[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Ukraine’s Board

Dear all, I want formally introduce to you Wikimedia Ukraine’s Board, elected by our General Assembly on December 27, 2015. We can do it only now, as we have just recently successfully completed the requirements from our state to change the people responsible for the chapter officially [1]. Three people has decided not to run this year, and I want to thank them wholeheartedly for all their time and efforts spent on our projects and making this world better for a change: - [[User:Amakuha]], Andrii Makuha. He has been our Chair for the last two years; his calm personality helped us a lot, especially during the most turbulent times of transferring «power» from one to another Chapter Board «without pain» [2], as Andrii has tried his best to understand everyone and continue the dialogues even when it seems that we won’t be able to come to any acceptable terms. By the way, awarding Wikizghushchivka [3] was his idea. - [[User:NickK]], Mykola Kozlenko, our Treasurer, with great analytical skills and profound knowledge about the Community (and I am talking not only about our local community, but the global one as well) and the Wikimedia Movement. He is actively engaged in Wikimedia Ukraine’s projects, though he lives in France and can contribute almost only via Internet. But he was able to be a vital part of organizing the rather successful regional conference WIkimedia CEE Meeting in Kyiv in December 2014. - [[User:Ліонкінг]], Levon Azizian. He is a lawyer in real life, a passionate Wiki(m|p)edian. He is blessed with the skills to make the <s>dreams</s> ideas come into reality, as he is very convincing and one just gets the feeling that (s)he can do it. And so they do it :) And then there is only a pure wonder of: wow, we have organized a wikiconference in 2 weeks; wow, we have organized a CEE Meeting in a month; wow, we can actually (but it is really hard!) organize wikitrainings for two weeks non-stop in Luhansk region, go to librarians, preach about editing Wikipedia… and just around the corner there is a real war zone… These three are my dear friends, and I was really sorry to see them not running. But it was our dream from a long ago: to have more great Wiki(m|p)edians join the chapter and get interested in our projects. So here we have our newly elected three Board members: - [[User:Olena Zakharian]], Olena Zakharian. She was (and still is!) our press secretary, she is very keen about Nature and Freedom of Speech, she believes in our Mission and has contributed greatly to most of our projects before and she is a crucial part of our Board becoming more transparent for our Community. - [[User:Helgi]], Oleh Yatsozhynskyi. He is an active member of Ukrainian Wikipedia community, he has joined the organization only in September, but he is an invaluable part of us now (especially his directness :)) He is responsible for Wikiexpeditions now [4], and he is full of ideas and desire to implement them (and that’s something really really important, you know) - [[User:Pavlo1]], Pavlo Lakiichuk. He is the Secretary of the Board now, so he is responsible for all the boring stuff around the process of making decisions. He is also an active member of our local community, he cares about wikiprojects a lot. He has initiated a number of meetings for creators of “real” encyclopedias and wikipedians to talk a few issues over and get to know each other better (well, it works! quite a few myths were dismissed by talking over a cup of tea :) ) The other four members of the Board, re-elected for this year, are: - [[User:Ilya]], Illia Korniiko. He is our Chair now. He codes. :) WLX Jury Tool is his pet project, but he was deprived of almost all chances to work on it, as our state’s bureaucratic system is quite a monster to overcome... - [[User:Юрій Булка]], Yurii Bulka. He is responsible for Wikipedia Education Program in Ukraine. And he was the one to suggest and implement the project of digitizing and making available the phonograph cylinder collection of Filaret Kolessa (early 20th century) [5] - [[User:Friend]], Pavlo Sokhan. He is an administrator of uk.wikiquote, works in a library. He has contributed greatly into organizing of the first Wikimedia CEE Spring article contest in 2015. He is now responsible for our book scanning kit [6] and we hope to get lots of stuff scanned and uploaded to Wikiprojects :) - and [[user:antanana]], Nataliia Tymkiv. I am an administrator of Ukrainian Wikipedia, and I am quite active in a lot of Wikimedia Ukraine’s projects. I am a member of Simple Annual Plan Grants Committee [7] I am sorry for a bit long introduction. But I do believe that it is vital for us all to work together, so even if you do not read the whole letter and remember all the names, you’ll be able to find the info about the right person to reach to, should you need to meet somebody in Ukraine or find the answer. Best regards, [[User:antanana]] / Nataliia Tymkiv Vice-Chair of the Board of Wikimedia Ukraine [1] Well, they have changed a couple of laws during this period, so it was not a pleasant task to do :) [2] https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Submissions/How_to_transfer_%… [3] The project is aimed at peer recognition and appreciation of new and active editors' contribution by monthly awarding a can of Wikizghushchivka (condensed milk) to the editor with the most contributions in that month and the new editor with the most contributions in that month [4] We have a very detailed (day-by-day) report, maps, videos, photos, created and illustrated articles now: https://ua.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3465 [5] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Filaret_Kolessa_phonograph_cylinder_coll… [6] https://ua.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3448 [7] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Simple/Committee#committee-membe…