Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikimediauk-l] Joint statement with the Foundation

On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 2:38 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: Coping text of user-page here under CC-BY-SA; link above; attribution: Victuallers. " It could be that you were unaware of my declared conflicts of interest, however it wasn't your job to be aware, however they were well known. Wikimedia UK were managing this. They said, Roger "... has not voted in any Wikimedia UK decisions about Monmouthpedia since the start of his consultancy relationship with MCC or on any decisions about Gibraltarpedia or QRpedia."[1] Wikimedia UK made monthly reports to the Wikimedia Foundation detailing all significant events. They web cast their board meetings. They had little or no secrets. Over the past ten months, Roger Bamkin, a Wikimedia UK trustee helped lead two Wikipedia-related projects, Monmouthpedia and Gibraltarpedia. Both of these projects were based on QRpedia which is a service that has been offered free to the movement via Wikimedia UK. As part of this award winning work, the Foundation signed a trademark agreement with Monmouthshire County Council[2] and later with the Government of Gibraltar.[3] Wikimedia UK were well aware of the trustee's commercial involvement[4] in both cases and the Foundation as part of due diligence would have found that out by talking to the trustee, Wikimedia UK and the people they were signing the agreement with. Roger stood again for the board and made it clear that he was a paid consultant of Monmouthshire County Council working on Monmouthpedia in his statement to the members. He was re-elected. Roger has received no payments apart from expenses from Wikimedia UK. He has helped create two projects which align with Wikimedia UK's vision and they have only had to contribute a minority financial contribution. Coincidentally this is the same trustee who led the Wikimedia UK board to become a registered charity[5] and to obtain (£1m and) hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of gift aid and partial funding for 2012/13. Roger Bamkin stood down as chair here when he took "Monmouthshire County Council (Wikimedia UK partners for the Monmouthpedia project) as a client".[4] The recent edits on the Gibraltarpedia project are shown here. There are just the additions being made to the English Wikipedia. In the last several weeks volunteers have added 200 new articles in many languages. (Most of the new articles are not in English) As a result of the action of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia UK have "agreed" to not take part in the fundraiser. Before this action was taken the following press release was issued[1] regards Roger Bamkin Notes: QRpedia was shortlisted by the UK as best phone application Monmouthpedia was voted the world's coolest wikiproject by the World membership present at the annual conference Gibraltarpedia is the first time that the Foundation has signed a trade mark agreement with a Government. On the left hand side of this page you will see some of the languages who have been contacted and many involved in the projects described here. References: 1. Gibraltarpedia: WMUK press release http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/09/gibraltarpedia-the-facts/ 2. Welcome to the world’s first Wikipedia town http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/05/welcome-to-the-worlds-first-wikipedia-… 3. Volunteer’s efforts win Gibraltar the right to be the first Wikipedia ‘city’ http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/07/volunteers-efforts-win-gibraltar-the-r… 4. Changes to the Wikimedia UK board – A message from Roger Bamkin http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/04/changes-to-the-wikimedia-uk-board-a-me… 5. What did you think of our annual report? http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/07/what-did-you-think-of-our-annual-repor… " -- John Vandenberg