Re: [WikiEL] Greece - urgent

Hello Asaf. To keep you informed, there is a conversation about your visit in Greece, in Wikipedia's Agora (Village Pump): http://goo.gl/k9xRo So, it is not that we are not interested for your visit, but we still talk if a conference for the general audience should be organised on the occasion or just do some community meetings. A question I have: Since you will be in Italy at 18-21 April, you must extend your trip for some days to be in Greece for at least a weekend. Can you extend it for enough days to be here at 13-14th or 27-28th of April? Any community meeting should be on a weekend. I'm posting this mail to WikiEL mailing list (I think you are already a member) so that it will be more open, and we can link to your mails. I suggest that all cc'd users subscribe to it. Konstantinos Stampoulis geraki(a)geraki.gr http://www.geraki.gr 2013/2/20 Asaf Bartov <abartov(a)wikimedia.org> > Hi, folks. > > I haven't heard back from you in a while. What are your current > thoughts about my proposed visit to Greece? > > As a reminder, I was thinking of visiting for the following goals > and activities: > > 1. to meet with as many of you as possible and learn from you about > the state of the community, your personal projects and plans, the obstacles > you face. > > 2. to do one or more development workshops for the community in > Greece -- i.e. discussion and (two-way!) experience sharing toward growing > the Wikimedia community and its reach in Greece. We could discuss whatever > problems or challenges you feel would be most valuable to work on. Some > examples might be: representation (who gets to speak for Wikipedia in > Greece? How?); creating partnerships (how? when? with whom?); how to live > with (and without?) community conflict, etc. > (I have extensive program experience in the movement, including as a > former board member of a local chapter, as well as experience with > volunteer recruitment and management outside the movement, from other > projects I've been involved with as a volunteer over the years.) > > 3. to help your group secure meetings with potential partners, in > case an official representative of the Foundation, or just "a visitor from > the US", would help get a first meeting with people like university > rectors, mayors, etc. > > 4. if helpful, do public speaking (in English, unfortunately) about > Wikipedia in general public occasions or at universities. In general, I > think it's better for local volunteers to do public speaking, but again, if > an international guest would bring a larger audience or something, I'm > happy to help. We can also think about a joint presentation -- one of you > speaking in Greek about the Greek community and about Wikipedia > particulars, and I giving a broader view of the movement, international > activities, and maybe one or two of the sister projects. > > All of this is just an outline of what a visit _can_ be. What it > _would_ be really depends on planning work we'd need to put into this (i.e. > actually securing meetings, lectures, picking dates, etc.), and most of > that work would best be done by Greek-speaking locals... So it's really up > to you. > > Concretely, I am traveling to Milan, Italy for the Wikimedia > Conference 2013 in mid-April, and would be able to come to Greece > before/after it, _but if so_, we need to start making arrangements for this > very soon. If you'd like me to visit but can't spare the time to prepare, > or just want it to be later, that's fine, and I can make a separate trip to > Greece later in the year. > > If, in the meantime, you have come to the conclusion a visit would > not be very useful or appropriate now, that's fine too, and please don't > hesitate to say so if that's the case. > > Cheers, > > Asaf >