Dear Wikipedians,
The Wikimedia India Chapter was registered with the Karnataka
Registrar of societies on 3 January 2011. We celebrate our second
anniversary today :)
Initially, the Chapter Executive Committee consisted of seven founder
members. Over time, six of these founder members departed from the
board after each of them made significant and invaluable
contributions. The Executive Committee now bids goodbye to the seventh
founder member, Anirudh Singh Bhati. The Executive Committee expresses
its deep gratitude towards Anirudh for his wonderful contributions
that have helped build the chapter. He becomes the first person to
complete an entire term on the Executive Committee of Wikimedia India.
We wish him well in all his future ambitions and hope he remains
connected to the movement in some form.
The Executive Committee has unanimously resolved to fill the vacancy
created by Anirudh’s departure by co-opting Bala Jeyaraman. Bala is a
distinguished Wikipedian who has been active on English and Tamil
Wikipedia’s, being an administrator on the latter and was one of the
organisers of the recently held Tamil Wiki Photo Contest. He will hold
office until the next general body meeting which would need to approve
his appointment.
Another important step being taken by the chapter is our first
fundraising appeal, which will be announced shortly. A lot of people
may ask why the chapter needs a fundraiser when it has access to WMF
funding. The answer is, we are still ineligible for FDC (we hope to be
eligible for the second round of funding in 2013) and would need to
rely on grants, spending of which is restricted by the WMF. Since
formation, the chapter has relied heavily on the Executive Committee
to take on the burden of running the show. In an ideal world, the EC
would like to take on the role of guiding the chapter rather than
actually be responsible for operations after two years of
incorporation, which should be best done by professionals rather than
volunteers in their spare time.
The chapter has hired an employee (Sowmyan Trimurti, our Executive
Manager) as well as plans to lease its own office premises in
Bangalore. For this, we will soon be sharing a plan and will request
the community for suggestions on the plan. We will also need the help
of those volunteers who are in a position to support us. It could be a
small individual donation or in the form of a corporate donation from
an institution. A small token of support from you could go a long way
in helping us achieving our goals of furthering the movement in India.
Apart from this, we encourage the community at large to engage with
the chapter and request our support wherever necessary without
hesitation for community activities. The chapter has been formed for
the benefit of the community and we will always try our best to live
up to the community’s expectations.
Warm regards,
-Sudhanwa Jogalekar
President, WMIN
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www.wikimedia.in