Pine & all,

I am agreed that this has been rough & frustrating process, especially considering that our goal is to become a chapter & that we got the word that initially becoming a user group should be more expedient. Consider that beyond membership goals, there are an additional six requirements (listed first) in common for user groups, chapters, & thematic organizations, & an additional six for chapters & thematic organizations. Here is how CWUG stack up on those requirements:

Focus: Geographic
Mission aligned with Wikimedia Foundation: Yes
Compliance with naming guidelines and trademark policy: Yes (signed agreement); consulted with legal team when designing CWUG logo
Information about group published on a Wikimedia wiki: Yes
Plans for activities or efforts to advance Wikimedia projects: Yes
Allows new members: Yes
Two designated contacts for Wikimedia Foundation: Yes
Legally incorporated: In progress
Amendable bylaws approved by Affiliations Committee: CWUG has bylaws
Two years of activities prior to applying: Starting October 2011, mostly monthly activities (36 meetups or events) in Seattle; Since January 2012, Portland has had 30 meetups or events
Requires approval by Wikimedia Foundation Board: WMF responsibility
Governing board elected by members, including new members: Board formed, election at end of first year (11/2015, if I am correct)
Activity and financial reports posted regularly on Meta-Wiki: Mission statement, goals, plans, & budget posted, reports coming at appropriate intervals

I do think that CWUG has done its due diligence thus far, given that we have gone beyond the requirements of a user group & that we just recently got the go ahead.

Alex,

I know that WMF has had some misgivings with the how chapters are working. I can see at https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reports&oldid=11312318 that 31% of the chapters & thematic reports are overdue on their reports. (Bluerasberry & Pharos, if you are reading this, please light a fire under Wikimedia New York City, because their report was due at the end of October.) I know that some are years behind or just plain defunct. There have been reports of one chapter in turmoil, having completely voted out its board. I can understand why the Affiliations Committee is skittish about new chapters & is encouraging groups to initially start as a user group.

However, even though "Wikimedia user groups are intended to be simple and flexible affiliates", it is feeling a bit broken & anything but simple. I know that Pine has submitted applications & documentation in a timely manner, but the projected time for approval that was supposed to be 2 to 4 weeks then stretched into months. The suddenness of the grantmaking deadline was, well, unexpected. Had we gotten a more timely approval to become a user group, we would have had more time to consult or have a back-and-forth about the budget instead of feeling like we had to rush headlong into it. And for a group that yearns to become a chapter, consider how discouraging it is that the Step-by-step chapter creation guide begins with "This page is outdated ..."

So please forgive us that even with you approach us with a legitimate concern that we need to grow our membership at first, it feels to us like another roadblock. Frankly, we just want to get to the point where we can just start moving ahead as a user group with events, partnerships, member recruiting, and reporting so we can further Wikipedia & the other Wikimedia projects. This is the fifth board that II have served on, & I know that while accounting & documentation are important, the thing that really perpetuates an organization is serving its purpose & its members. Please help us to expedite this process so we can turn our attention to that.

Yours,

Peaceray

On Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 7:58 PM, Pine W <wiki.pine@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Peaceray,

I think that expanded membership and volunteer capacity is part of the picture, yes.

One thing I think we should consider discussing with WMF at a fairly high level are the systematic problems we have been encountering with our group's formation and funding. We have had issues with Affcom delays, WMF Legal delays, Grantmaking springing a deadline on us related to the Inspire campaign, and now a need to reorient our annual plan based on expectations that do not appear to be documented on Meta (something that I confirmed with someone who is active in another chapter). I am starting to understand why chapters get so frustrated with WMF. My experience with WMF prior to this has never had such a series of speedbumps, and I would like to know if the Board would like me to address this series of issues that spans WMF departments with WMF's new Senior Director of Community Engagement, Luis Villa, who was recently promoted out of WMF's Legal department. Personally I am quite frustrated at the amount of volunteer time that is being expended in unproductive ways, and the systemic nature of the problems suggests to me that these issues need to be addressed by someone in WMF who is placed highly enough in the organization that they can streamline processes and address communication issues across departments. Please let me know if you would like me to set up a conversation with Luis.

Pine

Pine

This is an Encyclopedia
One gateway to the wide garden of knowledge, where lies
The deep rock of our past, in which we must delve
The well of our future,
The clear water we must leave untainted for those who come after us,
The fertile earth, in which truth may grow in bright places, tended by many hands,
And the broad fall of sunshine, warming our first steps toward knowing how much we do not know.
—Catherine Munro

On Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 4:32 PM, Raymond Leonard <raymond.f.leonard.jr@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,

I think that the "Comparison of requirements for affiliation models" table in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_user_groups/Requirements#eligibility probably applies to the WMF's current perception of us.

To the point of "our priority should be expanding the number and the capacity of our volunteers," the rows at the head of the stable state that the Minimum active Wikimedia editors & Suggested minimum members are 3 & 10 respectively for a Wikimedia user groups and 10 & 20 respectively for both Chapters & Thematic organizations.

My takeaway from that page is that the easiest way to build credibility with WMF is to grow our recognized membership beyond the board & to implement "plans for activities or efforts to advance Wikimedia projects." We already have folks beyond the board who have worked to do this. I think our first step should be to enable & recruit them to join CWUG as members, & then to engage them.

Yours,
Peaceray

On Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 3:24 PM, Pine W <wiki.pine@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Cascadians,

I had a conversation about our draft annual plan with Alex this afternoon.

Alex believes that at this point in our development, our priority should be expanding the number and the capacity of our volunteers, and that we are too early in our development for the temporary / part-time paid positions that we proposed in our budget. This means that our goals to develop institutional partnerships and to do outreach work must be significantly reduced in proportion to the capacity of our volunteer network. We know that we have many opportunities for partnerships and public engagement in the Cascadia region, and hopefully we will still be able to pursue those partnerships and engagement opportunities at a low intensity level that our volunteers can support in a sustainable way. Again, Alex believes that our first goal should be to expand our volunteer network.

We will need to reorient our plans and our budget to focus on development and support of our volunteer network. I will work on redrafting the goals, calendar, plan and budget over the course of the next week, and have a conversation with Alex about the possible revisions next week. I have also asked Alex to create a learning pattern that describes the development path of organizations such as ours; I think that such a learning pattern would have been very helpful to us when we were first discussing our goals for this year. After the conversations with Alex have finished, I plan to re-engage with our Board to discuss the goals and funding that Alex and WMF feel that they are willing to support.

I am cc'ing this email to Alex and hope that she will add any comments or clarifications that she has. It would probably be best to direct any questions or comments from Cascadians directly to Alex, preferably on this list so that others can benefit from the discussion.

Thanks,

Pine

This is an Encyclopedia
One gateway to the wide garden of knowledge, where lies
The deep rock of our past, in which we must delve
The well of our future,
The clear water we must leave untainted for those who come after us,
The fertile earth, in which truth may grow in bright places, tended by many hands,
And the broad fall of sunshine, warming our first steps toward knowing how much we do not know.
—Catherine Munro

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