One of the things that a few people have mentioned as a real positive
about the chapter is the way that decisions are made openly in
consultation with members and supporters.
The home page makes quite a bg deal about this:
"Open decisions
As an organisation promoting open knowledge, we also want to be
leaders in transparency regarding our decision making:
* Our constitution puts decision making in the hands of members
wherever possible
* We seek the widest possible membership base
* We are led by a seven person Board of Trustees, elected by the
members at the AGM
* All Board meetings are held in public on the internet. We publish
our Agenda beforehand and minutes afterwards
* We pledge to discuss all major decisions with our supporters
beforehand though our mailing list and our wiki
* We keep supporters informed through our monthly Newsletter which you
can subscribe to here."
Unfortunately with the pressure of too much to do plus some changes
brought in for efficiency reasons, some aspects of these have changed
in the last couple of months:
- Board meetings have moved from IRC to Skype, which we haven't been
able to open to the public or even publish the recordings afterwards
- We haven't been able to publish a newsletter since September
- There is little input to Board agendas or reaction to minutes
- Non-board activity on this email list, the wiki and in chapter
projects hasn't really developed in the way we originally hoped
I would like to ask how people see this who support the chapter but
aren't on the board. Are you hearing enough about what the board is
doing? Are you wanting to hear more? Are you happy with the amount of
input you have to chapter activities or do you want to get more
involved? Generally are you happy with the way the chapter is going?
Do any of these developments above matter to you, and if so, which
ones in particular?
If you do want to get more involved, what's the best way to engage?
Should the board use more, or less of:
- this email list?
- the wiki?
- direct emails to members?
- the monthly newsletter?
- the blog at
http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/?
- the facebook group at
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5678482133&ref=ts?
- the twitter feed at
http://twitter.com/wikimediauk
- anything else?
All feedback and thoughts are welcome!
Andrew