I think that in-person meetings are very useful for working on
specific projects, but for the WMC in general I agree with Ec that we
want to make sure people from across the country are included in the
circle of trust.
I also mostly agree with Ec that titles are premature. We definitely
do not now need titles that imply rank, like "president" or
"chairperson". However, I think that titles relating to specific
tasks are a good motivating tool. If we want to assign someone to go
talk to a lawyer or register a website, I've found that it gets done
faster if we call them the "legal co-ordinator" or "website manager"
respectively.
-Jeffery Nichols (Arcitc.gnome)
On 15-Jul-09, at 3:05 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Alan Walker wrote:
There is value in having in person meetings. It
gives credibility to
the group for one thing. I know when I discussed starting this
chapter with other groups that had completed the process it was
indicated to me that in person meetings were a critical step. I
appreciate your ambition here, but it seems this project has been
ongoing for many years and always gets caught up at the same stage.
At some point the steering committee will need to meet with a bank, a
lawyer, accountant, etc. To think one person in some distant city
will conduct these meetings on their own and report back on a talk
page seems a bit amateur to me.
It's not unusual for amateurs to seem
amateur.
Sure there's a value to in-person meetings, but credibility is not
necessarily one of those values. One cannot escape the fact that a
meeting held in one place will have only limited credibility in more
distant locations. There are clear efficiencies to in-person
meetings;
the instant back and forth on various details definitely works more
efficiently than tedious waits for on-wiki responses that never
appear.
In-person meetings provide an opportunity for participants to build
trustful working relationships, but those who do not or cannot attend
these meetings never feel themselves a part of that circle of trust.
Unlike most other countries with chapters Canada has a big geography
problem.
I don't think we are yet at a stage where we have a need for a lawyer.
If someone says that we need to have the by-laws reviewed by a lawyer,
my response would be and has been, "Fine, if you think we need that,
do
it and report back." We don't need to meet with a bank unless we have
money, and when it comes to banking by-laws the banks just ignore the
organization's own by-laws, and demand that you accept what they tell
you. An accountant comes still later in the process when there are
finances to report about. On this score we would do better bringing
ideas together about what kind of budget we want to have. Where will
the money come from? What will be our spending priorities?
Your observation that establishing the chapter keeps grinding to a
halt
at the same stage is accurate. I have no difficulty with the notion
of
a steering committee, but when one of the first things done by such a
committee is to give each other formal titles in the organization, I
can
already feel the chasm between the committee and the other interested
people. Any title beyond "committee member" is a little premature.
Ec
2009/7/14 Jeffery Nichols <arctic.gnome(a)gmail.com
<mailto:arctic.gnome@gmail.com>>
Changing to in-person meetings would mean cutting a lot of people
out of the process; all three of the people putting the most work
into the bylaws live in different places, so 2/3 of them would be
abandoned. What tasks of the steering committee cannot be done in
online meetings and talk page discussions? The bylaws have made
it this far without in-person meetings. In fact, the talk page
has the advantage of being able to show examples of ideas by
coping, pasting, and editing text from the bylaws right in the
discussion. I don't see any advantage of an in-person meeting
that would be good enough to abandon more than half of our
members.
-Jeffery Nichols (Arctic.gnome)
On 14-Jul-09, at 6:50 AM, Alan Walker wrote:
> I understand that there will be members who live in different
> areas of the country. However, to start a charity we require a
> steering committee. That core group acts as the initial board of
> directors until the charity is formed. This group approves the
> initial plan/bylaws and ensures the formation of the
> corporation. This group should form up in one local area that
> has the greatest number of dedicated people at this time. This
> group should meet in person regularly until the task is complete.
>
> 2009/7/13 Jeffery Nichols <arctic.gnome(a)gmail.com
> <mailto:arctic.gnome@gmail.com>>
>
> Unfortunately, a large meeting in person is not a realistic
> option. People in the core group literally live up to a 79
> hour drive away from each other (Qualicum Beach, BC to St.
> John's, NL) yet Canada has one of the smaller populations
> among Wikimedia regions, so we have to work differently from
> the European groups and the US state groups, which can
> practically meet in person. We could have a reasonably-sized
> meeting in Toronto, but until we have the bylaws done there
> is not a lot to do in person that could not be done on the
> talk page. I have tried to allow our bylaws to accept online
> meetings as much as possible and allow regional branches to
> be semi-independent.
>
> Once
> we have a clearer picture of what projects we will be doing
> first, I'll try to set up project meetings in addition to founding
> meetings
>
> so we can see who is interested apart
> from the people interested in bylaw work.
>
> -Jeffery Nichols (Arctic.gnome)
>
>
> On 13-Jul-09, at 6:54 PM, Alan Walker wrote:
>
>> Jeffery, I commend you for your continued efforts to get
>> Wikimedia Canada off the ground. However, running a
>> successful charity involves a great deal of time invested
>> from people working for little or no pay. Have you been
>> able to get a core group of people to meet in person?
>>
>> 2009/7/13 Jeffery Nichols <arctic.gnome(a)gmail.com
>> <mailto:arctic.gnome@gmail.com>>
>>
>> The legal issues in the bylaws are slowly being dealt
>> with, but the other big obstacle we have now is deciding
>> what we will officially be doing with our money. To be
>> an education-related charity we have to either be
>> running a school, be doing research, or be maintaining a
>> museum, art gallery. Simply making information
>> available to the public does not count as "education".
>> We can also call ourselves a "library" if we are a
>> community charity rather than an education charity. If
>> you have any ideas about what our first project should
>> be, mention it at
>>
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Canada/Proposed_by-laws
>>
>>
>> I, personally, think that the school and research
>> options are too ambitious, though they would make good
>> long-term goals. For the purpose of our application I
>> think our first objective for our donations should be
>> setting up an online database of Canada-related media
>> and texts to make ourselves fall under the "museum, art
>> gallery, or library" categories. This database could be
>> distinct from Wikisource and Commons by allowing items
>> that are free for non-commercial use, which seems to be
>> a common copyright of stuff produced by Canadian
>> governments.
>>
>> -Jeffery Nichols (Arctic.gnome)
>>
>>
>> On 11-Jul-09, at 4:24 PM, Kevin T wrote:
>>
>>> So the Legal issue is the only block from setting up
>>> the organization in reality? BTW, when will be next
>>> meeting?
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 6:03 PM, Jeffery Nichols
>>> <arctic.gnome(a)gmail.com
>>> <mailto:arctic.gnome@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> To be fair, there are probably a lot of people who
>>> are interested in
>>> helping but who don't like reading through the
>>> legalese of bylaws. As
>>> long as a couple of us keep at them, I bet we'll
>>> find a lot more
>>> people willing to do work once we actually start
>>> doing real-world work.
>>>
>>> That being said, I'll speed up my replies so we
>>> actually have a clear
>>> mission statement before you leave for Buenos
>>> Aires.
>>>
>>> -Jeffery Nichols (Arctic.gnome)
>>>
>>>
>>> On 9-Jul-09, at 7:15 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>>
>>>> Jeffery Nichols wrote:
>>>>> Only a couple people made it, so there wasn't
>>> much of a meeting. We
>>>>> just committed to discussing the bylaws on the
>>> talk page more and
>>>>> will
>>>>> have another meeting when the current problems
>>> with them are
>>>>> resolved.
>>>> What would help is if more people participated in
>>> developing the
>>>> details
>>>> on that talk page. Several issues require very
>>> careful consideration
>>>> that cannot be achieved in an online meeting.
>>>>
>>>> I get bored waiting for responses, and the very
>>> few people who have
>>>> anything to say make me think that only those few
>>> have any interest at
>>>> all in a chapter. I plan to be in Buenos Aires
>>> for Wikimania, and it
>>>> would certainly help if I could go there with an
>>> understanding of what
>>>> people want out of this process.
>>>
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