Dear all,

A little bit of history first :-) When Wikipedia was created, it was supported by a for-profit company. It was a wikipedia.com, not a wikipedia.org. The project was small enough that it was not so difficult to sustain it. But it became increasingly difficult. The Wikimedia Foundation was created in 2003 by Jimbo, to provide a technical, financial and legal infrastructure to our projects. It was a BIG step. It was a deliberate move to ensure the knowledge and wisdom of all peoples would be garanteed a nurturing environnement to flourish for the benefits of humanity.

I was an editor at that time, I remember very well raising questions about the bylaws of that yet-to-be-born Foundation, and I now realise I never really said "thank you" to Jimbo for making that first step to allow the child to grow up. So, thank you Jimbo.

Today, we have reached a new step. From the baby Foundation, where nothing existed but Jimbo's vision, a few servers, a few domain names, growing projects and five fresh new board members, we have evolved into something else. The WMF owns hundred of servers, to operate among others a website ranking amongst the 10 most visited websites in the world, many domain names, some trademarks. We went from a few thousand dollars revenue to over a milion dollars revenue. The Wikimedia family also features 7 chapters. And the world loves us (including those trying to buy usn or those inviting us in court).

In fall 2005, we started feeling the organisation of WMF was no more scaling to accomodate our fantastic growth and subsequents needs. It started getting very frustrating. We initiated a slow and sometimes painful process which resulted in the creation of the committees in spring 2006, continued with the addition of an executive director and more staff to help manage daily operations, and the decision to organise that board retreat.

The goal of last week retreat was to discuss the foundations of our ever growing multicultural, multilinguistic, collaboration-based, organisation. It was also meant to clarify the organisation mission, identify strategic goals short and medium terms, priorities and to make decisions of certain actions.

It is actually strange to see it compared to Wikimania. It was so different. It was a small group used to interact everyday on irc and mailing lists. Not 400 people, most unknown. It was to discuss the organisation itself. We discussed, we had dialogues, a lot of brainstorming, made decisions (which is SO satisfactory), a lot of body contacts (for once), some screamed, some cried, many laughed... we tried to lower the barriers of our inhibitions to try to "get somewhere" together. It was nothing like Wikimania.

The dialogue revealed a very very strong consensus in favor of reorganisation, and I am happy to say that though we could only partially explore the field of actions, we have in hand a very significant and useful outcome to work upon.

The board retreat was closed by a board meeting. And as Erik announced, during that meeting, we reshuffled people roles. Upon Jimbo's suggestion, the board unanimously decided that I be the chair of Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees, Michael Davis will stay our treasurer, Erik has agreed to be the executive secretary, Tim the vice-chair. Jimbo will assume the title of Chairman Emeritus of the Foundation.

This is another big step. I thank Jimbo for proposing it, as well as thank my fellow board members for their supportive stance. It was not an easy step to make; I am sure you will be able to realise that. But it is a step we collectively agreed upon, because we think the organisation has to move on. For the best. We may fail. Perhaps. Hopefully not :-) But please give us time, have faith and help us.

I'd like to very shortly explain what I intend to focus on as the new chair. My primary task will be to (re ?)-organise the board activity (meeting, agenda, reporting, interaction with other bodies) to ensure the board makes its *best* to fullfil its mission according to our commun vision.

I also intend to give much attention to the reorganisation plan (expansion of the board, populating the advisory board, new bylaws, new executive director by next summer, clarification of Foundation/chapters relationships, improvement of committees etc...). Not everything will be fixed before the end of my serving term on the board (july 07) but I'll try my best.

Last, I wish to celebrate our biggest strength, pointed out by most, if not all, board retreat participants: people. More particularly, thank you to editors, committee members, developers, chapter members, officers, staff, for giving their time, skills and energy, not only to create content, but also to help create a sustainable infrastructure for our projects.

More to come...

Florence Devouard Chair of Wikimedia Foundation board of Trustees.

<side note>"chair", not "chairperson", nor "chairwoman" and anyone saying "chairman" will risk being crushed by an ant</sidenote>

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