From my experience as an international WLM organizer,
indeed what's lacking
is a user who is aware of all the details and at the same
time can be
available most of the time to answer questions and communicate. This is
very difficult: usually you have someone who is either available all the
time, or is aware of all the details.
However, I also found a problem that I don't know how to solve, and as I
understand it was present in all previous years: that in some countries the
team is very small/busy and it's very hard to get feedback from many
national teams. As far as I can tell, some national teams don't have anyone
who follows this (general WLM) mailing list.
One other thing that posed a problem this year is that the team was set up
so quickly that it wasn't clear to everyone whom to talk to about what.
This is where we actually need (as Maarten said) a dedicated core team, and
too many people will be counterproductive. Even with this year's 3-person
international team we had a few internal communication problems, so I can't
imagine how it will work with a huge team (say, 10 people). Dividing the
tasks among a few people is easier than among many people.
Finally, another major point: ever since Maarten left, we haven't really
had a technical coordinator (talking about managing the tools, not the
campaigns which was done quite well by Romaine). True, last year Platonides
handled it and this year I did, but there's a very steep learning curve and
the "job" was pretty much imposed simply because no one else wants to do
it—so many people were disappointed in the last 2 years. Therefore the most
difficult position to fill by far (IMO) is that of technical coordinator
who has both enough time and knowledge to handle the project.
—Yan (Ynhockey).
On Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 7:53 PM, Maarten Dammers <maarten(a)mdammers.nl>
wrote:
Hi Karthik,
Karthik Nadar schreef op 29-12-2014 19:47:
Been in the international team is also more of
applying for grant,
documenting, following up and keeping track of status of all participating
countries. Time to be spent may vary according to the skill of team
members; more the skills and people, lesser the burden; however you can
assume 10 hours a week during the contest (just horrifying).
I want to add to that everyone on the time does this as a volunteer, but
that doesn't mean you're not committed. I noticed the past couple of years
in organizing teams that some of the members went below the minimum
activity threshold, not communicating, not doing their action points, etc.
If someone joins the international team, that person is expected to be
committed and that person should expect the same for the other members of
the team. It's better to have a committed small (core) team and a bunch of
volunteer around that team that do particular tasks than have some big half
inactive team. If you manage to assemble such a team suddenly everything
seems to go easy and smooth, so you can focus on the real challenges.
As for the grant part. Getting a grant in our movement is just a horrible
process. It changes every year, but it always feels like torture (advanced
granting techniques?). You might just want to split the getting the grant
part from the main team otherwise you risk having a burned out team before
you even start.
Put a focus on communication next year. So much to gain there.
Maarten
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