Hello all,
I am new to this list, and I want to apologize in advance for writing
in English, but my Portuguese stops at "obrigado". However, I believe
I can understand written Portuguese pretty well, so do not hesitate to
answer me in Portuguese if it's easier for you.
Also, if anything is unclear in what I write, I would be grateful if
people speaking both English and Portuguese could translate my emails.
I can also write in French if it's easier ;-)
So to the topic at hand.
I was one of the people [1] who found that the amount of the grant
asked for and awarded to the starting Wikimedia Portugal was a bit
high. So i'll try and give my reasons here, to speak with the people
involved rather than around them.
On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 10:49, Waldir Pimenta <waldir(a)email.com> wrote:
Hi Thomas, and all who showed concern about Wikimedia
Portugal's planned
expenses.
I am one of the persons who calculated that budget, and thus I feel I should
provide you with some information.
First of all, I'd point out that none of us has any experience in
nation-wide nonprofit organizations. We thus had no way to know what we
would need to make it work, and chose to play safe. Obviously, we were aware
that the value for meetings was fairly high, and we pointed that out in our
proposal, as you can read in the page you linked:
I find that playing it safe is a good thing, and I understand better
where you all come from.
"We are (...) willing to reduce the frequency of the meetings if the total
value is considered too high"
And we indeed were advised to do so, when the grant was conceded:
"The award was reduced from the requested USD $7,909 to encourage a smaller
budget for travel."
Let me assure you, we are as much as yourself concerned in not wasting the
grant's money with "lunches for the members". We have plenty of planned
activities (as you can see in
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Portugal/Actividades) for which we
didn't include a budget in our request, since it was for the start-up only.
But we are very much willing to find ways to meet less and apply the money
in these projects instead.
I do not believe that money is ever wasted in helping people get
together, but there are a few things that I would like to make clear.
As I said in my email to foundation-l, it is not so much the amount of
money that strikes me as too big, but the amount of meetings face to
face. Mind you, I do not underestimate the value of face to face
meetings, I'll always be one who thinks they are much more valuable
than online meetings, because they allow for cohesion and real work.
We would love to receive advice on how we can make the chapter work (well)
with people so spread across the country (almost all the involved people
live in different cities), and since much of the money WMF has was
volunteer-contributed, we will take into account the wishes of the
community. If you feel we should meet less (how many times do you think are
enough? let us know your thoughts on our mailing list:
wikimediapt(a)lists.wikimedia.org), then we certainly will consider your
advice.
My experience as chapters coordinator, member of a board of the French
chapter, and member of a few Wikimedia chapters has shown me that
there are many things that make a chapter successful.
Motivation and readiness to give with no return is one of them. It is
the basics of volunteer work, in Wikimedia and otherwise, and I am
sure you're all aware of it. The board (9 people, if I am correct)
needs to be as ready to give as everyone else. This might include
buying their sandwich or not showing up to a meeting if they really
can't, and most of all, finding alternative ways to work together.
Wikimedia France's board, as an example, meets regularly on Skype for
telephone-like conferences, and we meet twice a year in real life, for
two or three days in a row. I think that is a pretty good way to go
about to make the work go forward.
France is a pretty big country, and we are also scattered across the
country (I'm even in Germany!), so we know that it can be hard to have
face to face meetings. But still, we manage.
A side note about the cultural grounds that some people put forward on
foundation-l. I do not pretend to know Portuguese culture all that
well, my knowledge amounts to a fantastic trip there this summer :),
but I think I can say that I know latin cultures pretty well, being
Southern French myself. As such, I am sure that many people involved
in the chapter would be ready to help the chapter start up without
having to revert to a WMF grant, and I don't think buying a sandwich
goes against the culture. but I might be wrong.
In any case, my advice would be the following:
- Reduce the number of face to face board meetings to 2/year, but make
them count (ie. make them two or three full days and make the work go
forward)
- Plan voice/chat meetings in between to make sure things go forward
- Use the rest of the money to award grants to people who really need
them to come to a general meeting once or twice a year. Be careful
though, in France and Germany, for example, associations can't pay for
members to come to the General Assembly, because being a member means
that you are doing it for free, and give of your time and money. As
such, I advise to do for example a two days meeting that includes the
general assembly and use one of the days to do workshops and
presentations, for which the people can get funding without it being
illegal. ;-)
I hope this helps.
Do not hesitate to comment/ask questions, which I will answer to the
best of my abilities.
Obrigado for reading that far :)
Delphine
[1]
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-September/054963.html
--
~notafish
NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will
get lost.
Intercultural musings: Ceci n'est pas une endive -
http://blog.notanendive.org