On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 7:27 AM, Jon Davies jon.davies@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
There is no intention to hide the costs to the chapter of the Chapter's involvement in the Wikiconference Berlin, but it is not a simple calculation.
One person was asking for trustee expenses, others are asking how much we (WMUK) spent on the entire conference (including staff, volunteers, speakers, trustees etc). I hope to clarify this here.
So for trustee expenses: not all of the board went as trustees, as two (at least) were invited as speakers - reporting that as a trustee cost wouldn't be accurate. As to staff – I attended as the Chief Executive, but the other two staff were also invited speakers. One of the staff had some costs paid by the Foundation.
As to the cost mine was probably on the low end, as I booked my flight early and always use public transport or bicycles, but from recollection (and I have to sign off all trustee expenses) the total cost to the chapter is close to £2600. My expenses are here https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Expenses_2014-2015 and give a good baseline.
The trustees are discussing how best to itemise expenses in a way that ensures an appropriate level of transparency at the board meeting this Saturday.
I do not know why anyone would call the conference a 'junket', that needs a citation I'd think, but it was, as I have explained before in detail, a productive working three days at a reasonable cost to the chapter. If you think it was a junket then the whole conference could be judged a waste of money and the previous ones as well - and they aren't. The reality is that these are important working conferences where chapters and other organisations meet to discuss best practice. Jon Davies.
It's a simple and basically fair question - how much did the WMUK spend on the Wikimedia Conference 2014? Whether a particular expense can be classified as staff, or trustee, or speaker, or etc. is interesting but not crucial to answering the question. Given the strained relationship with Ashley I can understand the reluctance to respond, but I don't think there is a strong moral basis for not providing the round total number.
~Nathan