Tom, the board has not 'allowed' anything to happen. As we made clear, action was taken immediately the Wikimania overspend became known (when the draft quarterly accounts became available, shortly before the December board meeting). There was no overspend earlier in the year. The decision to seek an interim CEO [1] was made in November and pre-dates knowledge of the Wikimania figures. It's not legally possible to move Wikimania 2014 expenditure into the 2015 accounts.
____________ Michael Maggs Chair, Wikimedia UK
[1] https://wikimedia.org.uk/w/index.php?title=Water_cooler&diff=62893&o...
Thomas Morton mailto:morton.thomas@googlemail.com 28 March 2015 21:20
Sorry; I have been away without internet so only just able to turn my attention to this.
I am probably talking to the wind anyway as, sadly, our community seems a little thin at the moment.. (as thin as our books ;)) but nevertheless.
I can appreciate that the board is on difficult territory due to confidentiality (sigh!) but I think this is a serious matter that needs to be understood. Namely why the board allowed such an expensive out-of-budget spend when finances were in flux (and now emerge to be very problematic). It seems a little negligent to not find a way to take this expenditure into the next financial year where it could be budgeted.
As has emerged in the last few weeks D'arcy is clearly a "transitional" CEO (aka downsizing, re-organisation, whatever it is PC to call it :)) so it is clear the board understood the financial situation going into this transition. Why was this not communicated and discussed prior to the December board meeting? In fact, the community seems to have been explicitly cut out of this process (e.g. cancellation of the strategy day, which would have presented a suitable opportunity to discuss these challenges).
I feel the board owes the community an explanation of the sequence of events over the previous months. Particularly how we have gone from the high of hosting Wikimania to the low that is March 2015. Ultimately the board holds responsibility for these matters and so surely its in their remit to communicate with the community.
Cheers,
Tom
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk Michael Maggs mailto:michaelmaggs@fastmail.com 24 March 2015 17:56 Hi Peter
I don't think it's possible to provide a full breakdown, I'm afraid, without breaching the standard obligations of confidentiality we have concerning HR matters. However, I can say that ofthe £57k total, around £3600 was for legal and professional services and £4900 was for recruitment/interview.
Best regards
Michael
Michael Maggs Chair, Wikimedia UK
Peter Cohen mailto:peterc@cix.compulink.co.uk 24 March 2015 17:24 In-Reply-To: <CAEgLstR6hEym_xvq6ugVynKacLpkELQgBUecD4=RrkJnkLau6Q@mail.gmail.c- om> What might be useful is an indication as to how the £57,000 breaks down. In other words how much is down to recruitment costs (e.g. advertising) how much is down to maybe an interim CE demanding more pay and how much to a period in which more than one person being paid a salary related to the post (e.g. due to accumulated untaken annual leave amounting to several months pay or an unworked notice period or paid sick leave entitlement, you needn't specify which) or ex gratia payments being made to the departing CE.
Also are there any plans being put into place to try to reduce the potential for the next transition costing as much?
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
