In late September Wikimedia Ukraine held its General Assembly to review the organisation’s activity, elect new leadership, and hold strategy conversations. 

 

The General Assembly was originally planned for February 2022 but had to be delayed because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (in accordance with Ukraine's legal requirements for NGOs under martial law) – first because of the invasion itself, then because of power outages caused by Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid. We had regularly surveyed our members and saw that a big part of them wouldn’t be able to join a GA. Instead, we’d organised asynchronous online processes to approve annual plans and coöpt a new Board member. 

 

This year, though, as the situation somewhat stabilised and Ukrainians have adjusted to living with power blackouts, we’ve managed to organise the General Assembly securely by gathering for a hybrid event in a Kyiv shelter and online, as well as getting support from the WMF’s Trust & Safety team to use SecurePoll for elections. 

 

At the General Assembly in September, Wikimedia Ukraine members reviewed and approved annual reports for 2021-2023. 

* Full reports in Ukrainian: https://ua.wikimedia.org/?curid=9690 

* Highlights in English: https://w.wiki/BSvY (2021), https://w.wiki/6J6e (2022), https://w.wiki/BSva (2023).

 

Members also elected a new Board & Audit Committee.

 

The new Board are:

* Illia Korniiko (user:Ilya), Chair of the Board

* Bohdan Melnychuk (user:Base), First Vice Chair and Secretary of the Board

* Mykola Kozlenko (user:NickK), Vice Chair and Treasurer

* Anton Obozhyn (user:Tohaomg), Vice Chair & responsible for the program “Community Support and Development”, which includes community events, training for volunteers, scholarships, and microgrants.

* Viacheslav Mamon (user:Venzz), responsible for our program “Content Enrichment”, which includes editing challenges and contests, photography contests and GLAM

* Mariana Senkiv (user:MarianaSenkiv), responsible for the program “Increasing Participation”, which centres on the Wikipedia Education Program, as well as Wikimarathon and diversity initiatives.

* Valentyn Nefedov (user:Renvoy), responsible for the programs “Awareness about Wikimedia” and “Advocacy”, which are concentrated on media publicity, promotion activities, and free panorama advocacy.

 

Congratulations to Viacheslav, Mariana & Valentyn, who have been elected to the Board for the first time, and thanks to the outgoing Board members Ihor Makovskyi, Oleksii Boldyriev & Olha Milianovych for their service.

 

Our new Audit Committee consists of:

* Serhii Pertrov (user:Kharkivian)

* Maryna Liutynska (user:Марина Лютинська)

* Anatolii Honcharov (user:Ahonc),

 

Congratulations to Serhii and Anatolii for having been elected to the Audit Committee after a years-long break, and thanks to outgoing members Viacheslav Mamon and Serhii Lypko.

 

At the General Assembly, Wikimedia Ukraine’s members also discussed the organisation’s strategy for 2025-2026, including our role during the ongoing Russia’s war against Ukraine. Strategy conversations are expected to last until late October. The new Board has been empowered by the GA to approve a new strategic plan based on online consultation with members. 

Yours sincerely,