as it can act strategically<br>rather than ad-hoc under pressure of daily tasks.<br><br>* WMPL: "Outsourcing" - legally neccessary tasks have been outsourced<br>
early. Problem: different people for different tasks which do not know<br>each other and do not act strategically. WMPL: "...in the end we had an<br>accountant, but nobody had time to bring her the receipts so she could<br>
do her work."<br><br>New approach: Hire someone who can do different things on his own and<br>have him sit in the WMPL office.<br><br>* Office space: Rent offices teogether with other "lime-minded<br>organisations", such as the parlamentarian group digital sustainability,<br>
Free Software Foundation Europe, Swiss Unix Usergroup, Creative Commons...<br><br>* Job profiles: Look at what the other chapters have done, for instance<br>the "office manager" of WMUK who has handled the fundraiser.<br>
<br>* If you develop your organisation then get a "manager type" of employee.<br>* If you only need a service center for your administrative tasks then<br>outsource it.<br><br>* Selection of emplyees: It is helpful if the employee is a Wikimedian<br>
but this is not the qualification you are looking for. If you have to<br>choose between a manager which is not a Wikimedian and a Wikimedian<br>which is not a manager, choose the manager (Pavel, WMDE).<br><br>* Managing remotely is extremely hard. It takes longer to find out if<br>
something goes into the wrong direction (Thierry, WMFR). A manager will<br>also manage itself.<br><br>* An employee should have one or at max two bosses and not the board as<br>a boss. Otherwise it takes too longe to make management decision.<br>
<br>* At least a weekly Skype meeting is recommended, the verbal contact is<br>very important rather than writing e-mails.<br><br>* Application process (WMFR):<br>** received 40 applications, two filters: eight left. These eight<br>
applicants have been interviewed by eight people from the board and<br>involved members.<br>** a Wikimedian has the advantage that you already know him and how he<br>works. But be careful with "super members", there is the risk of leading<br>
into demotivation and problems. It is sometimes better to employ someone<br>from the outside.<br><br>Invitation by Pavel (WMDE): "We have gained a lot of experience. Just<br>come a week to Berlin and look how I deal with it."<br>
<br>*<br><a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Documentation/Professionalization:_The_first_employee" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Documentation/Professionalization:_The_first_employee</a><br>
<br>== openZIM (Wikipedia Offline) ==<br>The ZIM libraries have been recently included into the book printing<br>funtion - now everyone can easily create ZIM files from the Wikis.<br><br>To make the code and the work on it more visible it should be<br>
transferred to <a href="http://svn.wikimedia.org/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">svn.wikimedia.org</a>. Each commit is sent to IRC and<br>mailinglist, also many developers have a copy of that repository so the<br>
hurdle to look into the code and work with it is much lower.<br><br>== Internal Organisation / Roles within the Chapters ==<br>Several sessions dealt with the tasks withing the chapters or the<br>motivation of members. We agreed on the following types of members:<br>
* proactive (they initiate things and do work on their own)<br>* active (they are active when being asked)<br>* inactive<br>* counter-active (trolls)<br><br>The goal is to convert inactive members to active members and active to<br>
proactive. Trolls are part of the ecosystem and sometimes have a<br>corrective function. In doubt when there is to much hassle nobody should<br>hesitate to exclude them from the chapter.<br><br>* Each organisation needs to fill in four functions - of which a single<br>
person can at max. fill in three:<br>** Production (get things done)<br>** Administration (organisation)<br>** Innovation (new ideas, development)<br>** Integration (people person)<br><br>* Convert members to active members:<br>
** often it helps to contact people directly and personally - often<br>nobody responds on mailinglists<br>** keep a list of tasks in your chapters wiki to give interested people<br>a hint where they can start working on. Ask on your members on the<br>
mailinglist to sign up for these tasks.<br><br>* Each board should consist of the following positions:<br>** people person, social integrator<br>** secretary / administrator<br>** contact person for the community - must have a good standing inside<br>
the Wikimedia projects before becoming a board member<br><br>*<br><a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Documentation/Volunteer_management" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Documentation/Volunteer_management</a><br>
<br>== Communication ==<br>Different chapters communicate in different ways. The suggested monthly<br>report is provided by a small number of chapters only (WMCH: No report<br>since a long time). There has been a lot of discussion on the effort<br>
needed in writing those reports and the possibility to re-use them. Many<br>chapters write blog posts, others communicate on Twitter or Facebook,<br>usually in their own language. Other chapters have no benefit from that<br>
and can't learn from each other or simply know what is going on in the<br>Wikiverse.<br><br>The following solution was agreed on:<br>* each chapter should have a blog and post there regularly<br>** messages for other chapters should be tagged with "chapter"<br>
** all chapter blogs should be aggregate by two Wikimedia planets:<br>*** there are already Wikimedia planets for different languages<br>*** a new Wikimedia planet for chapters (all languages) should be created<br>** link your blogs with social networks to make your posts to appear there:<br>
*** Twitter<br>*** Facebook<br><br>* publish interesting news also on the Wikimedia SignPost<br><br>* monthly newsletter to the members<br>** newsletter can be prepared publicly on the chapters wiki, so everyone<br>can contribute his or her project<br>
** one person writes a summary of what is going on at Wikimedia<br><br>* print hand outs or even bulletings when you have conferences or assemblies<br>** handouts should always be available<br>** get an ISSN for bulletins to make your publications more visible<br>
<br>* a template for the chapters report should hold the minimal information<br>needed by the Wikimedia Foundation<br>** this template will be published on Meta<br>** the state of the chapter presentations will have the minimal<br>
information, they should go directly to the chapters pages on Meta so<br>they are updated once a year<br><br>* format for chapter reports:<br>** Revenues<br>** Expenses<br>** Activities<br>** Members<br><br>*<br><a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Documentation/International_communication_and_coordination" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2011/Documentation/International_communication_and_coordination</a><br>
<br>== Group Photo ==<br>*<br><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Conference_2011_group_photo.jpg" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 51); ">http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Conference_2011_group_photo.jpg</a><br>
<br>That's it with the summary of the chapters meeting. All members are<br>invited to participate in the processes and discussions on Meta.<br><br><br>Best regards,</span><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Limoke Oscar,<div><br>
</div><div>p/s:this report was prepared by Manuel.<br><br><br>
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