Dear Wikimedia affiliate representatives,

Note: I apologize if this is a duplicate message. It was supposed to come through earlier today, yet I have been notified that it has not been received in this mailing list. As it is an important and timely message, I decided to also send it myself. Thank you for your kind understanding!

We are contacting you today because you are an important part of forming the Movement Charter Drafting Committee. The Movement Strategy  process recommended the creation of a “Movement Chater.” The Charter will be a document defining roles and responsibilities for all parts  of the Wikimedia Movement. The Drafting Committee will create a draft of the Movement Charter. The process will include researching and consulting with communities, experts, and organizations.

Timeline

We have created together a process for setting up the committee:

Now - September 14

Everyone can nominate themself for the common candidate pool

October 11-24

All (eligible) Wikimedians across all project communities vote on the candidates to elect 7 members

October 11 - 24
Wikimedia affiliates will select 6 members of the committee (through a group of selectors).

October 25 - 31

The WMF appoints 2 members of the committee.

By October 31

Drafting Committee announced

More detailed process overview can be accessed on meta.

Affiliate engagement

Wikimedia affiliates are an important part of the Wikimedia Movement and thus in creating this Movement Charter. We kindly ask you to support us in the following several tasks:

• The nominations are still ongoing! Who in your networks would make an excellent candidate for the Movement Charter Drafting Committee? Encourage and support them to nominate themself. We are especially looking for people with experience in organizational governance and international collaboration. Demonstrated cultural, linguistic, and inclusivity awareness is important. (The matrices for diversity and expertise can be seen here).

• The affiliates will select their candidates via 9 selectors. All affiliates are divided into eight geographic regions and one “thematic region.” Each region chooses one person (selector). The division follows existing regional collaborations with some adaptations to avoid overlap (e.g. Africa). You, as an affiliate representative, please check the list and correct it, if you feel that you "belong" to another region.

• We then ask you to convene on the regional level and define your representative in the selector group. It is up to each region on how to select your selector, but doing it in a transparent way (e.g. on Meta) is helpful. The selector needs to be selected by October 10, 2021 (before the election for the online communities starts)

• The 9 selectors will convene later and will choose candidates from the common pool of candidates.

For the full context of the Movement Charter, its role, as well the process for its creation, please have a look at Meta. You can also contact us at any time on Telegram or via email (wikimedia2030@wikimedia.org). 

Your support in this is absolutely essential. We are looking forward to working on this with you.

Best regards,