New subject: [Wikimedia-l] [WMCEE-l] Wikimedia Ukraine’s Board

29 Feb 2016

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…